There's a bandwagon mentality forming on Steemit between quality writers, filled with expectations & hate.

Jeff Berwick Impersonation

Shots fired!

Last night when I was commenting on a post, I got into a heated argument with @kyriacos. You can view it here on @joseph's post. In the end we both butted heads, throwing out ugly comments at each other because we refused to see eye-to-eye.

The gist of the argument was due to the fact that author rewards are low, really low, and for authors who've been here since before the hype phase it's hurting their pockets. However @kyriacos and the bandwagon that followed him in the comment section, all seemed to forget some key factors as to why their rewards have slumped; No. 1 being the price of Steem is below .25 US cents.

In their comments they suggested that there's a favoritism between whales and who they decide to vote on, which is substantiated when we consider who's always on the trending page. In saying that, whales are people just like you and me who are going to like whatever they like, not what you want. Why would they vote on something you don't like? It's as if these guys, who spend hours creating their posts like the rest of us, have become so entitled that they forget how to actually write a good post.

They also suggested in their comments that @dollarvigilante is a scam artist/fraud and because of these reasons he should not be receiving the rewards that he does as it promotes a bad image for Steemit, yet he still reaps rewards because he's a whale favorite. Honestly I can see their point if @dollarvigilante has scammed people in the past, but come on, as if none of them have made mistakes in their life times. That's not the point I'm trying to make here, but they should definitely look in a mirror before ripping on someone else's reputation.

Self-entitled hatred

What I've mentioned so far is not what pissed me off. What annoyed me was the fact that most of these people arguing their point had been here for as long as myself, if not longer, and were complaining about their rewards. @stellabelle was one of these people, who by the way has over 135,000 Steem Power, which is a lot more than most of us even dream of having. It was her that was calling on a Steemit 2.0.

That really grinds my gears, because for me I'm here for the community and experience, not the rewards. At first I was brought here by the rewards and the potential to earn on the side, but that's since changed. I wish to see this place thrive. That's hardly going to happen when we're bashing the platform left, right, & center.

It's this toxic mentality that is hurting us as a community. Of course there are going to be problems as we grow, but if we decide to handle these problems as would children in a schoolyard, then in the end we're all going to get sent home disappointed.

It saddens me that it has come to the point I feel a need to write a post about it, because when I first came here the expression felt from authors was all rainbows & lollipops. That has now changed. It seems as if by rewarding these authors with ridiculous amounts of money, they've now come to expect these rewards in the future regularly. I've heard some authors have quit their day jobs for Steemit and now regret it, as if it's the platforms fault for their decision. It's as if these authors have completely forgotten that we're a new platform, that we rely on market sentiment for rewards, and that there's less than 10,000 regularly active accounts here per day.

Closing statement

I don't want to become part of the problem and add to the heated debate as to whether or not Steemit is becoming toxic, what I do want is for people to wake up to themselves. Don't be so entitled as to expect thousands of dollars every time you write something. I've read a lot of posts here and to be honest, there's a lot of authors that fly under the radar while a lot of crappy authors are getting promotions. The seasoned Steemit veterans(if you can call them that) need to wake up to themselves and show a little bit more gratitude for what they've already been given.

There should be no reason as to why you can't ignore authors that you don't enjoy looking at. In the future there will be more whales who will vote on a much wider variety of posts that they like. We can't help that for now, the wealth here is distributed from a select few accounts that hold it. It's something that we each should've come to terms with after our first month here. In saying that, nothing is stopping some venture capitalist from becoming the next big whale account by investing $2 billion SP into their own account, and if that happens then you can expect Steemit to change again.

This is a volatile platform, the likes of which has never been seen before its inception. We need to each realize that without our commitment during this phase of volatility, this platform will die. It's up to us to work together to create the environment we wish to see in the future. If you have a problem with certain authors getting rewards then take it up with that author, or create a post about it and expose them for what you think they are, but don't go throwing shit all over the place like some diarrhetic baboon who hasn't been fed in a couple weeks.

Thomas Te Aroha Kohi | Entrepreneur