RE: "How Much Value Have You Brought to the Table? What’s Your STEEM Effort?"

Have you ever wondered what my least favorite type of Steemian is?

Yeah, I kinda figured I wouldn't be important enough for anyone to waste energy pondering on that, but I thought I'd tell you anyway.

My least favorite type of Steemian is the type who thinks value is being added to the blockchain by "blog posts".

Mind you, this is excluding people like developers and coders who actually produce something concrete.

I'm only talking about us regular Joes. The bloggers. Artists. Photographers. Whatever.

I came across this post by user @fknmayhem, and my first instinct was to give a clear one-sentence response to the question in the title that asks: "How much value have you brought to the table?"

That answer being none at all.

And it's true.

But it goes for all of us, really.

Excluding the developers and whatnots, none of us have created any value whatsoever.

The price of STEEM has lived its life completely unaffected by our blog posts since its inception - and by all accounts will continue to do so. Hell, the price of STEEM is dependent on the value of Bitcoin - NOT the blog posts on Steemit.

And don't misunderstand: I'm not saying everything on Steemit is bad somehow, and I'm better or whatever. Heck, I put my own stuff right in there with the rest of the stuff posted here. Like I said, in terms of value, I've generated jack shit.

I could quit Steemit tomorrow and it would have no impact on anything. Anything at all.

As a matter of fact, I could commit suicide right this moment and the world wouldn't be affected one iota. That's how insignificant I am, but that's another story.

Just wanted to underscore the lack of ego here.

I'm just expressing my severe dislike of those who feel that their blogging contributions on Steemit are somehow irreplaceable. Or that they are such awesome and talented social media personalities that their level of success on Steemit is somehow earned, making their content valuable.

It can be fiction, drawing, painting, gaming videos... it can be taking naked pictures since your severe lack of intellect or talent makes it the only contribution you're capable of... it can be anything, really.

But it's all equally pointless, let's be honest.

I mean in an objective way.

Subjectively, we can enjoy whatever the fuck we want to enjoy. And that's cool.

But it's jarring to read people's rant-o-ramas from atop of the highest cloud that their ego has lifted them to, claiming they're an irreplaceable part of the Steemit community.

You probably aren't.

And whatever you're doing, can probably be done a lot better by someone else. That someone else may actually be doing what you're doing, but in the real world, making real world, adult money.

Let's remember: it's a lot tougher to get people to pay for your work out of pocket, as opposed to getting them to click on an upvote icon in order to allocate other people's money to you out of a pool.

I have no problem, at all, being the first to stand up and admit this:

Nothing I have ever posted on Steemit would have earned me dime one outside of Steemit.

And that's not some weird form of self-pity, or anything. It's just realism. And I think it's okay to embrace that. It's okay to let go of silly ego that makes us feel more important than we really are.

Also, before someone jumps in and says: "You're being too hard on yourself, @schattenjaeger! Your content is worth something, it's really good!" I say prove it.

Here is my PayPal.

Send me money (whatever amount) and I'll finish the next Black chapter.

Support a literally starving artist. Seriously, I haven't eaten regularly in weeks now.

But you won't. Because real monetary value is entirely different than something being worth an upvote on Steemit.

And again: this isn't me complaining. Or being negative. Or anything. Just don't think you're irreplaceable because you probably aren't. I sure as hell know I'm not.

The lesson here is that knowing to check your ego at the door means this all becomes way less painful.

I accidentally said something smart the other day, and I want to repeat. I replied to a comment about whale votes in @whatsup's post, and said something to the effect of "We all hope for whale votes, and it's natural. But hoping is different from expecting. The former is human, but the latter leads to bitterness."

If you think you're hot shit, and fail to get the support you feel you should be getting, you'll become bitter and whiny. And, ultimately, unlikeable.

Take it from me.

However, like I said, I also find the actually successful Steemians who think they are adding some sort of magical value to the blockchain by dribbling something in their blog, or posting naked pictures, to be laughable.

And if someone gets offended by that, well.

Maybe you should check your ego at the door.