How Did I Discover Steemit? How Did You?

in #steemit7 years ago (edited)

I was struggling hard with money earlier this year (and for awhile before that). This was in large part due to: moving from Barcelona to Mexico City with my boyfriend and my dog, and in the midst of that thinking my dog had cancer because of a horrible vet, leading to a ridiculous amount of money spent. Plus other things, life things, that just led to my financial situation worsening out of my control. I imagine many can relate to this.

In June 2017, my best friend, @kindstranger (a joy billionaire, another Jessica, a person who taught me how to be warm, a beautiful and talented designer and editor of all things digital, my partner in soul sharing and, as it happens, in business) told me there was this website that pays you for up votes that she had heard about through a co-worker randomly.

Here is a picture of me in June, keeping it together on the outside, falling apart within:

IMG_6262.jpg

I had taken to being a camgirl at this point to try to get out of the hole, to avoid having to ask my parents for money, and I know some people have good experiencing camming, but I grew to absolutely hate it. Masturbating on the screen for money, pretending that I liked it, making up stories these men wanted to hear—the whole thing made me feel sick. I would watch my boyfriend look at me with sad eyes when I would do it, wishing there was some other way, because he knew how doing it made me feel sick, in mind and in body.

So, of course I jumped on it when my friend mentioned Steemit to me. I am a writer. I even have an MFA in writing to prove it (just kidding, that doesn’t prove much). But I am a writer, I say so now, because of all my writing, all my studying, all my work toward being a writer. Because inside me, writing really helps make me feel like the whole me. When I’m not writing, something is missing, something essential.

That’s also part of the reason I’m poor. I decided to go on a different path, an entrepreneurial one, a traveling one, one where no one tells me where I have to be and when I can come and go. Something inside of me just doesn’t let me live that other way without getting depressed, emptied and emptied until I’m just a collection of holes I’m looking to fill. Not even in a sexual way. Just in a metaphysical way. In a metaphorical way. Since I’ve had my MFA, I’ve mostly done freelance writing, some part-time tutoring to college kids with their essays, some freelance editing. I’ve lived in a few different countries and many cities. It was fine before I had debt, but any accidents or vet bills or medical bills or anything, and that fantasy world was cracked. Well, yeah, life is that way, so it cracked.

So, yeah, I checked it out, this thing called Steemit, and it seemed pretty cool. I knew about cryptocurrency in a basic way, and had a bunch of friends with Bitcoins (though at the time they were mostly using them as a way to buy drugs off the dark web). Still, it was tangible enough to me. To this day, my head isn’t completely wrapped around where the money comes from, but I guess that is also kind of true for any money. Whenever I get sad about money, I have a friend that tells me, remember Jessica, money is not real. My mind finds poetry more tangible than money, philosophically speaking; that’s just how I work inside I guess.

I was kind of afraid Steemit would be too much like Reddit, which isn’t really my thing, but it turned out it wasn’t, that It was more of a community. And my first posts did ok. I had a low-moderate response to my intro post, but still, that was encouraging to me. Plus, I was learning a lot about the community through reading posts, getting to know people, learning plenty of other things, finding other artists, you name it. Steemit, I knew, was definitely a place for me, so I kept writing.

Not long in, I decided to open up about my life as a camgirl, which you can read here. I’m pretty sure it was mainly thanks to @itchykitten that my post BLEW UP. At one point, in the first couple days, it had made over $1000. FOR ONE POST! He re-steemed and gave me some whale tokens and the next thing I knew, BAM SHALAM godDAMN. Thank you so much, @itchykitten for helping me in my early Steemit days not so long ago, for making me realize the potential of Steemit, and for getting me truly hooked on such a brilliant concept and platform (I really do love this place, and now that my college tutoring is slowing down for winter break, I will be here a lot more).

None of my other posts have been even near that level of earnings, which at first made me wonder if I should only be writing about sex (because I was really needing the money), and I did a little bit. I wrote some more cam stories, and those were my most popular. I think more than it just being about sex though, is that I am an open person and I don’t mind sharing things that most don’t like sharing. I think transparency is a necessary part of my satisfaction with life. That’s the thing that made those stories more popular than my others, in my opinion. It’s harder to come by good writing about taboo topics, especially for free on the internet. What do you think? Am I right about this?

I’ve been posting a lot lately about my physiopoetry project Skin on Sundays lately because that has been what has been consuming most of my time along with my tutoring job. That has also taken off in recent months, and I’ve started getting paid by brands (of my choosing, ones that align with my values and fit with my content) to mention them in posts. It is a really cool way to make money, being an Influencer on Instagram, if you maintain quality and integrity by only posting for brands you actually support. Plus, it means more people will see their brand, and because I only post ethical/brilliant/amazing ones, that’s such a good thing.

I do plan to start varying my posts a bit more, not just focusing on poetry. Poetry is such a huge part of my world though, so it will never disappear. Not even close :) And since my last day of tutoring for the semester is Thursday, I will be focusing a lot more time being an active part of this Steemit community of sharers and lovers and investors and believers. I will also invest a bit of energy into getting my loved ones into the community here.

Actually, a close friend of mine, @amyinautumn just posted her first post the other day. She’s ridiculously warm and intelligent and her life is wily-er than any coyote, so I can’t wait for her account to get the love it deserves as she posts more and more. Now, I’m working on getting my amazingly talented boyfriend to sign up and start writing. He’s close. He’s a musician and spends a lot of his time researching and learning music-related things, so he thinks he doesn’t have time for Steemit. But I think he does, and I think he’s going to be here very soon.

Also, I want to mention @firepower here. I read his awesome post about how he got into Steemit, and it inspired me to write my own, because it really made me think about how much good it has added to my life in these six months (a perfect example of the of the powers of the Steemit community, actually!).

xoxo, and as always, thanks for listening, if you’re listening,

@jessandthesea (follow me if you dare!)

Sort:  

Your way with words was what captured me when I read your earliest posts. If I remember correctly, I encouraged you to pursue the writing option. You have a way of putting thoughts on digital paper that makes you seem real, if that makes sense. I am glad you are still around and doing well. Best of everything to you.

Hey, thanks for checking back in! <3 I really appreciate your words of encouragement and happy to hear you enjoy my writing. xoxo

Congratulations @jessandthesea, this post is the tenth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a User account holder (accounts that hold between 0.1 and 1.0 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by User account holders during this period was 2663 and the total pending payments to posts in this category was $3009.80. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, click here.

If you do not wish to receive these messages in future, please reply stop to this comment.

Hello.

Great post (upvote). As for me, I spend a lot of time at work researching new investments and ways to earn passive income. Everyone was talking about Bitcoin and so I researched it and that led me down a spiral of googling until I ended up clicking on steemit.

I'm experiencing the same start you had. My introduction post wasn't as popular as lots of other people's. I posted a few poems but the views on them are so low, I'm not sure how to get people to see them. Even if they hate my writing id like to know.

Anyways, I like to write also. I'll follow and check out some of your poems. If you get time check mine out also @pltorres

Following, and I will definitely check out your poems and give you my real opinion. Most people don't want to hear that, even though they say they do, but it seems like mean it (from your tone? hah). And in terms of visibility here, it must be some mix of luck and skill. Nothing comes without skill, but pure writing skill isn't enough either. Interacting with other accounts that are in the poetry world I think could help. Though, honestly, I don't know either...

You bring up a good point "Most people don't want to hear that, even though they say they do" - That has stopped me from commenting on most of the poems that I read on here. I have some strong opinions when it comes to things that I read (or watch on tv).

For example, something that bothers me is when poets force rhymes. It can sound very Dr Seuss-ish. I think a strict rhyming poem is easy to put down on paper which is why people do it, but it's harder to make great compared to free form poems.

I've also had many college courses on creative writing where we shared our work and most of the comments were "I liked it" "wow" "keep it up" ... none of those things are helpful to me. So I switched majors and went the safer 9-5 route.

pfff yeah the forced rhyme thing is a product of what schools are teaching early on, I think. Teach more contemporary poetry and that problem will likely stop. That's also unfortunate that that was your experience taking creative writing in college. My experience was so different, even as an undergrad. I went to the University of Minnesota mostly, and I just had a fantastic experience. Small, engaged classes. That is probably what drew me to get my MFA. I wanted more of that environment, and that's what I got. Those 2 years studying poetry (and writing in general) so closely changed my life, and were beautiful and heavily impact my life all the time, still.

I was introduced to Steemit by my cousin. Before then i had no idea of about the Cryptocurrency scene. I mean i had heard of Bitcoin but not many people haven't to be honest haha.
Loved reading your story. Great to see others experiences. Thanks for posting you've gained a follower :)

And how are you faring? Has your knowledge of cryptocurrency increased?

Well firstly I've managed to build a whole new pc using steem. Which is an amazing fete. And yes my knowledge went from oh I've heard of bitcoin to daily researching the crypto world.

That's so awesome. I just bought a DSLR camera myself ;)

Wow nice, what DSLR did you go for?

I justttt wrote about it here :))))

Now checking it out :)

Ive gotten annoyed by reddit so much i barely use it anymore and ive always loved math but more importantly computers. Theres a lot of talk on both here yes, some are reposts, but what you see the highest is good content. "Reddit" should rebrand as "trumpit" because poltics, news, trump subreddit just wont stfu.

Yeah, I think the quality you can find here is MUCH higher than Reddit for the most part. Not to say there aren't geniuses roaming around that platform. They are just harder to find. Glad you're here!

Yeah I just don't know what happened, when I signed up for reddit 8 years ago it was pretty balanced, maybe a bit tech heavy, but now it's politics and arguing to argue.

i found out because of @lloyddavis a lovely man i've known in digital social circles for well over a decade. the network part of digital networking and making friends in this space is super important.

It's not only important, I think it's awesome and social and fun. I think some Steemians that are friends of friends of mine are coming to Mexico City soon, and I hope to meet up with them. If it weren't for this community, I bet it wouldn't have even been in the cards :)

I discovered Steem this year, it is pretty amazing and I think it’s going to change the way we post on social media.

I hope you're right about that. Social media needs reform badly.

For me it was a junior at my college alumni event who told me about this platform.
Thank God I went for the event.
Had I not gone for it , Steen it wouldn't have happened
@jessandthesea

haha, those types of "accidents" are the best. that guy maybe changed your life...

I see a lot of myself in this post, but I failed to meet up with the right group of friends to bring me into the crypto fold until very recently. I found steemit via a comment in a general crypto subreddit and just knew it was what I was needing.

I had finally made the decision to leave behind "mainstream" goals borrowed from my parents of just let work consume you while you consume things to forget about it. I dropped from full time work to address mental and physical habits that were hurting me but my funds dipped low during that pursuit.

I am happier, I am healthier and I'm not going back to that way of living. I was trying to figure out how I could ever get an opportunity to be seen with so many word press and instagram profiles that had huge head starts. It wasn't until I saw steemit that I saw my way to help shape a platform from such an early point in its life, built with a technology that I believe this much in...pinch me, I'm dreaming! Your post helps me know that quality content is coming when we work hard to support quality contributions and curation. Following for certain!
"joy billionaire" is cute!

exactly! there are still not that many users here, and it does feel good to be helping to shape the community :) @kindstranger taught me that term joy billionaire, btw :)

Loading...