Sitting here with my morning coffee, trying to get the neurons to fire... I'm contemplating the eternal undulations of sentiment here in our Steemit community.
There's this never-ending debate about the "necessity" of quality content and bringing value... and the drawbacks of so-called shitposts, spam and low quality content.
I've often been part of that debate.
Here. Have a random cat. Brady in mid-yawn. Ho-hum.
Now, let me preface what I'm exploring here by adding that such things as blatant plagiarism (which is "theft"), identity theft, scams and phishing... I'm dead set against that sort of thing: It Gotta Go!
But Beyond That:
We talk a lot about our hopes of Steemit getting to the point of "mass adoption," so let us consider this:
The TV show "Seinfeld" was hugely popular in the 1990s... and it also very openly billed itself as "a show about nothing."
Random squiggly bits. Actually: Decoration on the hummingbird feeder.
And yet? In the course of its almost 200 episodes, most info I've been able to dig up suggests it averaged a good 30 million viewers per episode.
The Seinfeld finale drew over 76 million viewers, one of the highest ever ratings for any TV show. Ever. Period. Sure, the Super Bowl draws over 100 million viewers... but you're comparing a nonsensical sitcom to the year's biggest sporting event, here in the US.
What's my point here?
Mostly, I think we worry excessively that too much that "junky" content will somehow cause the demise of Steemit.
Whereas it's a valid concern and part of me shares it, I'm not convinced that's entirely true. Just to reiterate, I DO believe scams and manipulation could cause the demise of our community... but not so much just plain average and dumb content. And think about it: Facebook and Reddit attracts millions to their respective oceans of crapulence.
So who is to say that Steemit couldn't become hugely successful as "A Website About Nothing?"
In reality... isn't the vast majority of Social Content "about nothing?" We'd like to think it's "something," but on the greater scale of life...? Not so much...
As a footnote: That isn't to suggest that you shouldn't be original and do your best. And if you feel like writing a dissertation on the effect of coffee on motor neurons, please do. Just be ORIGINAL and create your OWN material.
If it worked for Seinfeld, why couldn't it work for us?
What do YOU think? Were/are you a Seinfeld fan? WHY did you watch the show... if it were about "nothing?" Or was the show actually about "something?" Isn't most of our lives about nothing? Is social media in general basically a reflection of our daily lives, which are mostly about nothing? How do you think that approach would work on Steemit? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
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(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180817 09:38 PDT