I've had a twitter account since January 2008 — so it's coming up on 11 years old. I've also had a Facebook page... as well as "pages" for various businesses and interests... for almost as long as there has been Facebook.
In the meantime, we have this new paradigm called Steemit — or, in the broader sense, blockchain based social platforms.
Whereas we might like to think that our "issues" here are unique, there's generally a common thread across all these venues:
Autumn leaf
ONE: Social sites are all about networking, interaction and engagement. They are about people connecting with people across common interests, needs, goals, objectives, buyer/seller connections, desires for friendship, love, learning and what have you.
TWO: No matter what, there are inevitably a bunch of assflakes who seem to think that it would be cool to try to somehow "automate" the human functions of social sites.
Any of this sounding familiar? It should.
Now, I do recognize that "those who would automate" sincerely believe they are offering an improvement over the original paradigm... even though (of course) they are also looking for ways to profit from their inventiveness.
Many moons ago, I remember a friend of mine from the IT industry who was a rather remarkable programmer/developer — as well as a gamer — who had this remarkable obsession with creating code that would actually play the games he was in for him.
Whereas he was able to do some remarkable things, I always ended up back at the same root question: "What's the f^cking POINT?"
Walking a peaceful path
I mean, if I'm interested enough to get a game and play it... I want to play the game, not have it played for me by some piece of code.
That makes no more sense than really loving to cook... so you develop a robot to do all the cooking.
Now, when we bring this back home to social media and someone says "Yeah, but using some automation and AI allows me to reach THOUSANDS of people daily," I really question the effectiveness-validity of that.
It's like the 300-odd marketing emails I get, every day. They get sent by a bot, I don't ever read them, and the resulting electronic "storm" of stuff flying around pretty much amounts to... nothing.
I work a lot with eBay, as one of my sources of income. I have been asked a number of times by my colleagues in the field of selling rare old postage stamps to collectors, how it is that I seem able to get 5x more activity on my items, and the final auction prices are some of the highest on eBay for that type of item.
Well, when I have something of significance to offer, I hand email my customer list of some 600, letting each person know how what I have for sale relates specifically to what I have learned their particular interest to be. There's no machine that does this, because there's no machine that remembers they got a new kitten, and their wife's birthday, and that their son must have graduated from the PhD program.
That — to me — is what social is about!
Leaves in the evening sun
Of course, many would disagree. But here's something interesting: Even as many lament and complain that Steemit seems to have become all bots and guilds, and there's gloom, doom and despair over the slumping cryptosphere, I've noticed somewhat of an uptick in the actual *human interaction" here in our community... as of late.
I like to occasionally poke around in 
So yeah, I do believe the humans of Steemit are quietly coming back to the realization that it takes PEOPLE to be social!
And frankly? That offers me a glimmer of hope, in all the gloom.
Thanks for reading!
What do YOU think? Do you agree that Social Media is — ultimately — about people? Do you think the people of Steemit can "rescue" this place from itself? Any additional thoughts? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 181215 11:56 PST