A shoutout to my dear fellow Steemians... and some food for thought!
For everyone who came across this post, I know you must be thinking, "Wait a minute! Does this guy even like Steemit or is he one of those minnows posting his rants?"
Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well... (a reference to Alex from Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange"), it is easy to categorize/generalize people, ain't it? Grouping them under Haters, Lovers & the-in-betweens; Winners, losers & the mediocrists, and more relevantly... the whales, the minnows and the dolphins. Makes life easier 😌
Getting back to the topic... It's been a few days I have been doing my own bit of exploring on Steemit, and suddenly, I had that "Aha" moment. You know the kinda shit which made Archimedes run out of the bathtub naked onto the streets, screaming, "εὕρηκα! εὕρηκα!" (Eureka! Eureka!), eventually solving a big problem in hydrostatics.
For all those sadass couch-potatoes out there (including myself) who love to watch some real good shit available on Netflix (or on you-know-where), the British TV series Black Mirror might ring a bell. For those who don't know much about Black Mirror, I take this opportunity to inform you that it is a well-written anthology series, which — I can vouch for it — WILL make you think of the unthinkable.
The first episode of their third season, "Nosedive" stars Bryce Dallas Howard in the leading role as Lacie. It is set in an alternative reality (or what I'd like to call "One man's utopia is another man's dystopia" kinda stuff), where people can rate others' popularity using their handheld gadgets/phones/desktops, etc. from one 🌟 to five stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟. Lacie wants to gain higher rating to be accepted more by the society. Funnily (...and sadly) enough, to be able to move into a posh new neighborhood, she needs a certain rating (if I remember it correctly, 4.5 or higher) to get a great discount or she can choose to pay a fuckload of rent. She already holds a good rating in 4's, as is shown from the beginning of the episode. If you look at it, she is a bit of an ass-kisser, trying to impress the high-rated people, from the strangers she meets in the streets to her everyday colleagues she sees in elevators and at her workplace (...who don't give a rat's ass about how is she doing in life!).
Long story short, she is invited by her high-rating childhood friend to be the maid of honour at her wedding on some private island. Lacie sees it as the golden opportunity to improve her ratings in presence of all of those "4stars+ league" mo'fuckers. But unfortunately, she gets into a series of bad encounters and events (and that's where the story gets grim and the shit gets real... and more interesting!), right from having an argument with her brother (who is happy playing games on virtual-reality gizmo shit and doesn't give a flying fuck about the whole ratings' game!) to causing a scene at the airport, from where she intended to travel for the wedding. She gets a 24 hour punishment, which makes all the downvotes she receives to have a doubling effect on her ratings. And... that's where her ratings begin to nosedive (... and hence, the title of the episode).
Alrighty... don't take it so seriously, folks! It is a light-hearted article written to practice my steemit-editing skills and the usage of emojis and whatnot.
Whale (or a dolphin or a minnow) or not, please let me know what you think?
Feel free to bombard and illuminate me with your opinions and views.
To put it in an artfully contrived manner,
"A world with kings will always have it's sycophants 😉"
Note: I have given up on my internal struggle to use less references and parenthesis in my writing, a long time ago. Please bear with me. Peace ✌ & some tough love ❤