My Thoughts on Steemit

("Angel In My Shorts" - Photograph by the Author)

One month plus on Steemit! Well I've been around here long enough that I thought I'd write down some of my impressions on what I think about Steemit.

First off, I'm still a "Nube" here, so don't expect any profound words of wisdom outta me yet! Any yet, for the five weeks or so that I've been here, I HAVE gained over 500 follows! Never expected THAT! So I salute all those who bothered to check me out in their daily feed, and I hope to provide y'all with content that sparks your interest and imagination and proves worthy of your trust and votes. THANK YOU ALL!

This month has been an experience I suspect all us "newbies" go through - like, now that I'm HERE, whatam I gonna DO with this thing? What do I want to say? What interests ME enough to want sharing it? Oh yeah, and remember... You can't ERASE what once you've writ to the Steemit world! (Something to do with this blockchain thing - about as alien to me as undeletable ink!)

So I read... and read, and read some more. And the impression I got was how intelligent and diverse the Steemiverse really is! Whoa! You people are interested and knowledgeable in EVERYTHING! And the more I read, the more discouraged I became. What could I POSSIBLY contribute that anyone else would find worthy of reading when there are SO MANY other intriguing stories and articles here?

What did I do? Well, it's quite simple and Steemit makes it easy to overcome this hurtle. It's called the "Tags and Topics" list, and it's located (conveniently) on the right side of your screen once you login. There's a whole bunch of things Steemians write about, but if you can't find a subject you want to dive headlong into, then scroll to the bottom of the short list and click on "Show more topics..." Now you will find a "Trending Topics" list of all the topics people have written to in alphabetic order. Cool! It even shows the most popular topics by posts, comments, and payouts if you feel like you want to make an early impression with the most number of followers.

Me? Well I've been focused on prepping - so I created a topic in my first post by entering, (hashtag)prepping in the bar at the bottom of my first post. (Being as ignorant as I was, it TOOK awhile to realize I couldn't even POST the article UNTIL I entered (hashtag)something there first! - and no, at least (hashtag)something's NOT the topic I created!)

So there it was; my FIRST post! Eureka!

And then I waited, and waited... to see how much $$$ it was going to make! And I think I got about 16¢ or so. (heh-heh)!

So hardly ANYBODY saw it, and I'll NEVER get rich on Steemit! (I groused.)

But that soon passed. I came to realize that the effort and satisfaction of just PUBLISHING something, something that mattered to ME, was deeply rewarding - even if nobody noticed, or agreed with me about what I'd written of not!

I also compared what I wrote with other successful articles. At that early stage, I equated "success" with how much MONEY those articles MADE! (Easy to locate those under the "Trending" tab.) And I noticed those articles, unlike mine, were liberally illustrated - with photographs, funny .gif videos, charts, graphs, and catchy artistic banners. This is going to take a LOT more research and learning than I'd bargained for, I realized. I don't make art, or gifs, as well as those I saw, and I don't know how to make banners either! But I DO have a camera, and I have a collection of old photos I'd made "back in the day" I might use... But HOW?

What followed, and is still an ongoing process, is learning the tools we have to work with to ENHANCE our posted content. By reading the many helpful Steemit guides many experienced Steemians post, I am teaching myself what can be done in Markup and the Editor. I have found free websites where I can upload my own photos [https://postimages.org/] and link them with my written content, and even a website where I can create banners with photos and graphic fonts [https://www.canva.com/], if I want them. Gifs [giphy.com] and Emojis [www.webpagefx.com/tools/emoji-cheat-sheet/] are on the web to use, and even videos and whatever music you'd care to present [https://soundcloud.com/signin?redirect_url=/stream]. Over time, all the "bells and whistles" can be found and used if you want them.

I began to care less for the money-earning aspects of Steemit (of which there are many), and enjoy posting and replying to the comments my readers leave. I also get lost for hours reading and commenting on the amazing material posted by those I follow.

Okay, so I'm still a "Nube!"

I upvote everything that intrigues me no matter what their "Influence" score is until I'm broke and my upvote is all but monetarily useless!

I "follow" everyone who "follows" me. I figure that if they deem it to see MY posts in their feed (whether they choose to read one or not), then I owe it to them to show the same courtesy. Yeah, old fashioned thinking fer sure, but that's me.

Final thoughts: 

Steemit is an amazing technological achievement! This platform represents all that America was founded to achieve... Freedom of expression, freedom of thought expressed in votes, comments, and replies, and freedom from censorship of your written words, your art, and especially of your creativity. I salute our "founding fathers" of this Constitutional work cementing America's First Amendment in technological stone. And I salute those of all nations who bring to each of us their stories, their thoughts, hopes and dreams expressed in so many creative ways. 

Steemit is a celebration of the world's humanity in a way that should make us turn forever from violence, strife and warfare. On this, America's two hundred and forty first day of its declaration of freedom and independence, I wish and pray that this venue flourish and grow great as this nation has.

Steem On! ~ longshot