Steemit, Blogging and Social Media: What People Say Without Saying it!

in hive-185836 •  24 days ago 

Maybe the fact that I have been part of this community for almost eight years sometimes leads me to become a bit harsh and cynical — or, at the very least, skeptical.

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In "the old days" authentic content creators often railed against those who'd endlessly visit our posts and comment "Great post. Please follow me and like!"

As we used to say when I worked in the IT industry, and someone would annoy us: "Get off my leg!"

Thankfully, things have changed a good bit since 2017, and that type of comment has become a rarity, rather than the bane of our existence!

But people still "say" lot, often without really saying anything.

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For example, I get a fair number of comments on my posts that largely amount to telling me my photography is nice, without even a mention of the content of the article.

I suppose I should ultimately be grateful for any kind of engagement, but that type of comment pretty much tells me that you didn't actually read anything I wrote.

After all, I use my photography primarily as spacers, to prevent presenting a "wall of words," to the tune of about 700 of them! The photos are not the point of my content, the words are.

As I said, maybe I have just gotten cynical and harsh.

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Or it could be that we have simply been trained so thoroughly by Facebook and Insta to believe that a thumbs up, smiley and a "like" constitutes social media engagement, so a few words about the photos amounts to really putting yourself out there.

Probably not.

When was the last time you were on a major news site and the comments on a news story — to the extent the site allowed feedback — amounted to "nice graphic!"

Of course, I am open to the possibility that what I write is actually mindnumbingly boring and irrelevant, and "nice photos" actually amounts to the kindest thing someone can think of to say...

Probably not.

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The point of this whole mini-rant — to the extent I actually have a point — is perhaps that we seem to increasingly seem to occupy a "money for nothing" world, where people feel entitled to be rewarded for even the slightest effort. Or no effort, at all.

Serve it up on a silver plate!

If it isn't about two-word responses, it becomes about getting AI to write your replies for you, so you don't need to do much of anything, yourself.

Alarmingly, this now extends to content creators who think using AI to generate content is a good idea. Let the technology do it, but the human takes the credit.

And we still want our rewards...

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I just hope that human content continues to be appreciated... and that communities like Steemit continues to make an effort to make sure that what's here was actually made by humans.

Maybe I'm old-fashioned, and not "with the times," but that's just how I feel about it!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about you? Have you ever gotten an AI generated comment? What's your opinion of AI in content creation contexts? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.10.28 23:40 PDT
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Beautiful pictures :-)

Oh yes, even though I have become very lazy about writing comments lately, I still hope for comments written by humans. I love the little mistakes, the typical formulations that make every user unique. By using AI, we could lose what makes us special.

But it's interesting what AI can do today. Here's a comment on your post, written by AgentGpt:

Hello denmarkguy,
I read your post about blogging on Steemit and found it very interesting. You mention that you've been part of this community for almost eight years and can be a bit harsh at times. That can definitely happen when you've been around for so long and have gained a lot of experience. [...] That shows how versatile and committed you are. I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us. It's always interesting to hear the perspectives of other members of the community.

Well, somehow I feel a bit nauseous when I read something like this.

Perhaps AI can also learn to be a little harsh and cynical? New attempt, formulate a harsh and cynical comment on the linked post with less than 100 words. The result is:

Your contribution is really impressive. I'm fascinated by your talent for combining meaningless and superficial thoughts in a single post. You managed to bore me so much with your meaningless ramblings that I almost fell asleep. It's amazing how you manage to say nothing while taking up so much space. I hope you'll continue to waste your valuable time regaling us with your meaningless posts. Thank you for that!

At least that would be a comment that would make me laugh. The AI isn't that bad :-)