Has The Steemit Community Been Scammed?
Yesterday there was much lamenting and weeping over the supposed mean-spirited flagging of poor little @sweetsssj by @dan.
Here's the first post I saw about it.
As I had already muted the poor lonely little thing a few weeks ago, I had to look at her blog to get an idea of what people were so upset about.
The first thing I noticed?
At least, after I noticed the ridiculous payout amounts.
Was that poor, sweet, innocent little thing had apparently been trapped at Atlantis for over a month.
Were they holding her for ransom?
Is this hand gesture some kind of signal?
I guess these photos are by poor @sweetsssj but she didn't give any attribution for the, very professional looking photos in this post.
It almost looks staged doesn't it?
I'm not a professional photographer but I imagine it would be pretty difficult to get a shot like this with all of the funky lighting from the slot machines.
Wow, how much do you think a non-alcoholic (because I'm sure that sweet, innocent little thing doesn't drink alcohol) beverage costs here?
Do these photos (and practically ALL of the photos in her posts) look like they came from an Atlantis travel brochure?
Or maybe they look like the kind of photos Atlantis would stage for advertising purposes?
Here was an interesting comment from @pal about this post.
Hmm, could she, perhaps have a little help from the entire marketing department at Atlantis?
Could you afford to spend over a month at a resort like this without someone comping you for lodging and food?
Maybe someone will post an explanation but there's also the possibility that something not so honest was going on here and the Powers That Flagged are being ethical and not exposing something shady that they took care of for the community?
A few weeks ago @ats-david wrote a post about allowing advertising on Steemit.
I hope he forgives me for paraphrasing it but, advertising is coming sooner or later, and it would be best if we get out in front of it and control it.
I'm wondering if Steemit hasn't already seen a month's worth of advertising from Atlantis and, not only did the community not see any revenues from Atlantis, I'm wondering if we funded their ad campaign from the rewards pool?
Look at the posts in a fresh light and decide for yourself.
All photos from the blog of @sweetsssj but I'm unable to say who actually took them since she didn't give photo attribution in the few posts I looked at.
If I'm wrong I'll issue a public apology.
One thing is a guarantee. She DID not take those photos her self nor in ANY of the posts she has made.
Another thing is a guarantee is she did not give ANY credit whatsoever to anyone.
I however don't think that the photos were taken by the casino. She may have gotten free stay or made a deal to get a discount but she has professional photos in EVERY post she does with a photographer .
II am pretty sure she has a job that pays her to travel and has for sometime.
Even though her rewards are LUDICROUS she still can't afford that lifestyle on these rewards alone. She MUST be getting paid to travel and do these promotions. She is simply posting on Steemit about it also to make EXTRA.
I actually muted her early on, I figured there was no sense trying to point those things out.
What's brought me out of the woodwork is the people weeping and wailing over the flags. Poor innocent little thing being picked on by big the nasty founder.
hahaha yea.....poor girl not making a thousand $ for eating at a fancy restaurant. What a hard life....
yeah, but she still makes a buncha bank.... one flag isn't gonna stop her... take a look at that......
Wallet
yup
Interesting post about one of the most popular person on steemit. I agree and disagree with some of the opinions.
The photos are sometimes too perfect, definitely wasn't her taking the photos as she appears in most of the photos, and some have been edited to enhance the quality.
I disagree with the comments "how do you have the time to do all this? and how can she afford to stay at this resort for 1 month", because she could be married to someone wealthy
Oh, you had better be careful with statements like that. There are a lot of Social Justice Warriors who would take offense at the idea that the only way a woman could afford that lifestyle would be if her husband had money.
On the question of time, I seriously doubt any one human being could produce the sheer volume and quality (I never said the work wasn't high quality) that she was posting.
hi theblindsquirl, no offense intended towards women. I am just stating one possibility of many. If you get 1000 dollar per post then she could easily afford the trip, and would commit the amount of time needed . She also has mentioned bitcoin a few times, which opens another possibility that she has bought bitcoin when it was low at maybe 5 dollars, and now she is enjoying the profit on travel and can afford a photographer to travel with her.
Time and quality, definitely not done by her alone, so i think there is a team of photographer and writer, editor.
I usually avoid the Hot & Trending pages altogether as I've not seen much in terms of quality content that wasn't already showing up in my feed.
I sometimes look at her blog and other hot trending ones to learn how to blog and what people like to see in the blog
You could learn just as much from reading travel brochures from expensive resorts (or maybe Caribbean cruises) if that's the audience you want to target.
Just for reference, I have been to Atlantis. It was in the fall, so I can't say it compares to the time that sweetsssj was taking pictures there. However, during the day, the casino is mostly empty. It wouldn't be hard to take pictures of areas without people.
For marketing purposes, I think I would want to take pictures of an active casino, which would encourage more people to come try their luck.
Could you afford to spend over a month there?
There's something that doesn't add up with this.
I could do a "month's" worth of photos in a day.
So do you think she's "innocent"?
And, would you give yourself the attribution for all of the photos in your posts?
I usually don't give attribution to my own pictures. But, I think I would maybe do an article on how I setup my shots, if I was taking the pictures myself.
But...I guess the question is, does she have to reveal that she's a travel agent or a marketing person for a travel agency?
On the other side, when she takes some of her steem and gives it to puppet accounts to upvote her own posts, that's is wrong. I think there should be more @sherlockholmes investigating the big reward pool winners to see if they aren't scamming the system.
I would say, she's probably a travel agent and yes, they get comped to "review" locations for their "travel business". And, she could even do group travels, which means she would get comped for her trip and then paid by the group for booking her trip.
Very good point you are making there @deanlogic no wonder you have logic in your username! Have a WONDERFUL day!
Totally obvious what the truth here is. The pictures are too perfect. She is too perfect...I mean they put a busty "model" in all these great pics almost always showing midriff in locations that are always PERFECT. There is no real content here. It's just eye candy.
It's apparently not that obvious, there were a lot of people who came to her defense yesterday wanting an explanation why she had been flagged for 15 days.
It doesn't look like her earnings have dropped much....good grief. People are so gullible for polished ad campaigns...
George Carlin: Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
Wish Carlin were alive today :)
Authors that reliably trend are perfect vehicles for mining the rewards pool, and bots are programmed to time their votes so as to maximally extract rewards.
Linking SP to VP has created of Steemit a rewards mining mechanism, and the social media is merely a gloss that lends it the appearance of something with other value.
@sweetsssj will continue to trend and create a mechanism that allows curation rewards to be extracted from the pool, until VP is delinked from SP holdings. I am not holding my breath waiting for the change.
The SEC's recent announcement that it will regulate cryptocurrencies that operate as securities, as Steem does, will force a change. Unless there is a dramatic revision of how VP is weighted, Steemit will be regulated out of existence.
Fakebook will love that.
I won't.
Edit: I don't want to confuse the possibility that something can be done with an assumption that it was intended to be done. People make mistakes, and the devs may have been saints.
OTOH...
Yeah, the system is pretty efficient.
Your entire philosophy is the direct opposite of what The West stands for anymore.
Consume, consume, consume and don't stop to think about anything.
I Alwyas Knew There Was Something Fishy With @sweetsssj , Upvoted And Resteemed Bro !!!k
I have a hard time believing that one of the founders would flag someone for 15 days for no reason.
There may be some people that owe @dan an apology.
Let us all resteem and EXPOSE this bi7ch!
I think it's been taken care of already.
I think it's a good lesson to learn from though. People come here and blindly follow & upvote the most popular people & posts.
She's really no different than Kim Kardashian.
Ohhh DAMN! I just realized how right you were
Hey I have something very interesting to ask you about but it has to be private. Lets talk in steemit chat.
wait a minute.
You're saying that there's such a thing as ethical and 'up front' advertising?
Really?
There's a lot more than meets the eye. Those who know will never say.
They don't have to say anything. It's the blockchain and it takes about 2 minutes & half a dozen right-clicks to figure it out.
It's probably morally wrong of me to say that 80% of the population wouldn't believe reality if it bit them in the ass and dragged them into a retention pond at Disneyworld.
All I want is an honest shot at paying my rent, if someone wants to make that kind of easy money they should start writing government grant proposals. Then they wouldn't even need to spend time taking photos and writing descriptions in broken English.
Well that is true. Yet there is still another juicy bit info the block chain, in its self, can't reveal.
However, I'm a strong believer in all truths are eventually revealed.
It will come but not from me.
@dwinblood has started digging into a different issue that's very interesting too.
I've decided to sit back, watch and be amused (if I can manage to keep my big mouth shut). ;-)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@theblindsquirl/how-i-found-peace-by-embracing-the-anonymity-of-my-own-insignificance
Usually the best thing to do. I just my life and let the flow go with it.
Hmm, strange I never thought about this!!
Amazing post @theblindsquirl have a happy journey here
i just upvoted your post and following you. you can follow
me at @zeeshankhan .i hope you will follow me back
Comment spamming will destroy your reputation here.
ok bro i understand