Anyone else riffing the Rolling Stones right now? Or is that just us?
-thump- -thump- This thing on? Check, 1, 2...
Legend has it that when man opened Pandora's Box it contained 7 sins and 7 virtues...but well beneath them all, there remained 1 final sin. Opinion.
Oh yeah, we said that. Opinion is a sin. Or at least, that's what today's society wants us to believe. Seems nowadays that if someone holds an opinion, and they actually dare to express it, if it's not the currently popular one it will be lambasted and admonished and they'll burn you in effigy pretty much.
That's where we come in.
Who are you??
That's a really interesting question that warrants a really interesting response. Tragically all we can offer is a glimpse into who we are.
We're the other side of the coin. The one that has the "other" opinion. See, it takes zero effort or stomach to walk around the social sphere with the most popular opinion in tow. The flavor of the week. What's trendy, popular, or what particular bandwagon seems to be moving the fastest.
That ain't us. Holy shit, that ain't us at all.
It takes incredible fortitude, confidence and resolve to maintain and defend the unpopular opinion. That is every inch us. In every way. Looking back at the life we've led thus far, we can list off the popular opinions we have held on two hands and probably still have fingers left over. Now, this isn't to imply that we carry the unpopular opinion simply to represent the "other" side, or because gee, no one else seems to. No. It's because this is the opinion we favor and gravitate towards for whatever reason we have, and when confronted on it, there's every chance to believe that we'll explain it in agonizing detail why and fall short of graphs and charts to explain why we hold it.
We like to swim upstream. We like to rock the boat (within reasonable context). We like to make waves.
Why?
Simple. It encourages dialog and exchange of other opinions that mirror our own so now it can add some more context, or, it offers up opposing opinion that we can challenge OR adopt as our new opinion. The exchange of dialog is the key element though. Someone famous once quipped, "Controversy creates cash." Those are some of the truest words ever uttered by mankind. Cash can also be seen as a wealth of open exchanges (of dialog).
Why are you here??
Heath Ledger's Joker mused, "If you're good at something...never do it for free." Absolutely. Knowing that we are chock full of opinion and possess an almost insatiable desire to opine about this, that, and every other thing; and knowing the axiom of how "Controversy creates cash", why would we not want to opine AND get paid to do it?
Some while back, at the urging and behest of a select few, we opened a Facebook page and began our journey to share our thoughts and views on the world at large. It wasn't long before we noticed a handful of people tuning in to catch our riffs. Days went by and more and more trickled in until we had over one hundred people who liked our shit. Those numbers come off as petty and trivial to most, we're sure, but to us the number may as well have been one million. Even at one hundred plus people, it meant that we were engaging people from here, there and everywhere else. Some agreed with us, and others went batshit banana balls over what we wrote.
All part of the plan.
Lo and behold, someone remarks that YouTube pays their content providers, so perhaps we should consider making some passive income on the side by posting videos of our ranty goodness.
Sure. Why the Hell not? Who doesn't like money, right?
So we did. October 31, 2015 we went live and opened our own channel on the YouTube.
We spent a few days preparing material and uploading it to the channel, and had made plans to produce twenty (20) episodes to start. If the channel was getting people to tune in, we'd make more. If not, we'd have to reconsider our overall course and correct as needed. Despite our best hopes, it went nowhere fast, so the twenty produced thus far are the only ones we have in existence.
So far. We said that, right?
These were low budget, very amateurish videos but so chock full of our particular ranty flavor. Admittedly, we enjoyed doing them. From a vanity standpoint, we love the sound of our own voice some days. Very "FM radio personality" type voice. This was done because YouTube had launched some new content filtering bots (Content ID) which in itself is awesome, but at the same time presented a whole world of UGH as we all scramble to use as many open licence sounds and images as possible without pissing someone in Hollywood off.
There were considerations to revamp and then relaunch the channel, and that was right up until The Adpocalypse happened. All at once we scuttled any thoughts of ever relaunching there where we knew without question that our brand of content would never be considered "advertiser friendly", so why bother?
And then along came Steemit...
Wouldn't you know it? Down in the dumper about how little things seem to be compounding and stifling someone from trying to earn a buck or two from producing content, and then outta nowhere we hear about this new thing called DTube.
Long story short, we took a peek at DTube and discovered their ties to the Steemit Community and we dove right in head first to see what all the fuss and hoopla was all about. DTube fascinated us because it seemed like content creators were about to get the last laugh because now they wouldn't have to filter their imagination or thoughts to cater to the whims of "The Man" and every whiny snowflake that doesn't like their opinion. A cursory glance at DTube piqued our interest immediately. It's still in its infancy and has some ways to go yet, as it seems too sluggish to be considered a true rival to YouTube just yet...but man, the promise it holds it off the charts. We can't wait for it to get stronger legs because we'll be right in there hip to hip running with them when they do.
Steemit, and the account that was to be created, was a logical step that we knew we had to take. We have rejected technology and trends and fads for as long as we can remember (shit - it was the late 2000s before we even had our first cellular!) and have really only ever early-adopted one time prior. It was time to make that twice in our life to early-adopt.
And so here we are. Here for you. Here for us. Here for everyone that cares to tune in/follow/sub/etc..
So what are you bringing to the table??
A little bit of everything, actually. Our aim is to provide content that we find appeals to us, and opine about it in our own distinct way.
Which we already know from experience is gonna offend somebody, somewhere. It's just a fact of life in today's society.
One thing we will guarantee though is that we never pander.
We don't dance to the Political Correctness Polka, and it's not likely that we ever will. It has become an embodiment of a legitimate Frankenstein's monster. Society created it. It is now alive. It has now taken over. It is also destroying us. No longer can there be any exchanges of thought or dialog - nope - it's now all about who can complain to the right people the quickest to get something they don't agree with taken down. No one debates anymore. They simply see something that flies in the face of their own little lies, and they proceed to lose their shit, stomp their feet, and demand reparation!
Nothing like, oh I dunno...maybe debating your side?
Naw. It's just easier to join the rest of the snowflakes and cause an avalanche of filled diapers and hurt "feels" so you can get something you don't agree with taken down or removed. Thankfully though, that shit doesn't seem to get very far in the Steemit Community, where they believe (paraphrasing of course) that hurt feels/butthurt/disagreement is not a valid reason to squelch someone else.
So if you ever wanna know the truest reason why we are here - there it is.
Steemit has avalanche barriers.
The posts we are about to make and keep making are, as we so eloquently put it, guaranteed to offend. There's a lot to be said about truth in advertising. We lay it all out for each of you from moment one. The shit we write is guaranteed to offend someone, somewhere. That bears repeating. Fortunately for us, Steemit and their Community allow us the freedom to throw it all out there and not have to concern ourselves with objections based on pure emotional stunting or rampant butthurt. We can now say and post what we need to, and what we love to, and not have to ask ourselves even once if it's at risk to cause such a commotion as to have it removed because gee, Little Billy didn't like that we have an opinion on something that lays waste to their beliefs.
For that, Steemit and every member here, we thank you and wish to repay that kindness with what we hope will be entertaining content that provides the value you mention and strive for.
So really, it's all about the money??
Nope. But let's be real here...just like your favorite athlete gets paid to play a sport he loves, we see this opportunity as nothing different. Being paid to do what we love. If we're right, and our content provides value and entertainment...why should we do it for free? Having a passive revenue stream in today's day and age is something we all want. That's why we need to keep growing here and to keep spreading the word. The more content we can provide...the more value we attach to this endeavor...the more entertainment we can deliver will only see us all grow and all benefit. Win-win scenarios are always welcome with us.
Well that seems reasonable - anything else??
Perhaps just a closing thought and a final word.
The moment we hit POST this will be forever in the internets. One way or the other, we are now given quasi immortality in a sense. What we say here today will be forever, and perpetual. So know that we are here to stay and we are ready to go. Our first few posts worth of material have been prepared and will be published in short order. We have been waiting for an opportunity like this and we will not squander it.
Special thanks to those three posts that we upvoted immediately after joining, and we're not sure if they are cool with being tagged or named because hey, we're new here so we don't yet know the local customs to a fine science (seriously - is it cool to tag people whose posts you read when you're only a wee Minnow?). Suffice to say that it was easy to upvote them for the content they provided which I gained benefit from. Thanks guys and gals.
We look forward to providing you with content that appeals to us, in the hopes that the dialog and exchange we've sought will be found here in spades and will appeal to you just the same.
These are indeed exciting times we live in, for better or worse.
It's time to get started...
Off to the races...
Free your 8
~ Saul
PS - inb4 someone asks - We chose to include a picture we made instead of one that features our shiny mug for only one reason...we prefer to keep our online persona away from our real life persona (though they're one in the same) for sensible reasons like people NOT having access to our image so they can go on a witch hunt, or doxx us, or complain to our employer/clients that we hold an opinion they don't like, or to generally harass us/stalk us. If anyone questions whether we are a bot or not, we invite you to contact us and request a phrase with between one and five words and we'll be happy to send one (a pic with your selected word or phrase) your way to satisfy your idle curiosity and confirm our humanity. We're cool like that.