There comes a time when you shred all your tears and suffering.

As an artistic writer who is unfamiliar with the (comprehensive) script that marks up a webpage, a blog can be a frustrating medium. Using standard settings barely affords eye-catching authenticity now, does it? I find myself in a corset of conformity and the only outlet is content.

What makes appropriate content for Steemit is hard to tell. Quite frankly, overall, it resembles something like a trending mood-board to me. The quality of the content is disconcertingly superficial. Some take the lead and rake bits and bobs together for us, as if we have signed up for extra classes in Encyclopaedic Knowledge. But I have yet to stumble upon anything remarkably original; and above all, I have, yet, to find a consistency and a target audience. My first frustrated shout was: talent scouts need not scout here!

Grazing

But never mind. What have we got? Mainly, good, decent, fair and square, regular people. Most come safely blinkered and just “do their thing”. It puts the emphasis on food, pretty pics, travel, jokes, local politics, crafts, pc stuff, and the virtual economy, of course. I get the feeling people stop off on Steemit for something like a cuppa-soup. Followers are grazers. Voters are smart cookies.

First impression is that, to write blogs here is a bit like mail-order work, making trinkets at home for huge wholesalers. I came thinking this place would promote creativity, but I wonder if it might not come closer to a sweat-shop - there are not just a few dismayed copy-writers out there with several thousand posts to their name and only a few steem cents in the bank (according to them). I well sense the better-off half wouldn’t have any scruples about exploiting the well-intended soul. Are goofy words and spontaneous snaps the new stocks for shrewd day traders? How is this a one-up from blogging into thin air (your site that is never found by anyone)?

Points of Concern

It would be great if this were a site on which good writers get to practice at becoming better (having an audience to tune into helps); or a place where photographers could find themes to work with. I miss a bit of structure, and that coming from a hardend improviser and cosmic traveller.... I am not sure we want a like-meets-like forum, either (or we’d be there), but what do we want?

From what I gathered, Steemit in part, also, meant to address the eternal problem for writers and photograpers, artists in general, of putting much work out but never seeing any returns - both monetary but also personal interaction. This causes the creative channels to run dry soon. All the more so if you can only write for your friends and friends of friends, who you must keep as friends by respecting how little interested they are likely to be in your story or passion or mission or whatever impells you to write in the first place.

What does motivate the average Steemian to communicate, indeed? Are these sad and lonely people with too much time on their hands? Are they slightly too much outside the box (independent) for regular channels (journalism, reporter, commercial copywriter)? Or let’s face it, not good enough to publish officially, regularly pulling in the readers? You won’t find a Maria Popova here! (on )

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Probably, the average idea is, you might as well take a chance on publishing (if only for a fleeting moment) where there is a wider audience than the woodworm in your bottom drawer. But can such a passing post carry any weight? Can it float upstream to gather more steem and eventually crown it’s writer with success? Suppose you find yourself ranked inbetween a nailpolish expert and an accountant with a fetish for jellybeans? Can you ever hope for a promotion to a “normal”job, again? There is still that social code that you are judged by the company you keeep, you know.

Too much love to be valuable

On top of that, Steemit reaches such a widely international audience, you get that airport terminal feel, where everybody is reserved, half self-absorbed, half-heartedly people-watching, possibly interested in a chinwag to pass the time, and generally courteous enough; but what meaningful interaction can you honestly expect, from light brushings with and sycophantic followers who want to be followed back?

Things are often “mind-blowing” to repliers, where I’d say, what craft if any, exactly, is on display here. Is this an entertainment site where you can have a little flutter by placing your piece till it is called “rien ne va plus”? (Do any year-old articles get rediscovered?) Clearly you have to keep it short, sharp and simple but above all topical, to grab and hold the attention spans of the goldfish we have all become after years of tweets, vines, videos, pics, comments, replies, posts, NOW, instantly, alerted to, fed back on. Besides, I think the "hot-shot" upvoters you would want to attract have more things on their busy business hands. The Mama and healer in me pityfully muses: "What does it do to folk’s self-esteem when the steem is slow in coming?"

The points bulleted then (practicing markdown!):

• Who, really, is interested in the wriggly brains of another? (Best to keep your can of worms closed).
• How much attention do you really want to get? (Before you are made to feel narcissistic.)
• What kind of impact can you make? (The best you can hope for seems to be, that the bit that gets chewed off is not spat back out in your face, again.)
• Who can you reach? (Does anybody take anybody else seriously? What credentials has anybody got?)
• With who do you connect in a meaningful way? (Sometimes a blog reads like a highly trained customer service desk. Everybody is jolly and civil, avoiding all confrontations, keeping their eye on the money.)
• Can your work here make sense to the rest of your life? (If I told my folks and neighbours I was on Steemit, I’d be deemed crazier than they had already made me out to be. After all, what is ever achieved? ).

To keep it short and bee-friendly sweet (only use organic honey!) I will stop here and continue in part 2. ("I learn, I learn"!! Manuel from "Fawlty Towers".)

Hang on in there,
Your Sukhasana Sister @Sukhasanasister