I have been active in my Toastmasters chapter for about two years. For those who are unfamiliar, Toastmasters is not, in fact, an appliance for cooking breakfast. It is an organization dedicated to helping members to develop public speaking and professional skills. The following post is a rough transcription of a recent speech that I gave to my club.
For this project, titled Writing a Compelling Blog, I was tasked with doing just that, and then sharing my experiences with the club. Let me tell you all about The Anti-"Social Media" Social Media: The Quieter Corner of the Blogosphere.
I took on this project because I have thought of ideas that I've wanted to articulate, but for which there has not been a suitable platform. In the age of “Web 2.0”, Facebook and Twitter have made it possible for any idea to traverse the planet instantaneously, for better or worse. Most often for worse, for reasons abundantly clear in recent political and cultural discourse.
As a result, even as a student of technology and generally early adopter, I have hesitated to fully engage with "social media". That being said, the interconnected nature of social media also has immense power to educate and inform. In exploring how to engage in a positive way, I found Steemit and Medium, two sites that antithesize what I dislike about social media in general. Web 3.0 is about putting the ideas of the internet back in the hands of the users, where they belong.
Steemit is a social network on a blockchain, (sparing technical details) a way of organizing data without central control, and fueled by cryptocurrency, digital money recorded on a blockchain ledger (again, sparing details), examples include Bitcoin, Ethereum and Steem. This allows for a community where users own the network collectively, and has given voice to some who might not be heard in mainstream social media.
Steemit actually pays a small amount of "Steem" and "Steem Power" for writing, commenting, and curating posts. Users can upvote with their limited "Steem" for only the best content, as opposed to the deluge of infinite "likes" on Facebook. In this way, the community decides what to promote and demote.
Medium is similar to Steemit, but tends toward journalism "proper". Instead of the cryptocurrency model, it uses a subscription model. It's free for writers to contribute and earn, but it requires a paid subscription for reading over three articles per month, a la the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. This keeps standards higher than the ad-supported model of Facebook and Twitter.
As for my own content, I blog about what I know, often stretching into things I research and learn about. An IT professional, I gravitate toward technology-related topics, but not in a purely "gadget worship" style, like "what new features will Apple put into the next iPhone? What port will they get rid of next?!". Tech today is pervasive (AV setups and virtual meetings are a new focus for our Toastmasters club), and at the heart of an increasing number of both good and bad societal trends, two sides of the same coin. I think of the future that my son will inherit between now and the end of the century, as I outlined as both inspiring and worrisome in my first blog post.
Social media itself as an impactful technology follows this paradigm. First, for the negative side of the coin:
Tip of the Tinfoil Hat: (this sounds like a paranoid rant, but is totally real.)
A powerful cabal of tech companies are not only sharing your personal data with the NSA and other government agencies, but in many cases are selling it to the highest bidder. You are not the customer: you, along with the content that you generate for them for nothing, are the product; the advertisers are the true customer.
This underscores the importance of controlling your own data and digital identity, as they can be used against you. We've all heard about people getting into trouble because the wrong person found them on social media drinking a pina colada or wearing some ridiculous hat out of context. (Of course, ironically, my blogging avatar happens to be doing both of these things. And, case in point, this cartoon is never identified as a likeness of me in context of the original post.)
On the positive side of the same coin, Steemit and Medium do not share data in this way. And because they are off the beaten path, there is a healthy distance between my blog and my “real” life, both personal and professional. This is important if I am to truly think and write freely.
That being said, I write each post with the understanding that it will live publicly on the internet forever, everywhen (yes, actually a word), and could be accessed by anyone at any time. I keep a measured and professional demeanor even when injecting posts with levity and whimsy.
I have also read and connected with a diverse community of other outliers. These include a South African footballer/SEO analyst, an American with sometimes opposite political views from my own (but who is always civil), and a Venezuelan whose water was shut off.
There is a growing despair that the aberrant behavior that plagues mainstream social media is just a feature of human nature and sign of the times. These anti-”social media” social media networks are evidence to the contrary. But these platforms will only succeed with courage on the part of each of us to choose wisely where and how to express opinions. It doesn't have to be on the terms set by a small handful of companies, bent on suppressing that choice.
I am open to comments on my blog posts on Steemit and Medium as appropriate, with the understanding that those comments are, of course, public. In other words, it is still social media, after all, so please, just don't be an idiot.