STEEMIT and the Money Mind Trap

littlelilacfox (40)in #steemit • 7 years ago

I've joined STEEMIT because it felt rebellious. It felt revolutionary to have a platform taking all the power and money away from the big corporations and redirecting it towards the most important element of social media: the people.

But now I am also scared.
The fact that everything you do suddenly has a value (namely a financial one) you can see and other people can influence, makes it hard to even do something at all. This took away a lot of the initial anticipation.
Money has been and always will be one of the most powerful means to manipulation and the mix of social media and a money based reward system, might therefore be an explosive one.
Contrary to what I believed, simply adding a value to what you are about to say, is not going to add actual value to what you will be saying. The moment, your fingers hit the keys, your mind set can shift.

"What would be a meaningful/helpful/interesting comment?" suddenly becomes "What would be meaningful enough to bring MONEY?" until the inevitable "Am I worthless if my comments are?"

So I find myself back in the shallow waters of social media. Sure I'm taking more time to write a comment or post but I just can't seem to shake off the thought that it's somehow like an assignment at school where my words are only worth the grade they got. The more I try to get good grades, the less I resemble the person I actually am.

Do you find it hard to just write a comment like you would do on other platforms? Or do you actually notice a difference in behaviour? Is it necessary to just blind out the system or is it maybe even creating a better version of ourselves?
Because, even if it's in a different way - We learn again that what we say has value and power and therefore impact. With our impact we can lift people up but we can also bring them down by the sheer weight of our words.
So as Benjamin Parker once said:

"With great power comes great responsibility."

image from https://www.pexels.com/photo/comic-spiderman-614363/

#discussion #money #social #media

7 years ago in #steemit by littlelilacfox (40)

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superfluousman (54) 7 years ago (edited)

Hey, welcome to Steemit!

I know the exact sentiment you are talking about, I've also always questioned the same thing regarding value and the idea of marketing. I think being authentic with yourself and your works will always be helpful to others and it's the one thing you can do best compared to anyone else. Getting lured by money is a sure way(in my mind) to get sucked into that trap and inevitably lead an inauthentic life, which is essentially meaningless. I believe there will always be a certain amount of people who connect with your creations; you just might not be aware of them.

My main thing about Steemit as platform is community; financial rewards are just an added benefit. There's nowhere else that I'm aware of where I can freely control and say what I want to say, how I want to say it, and have discussions with like-minded people. This is more rewarding than the money to me.

$0.00

1 vote

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littlelilacfox (40) 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks :) I was kinda guessing after talking to you on your other post, that you'd comment on here ;)
Now that I've seen more posts and left more comments it starts to feel a little bit more natural to be here. I still sometimes feel pressured to leave a message but I end up asking myself if what I am about to say is of actual value or if I as a person would benefit from such a comment. Reflecting helps a lot.

The fact that Steemit is not censored definitely adds to it. The second closest to it as a platform would be reddit I guess but I have experienced reddit as a rather aggressive place so far. It seems like the posts sometimes get downvoted into oblivion for no obvious reasons other than not being interesting to someone whereas here I feel if something's not relevant to others they just move on and that's exactly how it should be.

$0.10

1 vote

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