In the west we have a saying about "selling out." To "sell out" means to cheapen something that you created to please the masses. It's mostly used for musicians. For example, maybe a band has politically radical music but is signed with a record company, and now all of the radical politics are removed from the band's music to make the music more palatable to a wider audience so that the record company and the musicians make more money by selling their music to a much wider audience. When you try to please everyone, you please no one. But now their music has lost its edge, its magic, its fire. Their music meant something to those who listened to it. It changed their lives, made them think differently, inspired them.
In the United States, this happens just about everywhere. Everything from a person creating a cool app and that app is bought by a huge company and all the life and flavor that made it cool is sucked right out of it. My husband remembers when Twitch, the streaming platform, was in its infancy and there were a small amount of people who streamed games. It was a tight community, and it was all about gaming. In recent times, Amazon bought Twitch, and Twitch has become a mere shadow of what it was. It's corporate, it uses streamers and spits them out. Streamers bend over backwards and will do literally anything for viewers, and they get rewarded literally nothing in return for their efforts. In fact, there's no sign of any artistry at all in the vast majority of Twitch streamers. From the first moment they stream, their intention is to fit the mold of a "Twitch streamer," which is to act exactly how the big streamers act, and do exactly what amazon wants them to do. This is also selling out. This is selling out before you've even created something to sell out.
Places sell out. We have cities in the US that have cultural flavor that get bought out (for money) by your average capitalist trying to make a buck. Thus, all of the delicious flavor gets sucked out of an area. In the US, we're in a dire situation where we can't even hold onto places and culture because of selling out. If you're reading this from another country, your home probably struggles with this from American and European capitalists and colonizers, too. It's rampant. Our very existence is at stake as greedy, soulless capitalists squirm their way in to any and every nook and cranny. Any thing that is created, they find a way into it to suck it dry and make a buck from it. Don't be that person.
Here on Hive, I notice little variety. Most content is meta content that's about hive itself. (Which is all well and good as we're building something meaningful.) I get very excited to follow people from Africa and all over the world, and I can't wait to read about their tribes and life in their villages, and their belief systems. But what we get are "inspirational" posts about making more money or becoming more successful, and how they intend to contribute to Hive that could have been written by anybody. I want to see who people are on this platform. Can't we make decentralized social media not a regurgitation of the old tired formulas that are present in other platforms? Can't we truly be different and actually celebrate a wide range of content, encouraging everyone to share themselves? Show us your flavor. Express what makes you different, not what makes you the same. Don't come here and try to make cryptocurrency content (unless that's something you're really passionate about.) Don't come here and look around at what other people are doing to get an idea of what you should create, looking for a formula. What we have here is a vast majority of white American guys who talk about a small range of topics. Let's be different. Let's not sell out. People who are not white American men... don't try to make white American men content! Hive and PeakD are practically blank slates... a wiiiiide open arena for innovating.
In the '90s selling out was something not cool to do. You didn't want to lose your edge. In 2022 no one even uses the word because it's actually cool (it's the ANTITHESIS of cool) to mold yourself to please the algorithms and the followers. What absolutely astounds me on Tik Tok is that I see Tik Toks literally re-created with absolutely no mention of who they stole the content from, and no one cares at all. It's not even an issue. It's just a normal thing to do.
Share what's special and different about you. Share the thoughts you have that are different from everyone else. And if you don't know what that is because you've always tried to fit in because maybe you were bullied in your life when you showed who you are, creative writing is a great way to discover it. If you're interested in learning more about how you can discover yourself through writing, I can't recommend Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones enough.
I'm seeing a new buzz phrase around here, "Treat Hive like a business." PLEASE do not do that. The LAST thing we need is to bring old white American capitalist men energy from the industrial revolution paradigm into this fresh new arena. How about treating Hive as the ANTI-business.
