It feels like a long time since I posted anything on Steemit and when you're encouraged to maintain a high level of engagement so that you're not forgotten, I suppose 4+ months could be considered a long time - it feels like longer.
I've logged in a lot since my last post, commented a few times and kept in touch with a few of you over Discord but my appetite to sit and create any kind of meaningful content has abandoned me somewhat.
I thought about writing something Fantasy Football related or sharing some thoughts on what I've seen happening on Steemit during my break and perhaps I'll do that another time. For now though, I want to jot down some of the reasons for my break - why I needed it and the gradual build up to what I felt was my "breaking point". To get to that point though, there's a lot to get through...
First Impressions
I joined in March 2021 having learnt a little bit about Steemit from a contact on LinkedIn - he has a vision to reward loyal football fans through a blockchain based app and having written a few football related iPhone apps, he wanted to pick my brain over a few things. I was curious about some of the things he shared with me and signed up shortly after, not really knowing what to expect and with little in the way of expectations. I've blogged a little bit before but never considered myself an accomplished author or particularly good with words so started off by blogging about Fantasy Football and just generally about football.
I introduced myself in the Newcomers' Community and was surprised to see that my posts were earning well despite only receiving a handful of votes. This was nice but there was something missing - something that I felt was more important than earnings and the lack of it was detracting from my experience - comments. I was commenting a lot and slowly making a few (what I considered to be) friends but rarely did they come to visit my content. I was posting fairly regularly and sc01 in particular appeared to like my content and then I realised that some of the well written content that I was enjoying wasn't as genuine as I'd first thought. By day 4, I'd realised that plagiarism was rife and I didn't like it.
The Fight Against Plagiarism
I was told that there's a new anti-plagiarism initiative backed by some hungry beast (I can't remember the name) and I hope that it proves to be successful. When I wrote this post on my 4th day, despite my decent earnings I was ready to walk away. Plagiarism bothers me. Cheating bothers me. Stealing bothers me. It's simply not fair. And fairness is very important to me.
Not everybody approved of my head-on approach and in hindsight, I can see that they perceived it to be a money-making initiative rather than something important. Minds change once you help them with a problem in their own community though.
So my time on Steemit suddenly changed. I wasn't just writing about football and life, I was fighting plagiarism and abuse with a small group of other users. We were good at it - they got downvoted into oblivion and I could feel a sense of optimism that as the abuse disappeared, the platform was growing stronger - @endingplagiarism was born.
A New Birth
We fought against the abusers - requiring more and more every day. 2 hours, 3 hours... 4. The thrill of catching significant abusers was real but the demands were increasing. And the real world suffered.
My 2nd child - the-baby-gorilla was born whilst deep in the anti-plagiarism fight but I was hooked. When I look back on the early days of my new born's life now, I can't help but think that I spent more time here, than I did with my baby. I tried to justify it to the-mrs-gorilla by showing her a number on a screen - a consistent and impressive increase in STEEM Power, a cryptocurrency that she doesn't understand in a world where crypto could be worthless by the time I was ready to leave. But also a crypto that once peaked at over $8.
I didn't realise it at the time, but slowly and surely my feelings of guilt would grow. I was busy fighting plagiarism playing whack-a-mole whilst missing out on the most important things in my life.
Implosion
Things ticked along and it always felt that so much was happening in my Steemit world. The fight against plagiarism became too much to bare. The downvoting of abusers reduced and stopped being effective and I decided that my time would be better spent doing other things. I powered down the account and in doing so, damaged some relationships that I'd worked so hard to establish - many of those that had been working in this fight also disappeared but the Steemit mindset had changed. In many ways, the initiative had succeeded as the fight was now an underlying part of most communities. The abuse and abusers will never disappear but it wasn't my fight any more. I could help when asked (and I seemed to get asked a lot 😅) but I needed to be free of this negativity.
Split Personalities
By this point, I'd split myself up into lots of different gorillas - this account, @endingplagiarism, @fpl-gorilla, @sporting-gorilla and there would be many more to come. Each one was posting regularly, doing too much and the-baby-gorilla was reaching his first birthday - I'd always been with him in body, but my mind was always elsewhere.
With the implosion and split personalities, I felt that Steemit had stagnated. Very little had changed since I'd joined and there appeared to be very few trying to change anything. I'd gotten to know Steemchiller fairly early in my fight against plagiarism - I remember him downvoting a plagiarist who was being a dick to me and it was my first experience of a (-1) reputation. It was a swift and decisive death for that user - it tickled me and we'd spoken quite a lot over the course of the anti-plagiarism battle. Occasionally these conversations would evolve around web development and coding and since it was coding that brought me to Steemit, I decided to give it a crack and hopefully breathe new life into the platform.
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So another personality - my brain needing to work hard again. I tried working with Steemit's codebase and gave up fairly quickly (maybe I'll return to it again now that Steemit's got a development budget). I then started using Steemchiller's API to write a standalone front-end. I made some nice looking progress fairly quickly and produced some features that aren't present on steemit.com. I blocked out all of the shit content and was depressed again at quite how much there still is, accompanying the abuse. But I had a new focus - created a few tools. Some of which help fight abuse and others to help me find the better content and most interactive users. Another Steemit addiction to add to the pile.
The Awakening
Some things are difficult to explain and some things are easy. Some things are logical and others aren't. I've rambled away for a long time now, written a lot and missed out even more.
It was the death of the-nanny-gorilla that eventually woke me up. I can't tell you specifically what it was but something changed inside my head, telling me that my desk isn't where I should be spending my life. It isn't making me happy. Spend more time in the real world. Spend time with my family. Do it now.
So I started to remove myself. I posted less, slowly ended the contests that I was running and made the mental shift away from Steemit. I left my power to tick away, continuing to support other users but I still felt demands - a pressure to do more, to support more. My mind wouldn't leave me alone, it just kept chipping away. A constant "go to Steemit, do good for others", it's still there now, in the background. So I powered down. Shut up brain, leave me alone. I've powered down now, people won't want me there any more. Ha ha brain, I win.
It's a strange feeling to have no STEEM power but remain part of a community. I always thought that the day I powered down, that would be the end - I wouldn't feel welcome any more but this isn't how I feel. As I mentioned before, there are people I continue to speak to on Discord - they keep me updated, they get frustrated, we scream, we laugh, we return. I've mentioned before that having no power has given me a sense of freedom, that there aren't any expectations being set upon me any more, many of which were self-imposed.
That's All For Now
Thank you to those of you for what might seem to be the little things over the last 4+ months. The replies to my sporadic comments and the Discord messages suggesting that I look at the various goings-on. I appreciate it. Perhaps one day, my power will return too (once the shitty crypto that I've transferred it into picks up again) - when it does, it'll be a much wiser holding than it was before.