Intro Video
Steemit has changed the Game
Hello Steemit, it's Thurgood! I'm so glad I found this place! I am a user of the social networks all of us know like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. I also recently started a Youtube channel where I posted a couple of music videos. So what's the difference with Steemit and why am I here?
My first impression of Steemit is that it rewards creators of original content. That is why I'm posting this! Here is some orginal content for Steemit, fresh from San Francisco!
About Me
I live in San Francisco, California. San Francisco is a great place to live. It's a very progressive and tolerant community. I moved here in 2005 and I'm glad I did. I moved from a small town in Louisiana where things were much different.
I was born in Minnesota and moved to Louisiana at the age of 8. The culture is much different coming from the north and moving to the south. The weather is hot and the food is spicy. I was influenced by music at an early age. Louisiana is famous for jazz. I started playing drums and guitar at age 10. My parents both sing and play guitar and encouraged me to play music.
I played drums in the marching band in high school. New Orleans has Mardi Gras parades and I marched several parades beating the drums. After high school I joined a Heavy metal band called "Deadman Circus"...most of the members of that band are performing under the name "Broken by the Burden" now...google those names if you want to know more. Maybe I will post links to music here on Steemit.
New Orleans also has a great rave/electronic music scene. I started going to raves and got into DJing and producing dance music. This is also how I got into computers. Learning to produce music and record Dj mixes requires a decent amount of knowledge on how computers and software work. I also had a roomate who was a computer programmer. I learned to build computers as well as the basic knowledge of computer code.
Move to San Francisco
I quit the heavy metal band and shifted to Djing and learning more about dance music production. Drum n bass was the style I was playing, and is still my favorite style of dance music. Sadly, the rave scene in New Orleans went into remission around 2004. I packed what I could into my '95 Mazda Protege and made the move from Louisiana to San Francisco, California.
San Francisco had a blossoming Dubstep scene at that time. I jumped on the bandwagon and started Djing and producing Dubstep. A couple tracks I did with a group called "NTRLD" charted on Beatport. I rode the Dubstep float down Market street in the Love parade. It was a great time.
Dubstep went mainstream around 2008-2009 and I got lost in all the noise. Nothing original was coming out and I was tired of the dance music scene in general. Life in San Francisco was still great, but I felt lost creatively.
Youtube/Video revolution
It was around 2010 when youtube was blowing up and the DSLR camera revolution was in full swing. I bought a DSLR camera in 2011 with no prior knowledge of anything to do with video or photography. I subscribed to the Adobe Creative Cloud and I have been on the journey of learning to shoot and edit video.
My formal education ended after I graduated high school. Everything else I've learned from the internet or a Youtube video. I feel extremely fortunate to be living in a time and place where so much information and technology is available to me.
Steemit
So why does Steemit interest me? I finally published two Heavy Metal music videos I did with my friend that I shot and edited. We started a youtube channel, Bradley Redfield Productions. I will share those videos with you Steemers in another post. As of right now, those videos have only gotten about 200-300 views each. I worked really hard on those videos! Here is a link to our channel on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKvZYTwBtfBL5mQB_WtuPjw
I went to Reddit to post my videos there in hopes they would get some attention. I found out that as a new user, I wasn't supposed to post links to my content without establishing some karma first. I went to photoshop battles subreddit and got some karma there. Just when I was feeling confident enough to post my videos on Reddit without feeling like they were spam, I found out about Steemit!
Steemit seems like a better place for creators. Youtube pays creators, but only if you put ads in your videos. Youtube is over saturated with content. Patreon is cool, but requires patrons to support the artists with monthly contributions. Reddit is a great platform but karma and gold don't amount to anything in the real world.
Steemit is the next step. I love the idea of Steem and Steem Power. Steemit is the new place that will fuel the passion of creators! I'm glad to be here now and I'm looking forward to the future of Steemit!