Greetings, Humans and Felines!
Yesterday marked the first day in my 127 days on Steemit that I completely stepped away and had absolutely nothing to do with my blog, or reading, or curating, or anything else.
The things that "trigger" us are strange, sometimes.
Yes, it had been a stressful time, with my Humans' having a houseguest, and there was definitely a welcome "stillness" following her departure.
Feeling a little left of center....
What's Going On, Curator Cat?
Something else came across my path, stopped me, and took away my motivation... on Sunday morning. And no, it had nothing to do with the World Cup, although one of my Humans seems to have been abnormally distracted by watching adult humans chase a little round thing around.
I get that, though... chasing little things around is FUN!
But I digress.
When I checked in on SteemWorld.org to see recent activity on my blog, there was something odd: One of my posts had been FLAGGED. Downvoted.
At first, I felt confused. Then I decided to investigate. A little tracking around, and it became obvious that I had been hit by a bot that was using all its energy purely to flag 100s of accounts. Mind you, it was a very, very tiny flag. Not "effective," but more like a "marker."
My first thought was "I've been marked by someone. But WHY?" My second thought was "Holy crap... I wonder if I am participating in any contests, challenges (or even the curation and engagement leagues) where having a flag will get me disqualified?"
Sometimes I just get tired of it all...
Investigation followed...
So I did more investigation... leading to more confusion.
The bot seemed to "identify itself" as a "spam downvote bot" attached to a long-time legitimate Steemian.
More confusion. I'm not a spammer! WTF?
More research eventually led me to a post called "Exposing the Steemit Defense League" by 
Short version: There's evidently there's this thing being called the "Steemit Defence League," which seems to basically be a "downvote bot farm" that serves little other purpose than to harass a wide swath of users across Steemit, using 80+ (and growing) bot accounts that do nothing more than endlessly give "micro" flags.
Meh... I just give up.
As best I can tell, the flagging is somewhat random, but you end up on their radar if you follow, support or comment on certain users' posts that the bot operator has an axe to grind with. I'm guessing I ended up on their illustrious "list" because I am a supporter of 
Mean People Suck!
After studying all this, I felt discouraged enough to just blow Sunday off, completely.
As a matter of logical perspective, a flag by an account with about 15SP and a 25 reputation, whose voting power is about 8% is nothing more than "dust" with no impact... in the functional sense.
But I also have an appreciation for the psychology of terrorism and bullying; I recognized that I started thinking about how this might be a "black mark" and get me excluded from things I enjoy doing in the community. OR — at the very least — lead to the extra burden of constantly having to explain "why the flags?"
I'm feeling a bit outraged by this...
But it didn't really stop there...
Instead I got to thinking about the whole notion of "mean-spirited" Humans and what they do to each other.
Here's somebody who has created a network of bots... purely to inflict damage. Not because there is a cause. Or some legitimate issue. But purely to harass and be a nuisance. Or be a troll, as the Internet is fond of saying.
It's the bully in the school yard; it's the kid that pulls the wings off butterflies; it's the ignorant people who do horrible things to black cats like me... just because they are black and they are scared by old superstitions.
I thoroughly understand the old truism "Mean people suck!"
I'm going to be watching this...
In this case, they "sucked" badly enough to make me want to just blow off Steemit for day. A tiny thing, perhaps, but enough to suck the enjoyment right out of my day.
Some might say "That's just LIFE! Grow a thicker skin!" Not going to argue the value of that... but that doesn't mean I am not sad that there are those who feel compelled to get their kicks from causing anxiety, annoyance and disturbance for others. That's all.
Now I have had a day to "get over myself," and I'm back to wandering around Steemit and visiting my favorite people and felines.
Because it's late, and I'm feeling a bit lazy, I'm going to just recycle some old photos for this one...
Hoping you are all having a beautiful — and flag-free — day!