1 Full Year on Steemit, My Thoughts - Gratitude - 5000sp Delegation - Questions for V4vapid

in #news7 years ago (edited)


Few people have been as fortunate as I have on Steemit.

This past year has been an amazing ride with all of you, and as such, I'd like to give thanks and share some of my thoughts with you today.

Passion, Perseverence and Consistency


When I look back on this year, I can't believe how far I've come.

I would never have imagined that I would have more than 2,500 followers (debatable), close to 70 rep, and enough voting power to make or break someone's day.

I started at the bottom with nothing and clawed my way up slowly to the position I now hold. There's no magic formula to divulge or secret wisdom, for me it's all about putting in the extra effort, improving as you progress, learning from observing others and, equally as important, learning from your own mistakes.

The Importance of Community


Whether you're a regular poster in politics, a member of the MSP Discord channel, a part of @teamaustralia or just a curious mind commenting and replying to posts you like, being part of a community is a crucial part in speeding up your progression as a Steemian.

When I joined Steemit a year ago, I was what you might call a Reddit Refugee looking for a new home after witnessing the banning of several communities like r/pizzagate and r/operation_berenstein. The bannings were preceded by the complete flooding of r/politics with CTR shills and the brazen mod censorship in r/wikileaks, I was searching for a haven from the rampant censorship.

What I found on Steemit was a small but lively community of truth seekers dedicated to the cause and mostly making posts worth a few cents to a dollar.

I didn't come for the Steem Dollars, I came for the underlying blockchain. I felt, as others surely did, that Steemit provided a unique way to fight censorship. Since there are no moderators or advertisers on the block controlling the flow of information, it seemed to be the ideal solution. What you posted was preserved on the block, period.

The friends I made early on debating issues, discussing leaks, sharing research and posting with are what kept me going on the platform. The addition of new blood in the months and weeks that followed brought a new sophistication with their posts and raised the bar for the rest of us, myself included.

The community itself was, and still is, the most valuable part of the blockchain.


Manual Curation


A 100% manual curator is perhaps becoming a rare thing these days, but I remain part of this minority. There are certainly as many drawbacks as there are benefits to this approach but as a content oriented person I can't bring myself to blindly auto-upvote accounts.

I have no bots and I don't follow any curation trails.

I generally rely on my feed and resteems from other steemians to find a lot of the posts that I upvote. However, this understandably limits the amount of posts that i come in contact with. At the same time, I would like to stress that I do read 95% of the posts that I vote on.

I have stated elsewhere that I'm trying to promote and foster censorship-free, independent media and investigative journalism on Steemit. The types of articles I tend to vote for are well sourced, well written and well researched. In case you're wondering, I don't like copy and paste material (unless it comes from your own blog or publication) and I don't like sensational and click-bait titles: "The Truth about...", "Why the Left...", "Why the Right...", "What you Need to Know about...", "BREAKING..." - if I ever use one of these, please call me out on it.

Delegation


It's no secret that I have benefited immensely from an incomprehensibly generous delegation of steem power. Lately, when I stick my head out of the rabbit hole for some air, I've been feeling enormously fortunate and grateful to all the people who have supported me along this journey. There are really too many to name but I feel compelled to try. In no particular order:

@jamesc, @ausbitbank, @titusfrost, @rebelskum, @tremendospercy, @an0nkn0wledge, @aggroed, @ramengirl, @kafkanarchy84, @canadian-coconut, @fulltimegeek, @teamsteeem, @johalfiles, @perceptualflaws, @karensuestudios, @frankbacon, @ura-soul, @thatsnumberwang, @richq11, @lyndsaybowes, @rhondak, @gmuxx, @wakeupworldnews, @r0nd0n, @discordiant, @stackin, @sarahabed, @clarityofsignal, @creatr, @jacuzzisurfer, @jockey, @dwinblood, @minnowsupport, @pulpworx, @steemtruth, @goldenarms, @markwhittam, @docdeluxe, @matrjoschka, @lighteye, @thelightreports, @thehoneybee, @jrcornel, @pfunk, @acidyo, @drakos, @dotivoluntarily, @son-of-satire, @benjojo, @patrice ...

Also like to thank: @corbettreport, @reallygraceful, @lukewearechange, @pressfortruth, @dbroze, @sgtreport, @activistpost, @theouterlight, ...

Special thank you to my friend @fortified who made this 1 year anniversary post in my honor and made the awesome gifs at the bottom of this page with his @animate account. I've had some fantastic conversations with @fortified on and off chain I've thoroughly enjoyed talking with you and the insightful feedback you give me.

Giving Back - 5000sp


There are some debts that cannot be repaid but I'd like to do more to give back to the community. I've recently freed up some steempower and I'll be delegating five separate 1000sp.

The first person to receive delegation is @jasonshick who seems to be everywhere in the comment sections these days. Maybe you already have an idea who the remaining are.

1000sp delegations

  1. @jasonshick
  2. @perceptualflaws
  3. @tremendospercy
  4. @an0nkn0wledge
  5. @rebelskum

Note: It may take a few days before I can send them out, patience please ;)


A Few Questions for V



How do you say your name?


It rhymes with rapid.

What does your name mean?


Well, it has 2 parts really.

  1. It's a play on words from: V for Vendetta
  2. It's a social commentary on how stupidity is exalted in western culture .

Why are you anonymous?


I choose to be anonymous for several reasons but the main reason is it allows me to focus on my research. We see time and time again that when certain taboo subjects come to the surface or an investigation begins to expose the powers that shouldn't be, the motis operandi is to attack and discredit the messenger. We see this in the mainstream and alternative media as well. I prefer that my research does the talking.

What's the Deal with Your Profile Picture?


Our eyes are open but we do not see. Open your third eye.

Will You Ever Reveal Your Identity?


Anything is possible.


img: ipinimg.com


V4V-Layer-0-power-heal-placebo_feature-Plain-BG.gif

Vapid-Bleed-NEW-IMPACT2.gif

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I liked how you said you came for the block chain and you grew your account when there were not many users around and it is growing day by day . Congratulations on your 1 year and giving back to the community! Cheers 🍻

For what it's worth, @v4vapid, you have been a tremendous inspiration for me. I see what you've accomplished, and how kind and fair you strive to be, and I think: "that's who I want to be when I grow up from a minnow." You've been extremely supportive, and you're a heck of a journalist. I always knew adding your links to Steemshelves would take a while because I had to read the posts. LOLOL

I'm not as hardcore anti-bot as some, but I don't like them much. People have used them to add value to some of my posts, and I don't complain. But I went head to head with someone who wanted me to do bot curation with The SFT, and I stuck to my guns. MANUAL curation is the way to go, if we want it to mean anything. So I'm with you on that.

Drop by TWB any time you have a spare minute and wave at us. :-)

Great to hear from you @rhondak, thanks for the kind words. I try to be as fair as possible and keep a cool head even when there's a shitstorm-a-brewing.
I definitely prefer Manual curation but there are instances where bots come in handy, idk, i think i'm just a little ocd and it would bother me to know i (auto)voted on a few snap shots of someone's dinner while others slave away for hours creating pieces of art that get overlooked.
I will definitely make a point of coming by the WB in the future.

I'm a manual curator too. I've never tried using a bot yet.
I could see using one though if I knew that I wouldn't be able to get on my computer to vote for several days.

Absolutely, autovoting can be put to good use and this is one example. Thanks for all your support over the year, I'm extremely grateful!

You are welcome. And thanks for your support too.

Hey Mate,
Being a small part of your journey has been an honour. Your integrity, hard work and dedication to the truth is worthy of the utmost respect.
New adopters to this wonderful platform should be looking to you to emulate the standard you have set to be successful in there own work.
Thanks for all the support you have afforded me and the others here trying to get noticed. Thanks for the delegation and most of all thanks for your work.
You're amazing dude.

Aw, I'm just doing what I can. I wish I could delegate much more to all of you!

Congratulations, so proud of you!

Love ya Kubber ❤️

You are also an inspiration to all. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with @v4vapid but @tremendospercy’s support and friendship has made my journey on steemit all the much more worthwhile.

Thank you to everyone who focuses on building communities and supporting others.

Thanks buddy. I appreciate the kind words. I hope you're having a fantastic trip Scotty.

Happy Anniversary, your content is very valuable. Thank you for all your research and I look forward to seeing a lot more in your "new year". <3

I appreciate your support @lyndsaybowes, and thank you for spreading my last post on other sites. Thank you so much!

Excellent - I am glad to have caught this post and learned more about you and felt your heart here. :)

Your posts are always quality and connected enough to reality that they shine light that needs to be shone. Let's keep our centers clear and open - there's much more yet to come in this new beginning ;)

<3

Thank you sir! I'm a big fan of your work here, and I'm happy that my message of gratitude is being heard.

I think you're right, there's much more to come!

Steem on!

Steemit is a lucky place indeed! You make a keen point on delegation btw ;)

p.s. Forever stay a badass

You mean the part where i plan on delegating you power? hehe

I just need to take the time to actually figure the process out. Folks like you are definitely why delegation should have been a thing.

Cheers man, there's nothing to figure out really except that it might take me a few days to officially delegate it to you as there's a waiting period if you end a previous delegation.
All you have to do is use the sp to upvote posts/comments you like. Boom!

That'd be incredible! I try to use my votes wisely but I might have to explore more of this voting meta. Thankfully there's SteemDB :)

You deserve it my friend!

Hello @V4vapid,

Thank you for sharing this thought about a year on Steem. This is really inspiring for me (and probably for many of us), people on Steem need to read more article like that because it give hopes that everyone can make it on Steem (even if some are luckier and we can't control the luck ;-)) but as you says... We all can make it with Passion, Perseverence and Consistency.

I am also really happy to read that you are a manual creator. It's so easy theses days on Steem to be part of a trail (circles jerk ?) and just focus on profit. Thanks for not being part of that. Thanks for being here for the change this blockchain can bring to our (sick) society. Thanks for be part of this change.

This is what I needed to read right now... When I step on your article. No hasard probably...

So thank you !

Roxane

I appreciate this comment very much and part of my message here is basically keep working hard and good things will happen. I believe that. I'm glad that this message is reaching people and my story gives people struggling to gain traction some motivation.
Merci beaucoup :)

De rien, ça venait du coeur :-)

You have done exceptionally well my friend and I'm honored to know you! Check tomorrow, I'm doing a followup to today's post on pedophilia as part of the psychological attack on American values through the normalization of homosexuality.

Thank you @richq11, I appreciate your solid contributions to investigating taboo subjects here and all your support. Looking forward to your latest offerings :)

Thank you my friend, congratulations on your success (If you figure it out tell me so I can stop powering down to stay alive lol)

Thank you for the delegation I just saw this and it sucks to be so busy things get pushed back to the back burner. Despite being massiveley busy with many things in the works both article wise and not. I appreciate you as a friend man and I am truly honored thank you so much again for the delegation and being an awesome human being. Much love and peace. AK.

You deserve it! We need more people like you on the platform and I just wanted to thank you for your hard work in some small way. I've met some amazing people here and you're definitely one of them. I appreciate what you do, I mean that.
Stoked to see what you have in store next ;)

You are the exact example I wish to emulate. I joined in May and, thanks in large part to the various communities I play an active part in, I stand at over 2100 followers. Like you, all my curating on my account is 100% manual. I see community as key to growth on steemit and I am lucky that my community of writers at The Writers' Block is growing at an insane rate.

I am not lucky enough to plough my own money into Steem, but am extremely grateful for the account worth I now stand at.

Your support is always much appreciated.

Congratulations on the 1 year anniversary, I look forward to making my post about this next year.

Oh, and we'll done delegating to @TremendosPercy, he is an awesome bloke who has my 100% support in everything he does on Steemit.

Thanks @gmuxx, I'd love to spend more time in the Writer's Block and get to know some of the good people there. Not enough hours in the day, I guess. I spend way too many hours in the rabbit hole. I've had a serious lack of sleep since joining Steemit, sure many can relate. Happy to hear that the WB is growing so rapidly, that's amazing growth.
TP is top notch!
When you make it to one year and turn around to see what you've accomplished I'm sure it's gonna surprise you too :)

I have never slept so little since joining Steemit lol.

Y'know what dude, I've been sleeping like a baby again since I've been on this extended hiatus from writing. I don't think it is a bad thing to take a break now and again so you don't drop dead mid-post! 😂
I've also had time to really read a lot of the posts properly as it becomes an exercise in speed reading after a while due to the amount of quality writers right now.
Thanks for the kind words further up the comment trail dude, you're a class act Muxxy.

HEY! I'm still awaiting your draft of that historical dystopian novel you're supposed to write!

A break is needed occasionally. I had mine at Steemfest and felt much better for it.

Thanks for your kind words dude.

Same here!!!!!

If only someone would delegate us some SLEEP!