It was February 5, 2018 when I first created my Steem account. The story on how I found out about it was a bit funny.

It was September 2017 when friend texted me about this 'new site where we could earn some crypto and turn it into real cash'. She said that you can post anything and earn from it. Your art, stories, and even memes... literally anything. Of course it didn't make sense to me because it seems scammy - why on earth would I post some random memes on the internet that I don't own and earn from it?

The rewards for your content is not quite a new concept to me considering bloggers, Youtube creators, "influencers" and stuff earn from posting although it may be indirectly. But, what really discouraged me was the way it was explained to me that you can earn even though you don't own the content you're sharing. It's a red flag of course, but my mistake was I never looked more into it as I was caught up in a lot of real life shit.

How it caught my attention

Sometime in January 2018, there was a massive drama in my art circle. One of our colleagues posted a work of my friend and claimed it as his. Considering this cunt can literally draw works himself, he decided to do the lazy thing to earn some ca$h, sacrificing his dignity and friendship. Such a shame, but I live for some drama so I investigated more on Steem.

Since my works were done, I had nothing else to do so I had all the free time. I read about the blockchain and even though I didn't really understand all of it yet, I decided to create an account. I remember very well I was at a coffee shop using their wifi and setting up my account literally saving my keys there as well. XD

I reported that abuse to Steemcleaners and even there were a lot of us who reported it, the post wasn't really downvoted because of more lies coming from the abuser, which confused Steemcleaners and is understandable. I don't know if you'll remember this but @guiltyparties, yes he did plagiarize it and lied about it being ''settled''. He has now been outcast and most of us stopped talking to him after this.

So yeah, because of an abuser I was able to create an account and learn.

My first intro post

...was very unique cos it was an original poetry and art but none of you mfers noticed it which was a shame. Losers. XDDD Jk of course.

_{I even self-voted this hahahaha}

During this time, bid bots were RAMPANT. There were a lot of shit on trending that got a lot of votes and of course I was confused why. I saw their wallets and confused the heck of me why they're sending SBD to another account. It took me a while to realize what they were doing. :D

I continued to explore and engage/connect with people on Discord.

Then I did my second intro post that is more about myself but I still wanted to be semi-anon but still it didn't get the amount of votes that I expected cos my thinking was "This is a lot better than the ones in trending so where are my upvotes bitch?????????". The entitlement LOL.

I continued to observe what works until I hit the sweet jackpot.

My first Curie vote

I had a brilliant idea of painting my eye on Photoshop and do a step-by-step so it will be a "longer post" and of course a realistic painting always works.

This post got me a @Curie vote and got me into Trending (I think). Looking back, it's now funny how I did this. I painted this using a MOUSE. Yes a freaking mouse on a mouse pad cos I didn't have money to buy a tablet back then. And also funny how I used a basic air brush and also just traced the picture of my eye for the 'sketching'. Hahahaha.

After this, I managed to be a curator in Curie and then all the fun began. :D

Curiexperience

Apart from making content, I found myself curating in Curie. I remember it took me a while to become an official curator as we had a bit of a training first. It made me learn a LOT of things including blockchain stuff (this is where I learned about decentralization), originality, how to spot quality works (and how to make em), how to spot plagiarized posts.

This is how I learned to become an "FBI" and was able to report some abuses on chain. I was a good detective which made me rethink my career path but I love art more than that so I didn't submit my resume to the FBI even though I know they will need my skills.

Of course, this is also how I met some of my on-chain friends (in no particular order plz I'm not gonna rank my frenz): @elfranz, @veryspider, @svemirac, @justineh, @randomwanderings, @carlgnash, @vadimlasca, @jazzhero, @rasamuel, @rubencress. I've lost touch with some of them now, but they were some of the people who stood by me, lifted my very down spirit, accompanied me through my depressing times, supported my artist ass and overall just being awesome. Also special mention to @veryspider (come back plz) she was the one who first called me Hiddi, and that nickname is still with me.

Some of my most memorable early posts

Tortured Blindness was the post that got a funny reaction. I really felt like a genius for doing this and I think it is my most genius post ever. XDD

As you can see here, it looks like nothing. Even though it says "Pen and ink drawing" it's just text. My friends were like "Uhmm, did you forget to post the images?? XD" and I was like "haha no". And a bit later one of them figured it out and submitted this post on Curie. They were freaking out like WTF is happening???? Why is this nominated on Curie???

Until it got a Curie vote. LMAOOOO some of them were losing their shit. Until they realized they just have to toggle "night mode" on to see the images. The night mode was a new feature back then so there's not much people using it yet. To those who were using it already they would've seen the work immediately. Because you know, you have to be in the dark to be able to understand it, right, hehe.

Another one was a Comedy Open Mic entry which was me shitposting with style. XDD Peak hiddi comedy right there.

Work Hard To Reach Your Dreams was me being on peak depression.

_{Censored cos this post ain't gon be NSFW so just go to the original post if you wanna see it hmmk}

Lastly, Not Alone post was me confessing that I have PTSD.

I was able to become creative and used the line breaks to my advantage. It was crucial to the storytelling and I'm still proud of this post.

You see, I was "hiddenblade" for a reason: I didn't want to be that open and vulnerable especially on a place where text is immutable. But I became confident enough and learned that immutability is a nice advantage to tell a story. That blade isn't hidden anymore.

Thanks to plagiarism, I found my Hive love story :P

I was doing a lot of detective works and reporting them to the appropriate curation groups to unvote or downvote them. I was doing it because I couldn't stand seeing an abuser getting rewards on Hive.

I saw OCD was voting a plagiarized post and I normally don't message curation groups directly (I usually just report to steemcleaners) especially not on a DM but I was a bit desperate since the post was about to pay out so I decided to just message the OCD boss @acidyo. I didn't even know if he will see it in time or if he will even respond to me but you know, desperate times call for desperate measures.

I've always thought whales are snobby hehe, and I know there are already a lot of people messaging them in hopes for the juicy upvotes so I didn't want to sound like that's my intention. I didn't know that much about acidyo, so I didn't know how he would react. Surprisingly, he replied after an hour.

I didn't expect him to be this nice. Like I said I didn't know him much or what he does on chain. I only saw his CS:GO gameplays but didn't really check on comments and stuff like that.

Since then, we had tiny interactions on OCD Discord since I became a curator there too then came a time where we just started talking everyday. Not to be cheesy and exaggerating but I felt a connection between us despite me not even knowing his name or what he looks like, but when we started talking personal stuff we just vibed and it felt like I've known him for a very long time.

_{Yes bitch, sadness cos you've never interacted with me early on until today despite seeing me on the chain constantly, we could've talked way earlier than this}

Fast forward to 2023, we are currently living together and have nice plans for the future, like you know, what a normal couple does. XD

I also messaged the original creator to let her know that this unfortunate situation became the bridge for me and acidyo. Funny how I started my account on Hive because of an abuse and now I got a boyfriend because of abuse as well. XDD Had she never responded, I would not have any proof of the post being plagiarized which would make me not report it and message acidyo. So yeah, it feels like this love story just finds its way.

Because of Hive

I could never thank enough the people I've met all these years that made me who I am today. Not only did I gain knowledge and friends, but it also made me realize the importance of a blockchain. It gave the people who feel "powerless" their own power. Gone are the times where we would just wish to be born in a wealthy family or to meet powerful ones to be able to "make it" in life. We are given an opportunity to do something we thought we won't be able to do so before. It gave us all a chance.

Of course nothing is perfect. There are still people who will abuse and will try to take all that power but the important thing is we have a genuine community who cares and does its best to make the world a better place.

I thank the people who continue to strive for improvements, those who show their creativity and authenticity on chain, and those who just hang around. Life got a lot better because of Hive.