Hello Steemit, and fellow Steemians/Steemers or whatever we're calling ourselves?!

Looks like I made it! Leland here, I'm one of those socialites that has been on social media for years now, perhaps not always doing what everyone says I should be doing, but rather, doing it the way that feels most compelling, yet comfortable to me. It's probably because I've always had somewhat of a "love-hate" relationship with social media. It's never really done much for me but waste my time away, even though I've spent HOURS manuevering around posts and comments, liking here, sharing there, debating until the cows came home, writings blogs, making videos, marketing products of others and services of my own, going LIVE on video on nearly every streaming site out there, ya know, the average blah, blah, blah ... **but, to what end**?

I was never really sure about the advantages of social media posts, *until now*. It took someone dropping a pitch post for Steem into a group I recently put together, to open my eyes to the real possibilities of creating wealth on a single social media channel, and practically ignoring all the others.

My online career

It all started with fax machines, sending daily fax deals across a phone line to numbers I wasn't even sure they would make it to. *"ShopFax"* was the name, making deals on fax machines was my game, but it didn't last, I mean come on, seriously? What were the odds?
My HayDays

Then in the mid 80's, along came the internet! I was hanging out on BB sites, creating all kinds of funky email addresses that didn't end in *@aol.com*, making graphics outta ASCII code (which is making a comeback, I see), and building HTML websites into the 21st century (when it was cool to do so), and so on. Now we have HTML 5, which I don't even lift the hood of because it's out of this old man's league.
Back then, even a little bit of skill and you could have a website up and running in a matter of hours. Nothing fancy, mind you, but it was clean and it was FAST! No getting bogged down with Java scripts that were over-the-fold or huge HD graphics to load, or those stupid, little annoying ads that make you think you're going to see something special, when all it does it take you thru the Top 10, 20, 30 or god forbid 40 reasons why you shouldn't take pictures with your cell when you've been drinking. *Who needs that?*

Then I found this place. As of late I'm more of a video producer and live streamer, though much more of a WebRTC site beta tester really. I'm the guy that goes headon into the boardrooms (virtually of course!) with the companies that are building all of these live video streaming/broadcasting platforms. You know, the one's that say they have the *next best thing* or the *coolest community* or better features that connect you to **FBLive**, because they made their pact in API blood. Yes, the same folks that can make you a **superstar** by allowing you to produce your own shit, er I mean *hit* "TV Show" from your bathroom, yeah, yeah...

Catch my Drift?

Do I get paid to do test all these platforms and produce video? Producing shows, yes. Beta testing, no. I suppose I could also charge a consulting fee, if I really wanted to get caught up in the mess of turning on my computer for every Tom, Dick & Harry that calls on me to come test their latest website. Eh, I might just do that actually! :) Most often I'm one of the first to approach them, and tell them straight up what I like and don't like about their platform, who'll likely use it and who won't and what they need to improve. In the end I usually end up with some kind of free account access, while all the rest pay to play. So I consider that a perk. But once again, I digress.

The "UnMedia"

So, I have this group on Fartbook ('cuz it stinks like hell) or Facebroke if you prefer, that I call *Worldwide LIVE*. It's one of many that I've ever created over the last 8 years on the platform, but this one was kind of special. I met up with this guy from the other side of the world one day, and after a simple share of a video I had made regarding live streaming, I somehow became an overnight friend magnet in Pakistan! I decided to enjoy it. The group I created was a means to maintain the onslaught (used lightly) of visitors from Pakistan that were coming to me with friends requests, all based on the sharing of a couple of my posts. Seems they were all pumped up about streaming live to the Fartbook. It's a smaller group of 325+ individuals, but growing daily. I know, I know... how did I get here, digression, my apologies once again.

How I found it.

Just the other day a member of said group, decided to drop a link to his blog post about Steemit. At first I just shrugged it off and deleted the post, hadn't heard of Steemit before so I figured it was just another marketer's scam to get you sign up on his list to get a ton of garbage emails about garbage products that I would end up that people do nothing with but drop directly into their trash folder.

Boy was I wrong! Somehow along the way, later that day, I saw the same person posting the same link somewhere on someone else's timeline and I just HAD to take a second look. Wow! Did I hit "gold" or what?

The Obvious

This community has been growing by leaps and bounds right under everyone's noses, including my own, and I usually take pride in finding things on the internet before most everyone else does. Now I'm no Seth Godin, Gary V or The Rock by any means, but I can post right up there with the best of them, if I so desire. I just never felt much desire to do so any blog-style posts, spending years building sites and social channels that did very little but suck my time (and life) out of me for the sake of a free lunch or two. Everyday I was feeling that the least I could do is share a stupidly funny video clip, meme or picture of someone that might make their mother's cringe if it made it to their profile.

That Sure was a Waste

So rather than continue to seek the approvals of the YouTube "stars" who only look at you now if you pay them in their "SuperChat" or subscribe so they can make it to 100k subscribers that do pretty much nothing more than sit there and heckle or harass you. And rather than continue to regurgitate the last funny video that passed by my newsfeed long enough for Farcebook to call it a "view" after a 3 second showing, I thought, rather than mucking up my website with post after post that just sit there and get a few hundred hits at a time because Sam down the street has a cooler looking website than mine, I decided to stick to the two things I do "Best" (pun intended, of course) and that's get paid for doing what I do...

Congratulations! You're Engaged!

I can be quite opinionated if I want to be; or I can be your next best friend, that's up to you, because out here I can say what I want, when I want and no one I have following me on other channels will be any the wiser, because they don't know about Steemit just yet.

I'll let some know, but I'll certainly be more selective this time around as to who I let into my circle of "friends" on Steemit. Why? Because I'm looking for quality engagement with my followers, not the hype, smoke, and mirrors that comes with the likes of Fartbook ('cuz it stinks, remember?), Twitter (where I have thousands of followers, but 99% of them are bots) and YouTube, (where I do have fun all by myself, but very rarely does anyone come to see me over *PewdiePie*, so what's the sense?

Therefore, I humble myself to Steemit, and welcome the rest of you to indulge in the array of hash I'm about to cook up, with the hopes it brings a smile to your face, or maybe a twinge in your gut that causes you to contemplate things a little more before you make your next move.

Looking forward to the next time. I figured if I started straight away, and never stop, I could be rolling into the ranks of content creators that are going to help make this platform one of the best performers of the year, if not the next 20.

Can you imagine what it will be like out here in the year 2020!!??

Take care y'all.. cya in the next post or video!

LJ