Shedding the Social Media Skins

in social •  7 years ago  (edited)

Hey everyone, and thanks for being a part of this whole new wave of social networking. So far, after peeking around Steem, I've been impressed at the quality of content I am finding.

Perhaps many of you have been at this since the days of Hi5, MySpace or Nexopia, and now here we are for yet another stage in the evolution of social networking.

Pioneering this whole phenomenon is not easy, nor is it easy to engage social media without a solid reason to. And so for my first post, I would like to share some of my core reasons for engaging with Social Media of any kind.

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The world is a very divided place. From differences in religion, to political stance, to lifestyle preferences... it is clear that we are not meant to agree on everything, and where the idea that we should comes from I'll leave up to you to explore. With that in mind, Social Media is not really designed to be a place to celebrate our differences, or else we end up with the bottomless echo chamber that we've all experienced in one form or another. When left in this format, It creates more division as a result of focusing on our differences, but is that all there is to be had from Social Media? Absolutely not.

Social Media, as it was prescribed by the early pioneers, was an effort to create a platform which solidified our similarities, and what we have in common. It is through those commonalities that people enjoy the engagement, can effectively plan events and strategies, and provide insightful, quality content that anyone can enjoy or learn something from.

I played a hand many years ago in helping to develop of local social network, right at the same time Facebook was gaining its popularity. And what we had 10 years ago was far in advance of any feature they have rolled out to date. We had live grouped video conferencing, customization of your profile pages, music and video embedding / sharing, and most of all, it was free. The only ads we had on our site were those paid for by local businesses, who we helped promote locally and abroad online.

Needless to say, The Social Media landscape has been downgraded by marketing madness, and has intentionally held out on releasing top quality features and engagement platforms for the sake of profiteering and monopoly over the technologies associated with Social Media. And that brings us back to the world we have today.

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Back to the topic at hand... what brings me back to Social Media? Hope. Hope is what brings me back. I have hope in you, and all of those out there who are seeking a purpose or a path in life. And even though some days may be dim in the sense that it feels like it's me against the world, but since when has that ever NOT been the case for those who seek to evolve our ideas, our systems, and our culture?

And so to those who seek hope, I hope to provide it. But just a fair warning, my aim here it to be truthful, sincere, and as accurate as possible. I will not be here to tell you everything is OK if it is not. I will tell you how I feel about things, and why I feel that way, and as more information is shared, we may come upon some revelations that might prove valuable to the world of Social Media, and the greater world at large. Thanks for being here to check it out! <3

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