A Steem Appreciation Post (Can You Imagine That?)

I’m not really one to write about Steem - I’m still new to navigating this place and thinking about it objectively. I don’t interact as much as I could, and I’m hardly active on Discord. I joined a bunch of Steem Discord groups early on, too many it seems. It overwhelms me now, and I often just quit Discord to stop it from pinging me constantly while I’m playing games.

I’ve been super active on Steem itself, however. I spend a lot of time thinking about my future posts - this place has become my new main project. Which is an interesting thing, because Steem can become the central hub for all the other projects one might have on the side anyways; such as writing, music, art, homesteading, programming, practically anything! This brings me to the first part of my Steem appreciation: It encourages participation, thoughtfulness, contribution, and even personal growth.

There will always be the never-ending argument about “quality” content, as if somehow there is some intrinsically “quality” subjects, talents, and contributions to offer, which is bullshit. Some days, I might write out a post like this - something that I spend some time on, and think through with some difficulty, knowing that I’m projecting my ideas into a sea (or void, depending on if the glass is half empty or half full) of people that have their own ideas about “quality” content, and are ready to rip me apart. Other days, I might post a picture of our cat on SteepShot, with a couple sentences about how cute she is.


(she’s laying on me now as i write)

The thing is, this is social media. SteepShot, as you may (probably do) know, is an Instagram mirror. It’s just Instagram on the Steem blockchain. Looks just like it, works just like it.

I use it just like I would Instagram. Make pretty photo edits, and use short descriptions. Sometimes write a really nice description if there’s actually something to speak on. Is that quality content? Maybe not, but who cares, ultimately? If we want this platform to go somewhere, it has to be accessible for people. Not just people - *the masses*, right? So therefore, at a certain point we find that we run into cognitive dissonance when as a community we make it clear that we strive for only the longest-form quality content while we also strive to bring in the Facebookers, the YouTubers, the Instagrammers, and the Soundclouders.

That being said, the mindset of “quality” content has pushed me to make things that I would have never made before (like this post, lol). I’m a musician and audio guy first. That’s the path I’ve set myself on. I was never a writer, or a blogger. I always thought it would be fun, though. Steem gives me a reason to polish up my writing skills, and I’ve been really enjoying it. I’ve been actually publishing my thoughts for the first time, making them tangible. And this, in turn, causes the gears to begin turning and producing more thoughts and subjects to write on. This is why I say that this platform can inspire personal growth, if you want to approach it with that perspective.

IMO, people should also be able to feel like they can stay in their comfortable realm of social media here, and post pictures of their pets and friends without being ignored due to some “quality content only” complex.

Okay, this is already a sizeable post, and I’m not gonna hit all of the Steem appreciation points that I could, but I do want to make the main point that I had in mind when I started this whole thing.

I got my first recording interface when I was 12 years old (9 years ago). It was a little Tascam piece with 2 XLR inputs and a quarter-inch input. Two microphones. As simple as it gets. And I used the *shit* out of that thing.

My first move when I started recording was to do covers. What better way to learn about music than through other peoples tunes? So I started studying the songs that I liked, and recording multitracked covers of them. Then I would record videos of me playing the parts with my step-dads camera and put them together into YouTube videos. People seemed interested that such a young kid was doing these multitracked covers, because they got a decent amount of views (each in the thousands).

I deleted that YouTube account years after I made those first videos, because the recordings were badly mixed (really quite terrible), and I was embarrassed of them. However, I kept making cover videos (and later on, orginal music) under different accounts, in high school and beyond.

Now fast-forward 3 years - I’m living in Olympia and I just found out about Steemit from some guy named Micheal down at the bar (I never did get his Steem handle). Not long after researching this place and starting my account, I found the Steemit Open Mic. I’ll be honest - the Steemit Open Mic is where I get most of my income and excitement here. I owe practically everything to @curie, @openmic, and @dtube - their support has been incredible:



So this brings me to my point with all of this - Steem has allowed me to make real money with my cover videos, while creating them in the style that I’ve been doing them in for almost 10 years without any compensation whatsoever besides internet love. I haven’t cashed out any Steem, and I obviously don’t plan to at these prices, but the fact that I am now making any real funds at all is absolutely astounding to me.

This concludes my Steem appreciation post (for now). I see a lot of contention here lately between Steemians, and I think the low prices and interactions are getting to peoples’ head. Maybe it’s because I’m new and naive still, but I prefer to take the position that this place is awesome because I’m making any money at all posting on the internet. I’m happy to be here, and I hope you are too. Lets make this place a place where we want to be, shall we?

A big thank you to all of the people that have supported me here on Steem in the past four months.