Nobody Cares That You’re a “Whale.”

People who claim to care are just kissing your ass because they want some of your money.

The constant pandering to “wealthy” people on Steemit is one of the silliest things about this otherwise amazing platform.

Some people (let’s not be coy, I mean me) have the exact amount of money—fiat and crypto alike—in their lives that they need to make them fully happy and content.

People like me, we’re on Steemit for all types of other reasons that have little to nothing to do with accumulating money.

We like to write and have our work read.

We like to create things and enjoy sharing that.

We like interacting with people in a different format than our daily lives. (I’m forced to act like a big dickbag in my daily interactions with people, so it’s nice to be a slightly less large bag of dicks on here).

So why Steemit? That’s the question you could ask and it’s reasonable. Why write on a platform geared towards earnings and money when you could just finger-mash away in obscurity on Wordpress?

Well, some people truly love cryptocurrency as a concept and as an idea. Some people want cryptocurrency to succeed because of how it will help the world, especially the part of the world where other people are unfortunate enough to exist in poverty conditions caused by the way society is structured today.

And if that means being involved in a place where lots of people are running around looking for some blubber-filled “whale” ass to kiss, then, hey, it’s no different than the types of people I have to be around in my daily life in order to accomplish other non-crypto-related goals.

It’s possible—likely even—that I could be reading way too much into this. Maybe the “whales” on here just lucked into a good situation and are just playing around and having fun.

But sometimes, these guys and gals come across as having a bit of arrogance in their station, way out of proportion to their publicly disclosed (on steemit at any rate) value to society at large.

I’ll absolutely dote on you if you’ve, say, contributed substantially to find a cure for sickle-cell anemia.

Or if you’ve provided assistance to the Rohingya or Yazidis who are being genocided.

Or if you’ve given a blanket to the guy down the street who’s fallen on hard times and doesn’t have a home right now.

Anything similar to that, and you’ll get my praise and adulation.

But you can’t really believe that people on Steemit should be modifying their behavior on here or feeling impressed by you in some way just because you have a comparatively large amount of money invested in a cryptocurrency, can you?

There are lots of people who could snap their fingers and instantly bask in people’s glorification of their whaleness.

They choose, though, to just enjoy this platform. To support cryptocurrency by being involved with it. And to only use funds on Steemit that are leftover after giving it back—in an amount that’s sadly still just barely consequential—to people in the world who simply weren’t born As fortunate as the rest of us. (There’s always someone who desperately needs that dollar more than you. Always. And I break my own rules about this constantly. It’s a never-ending battle but a battle nonetheless).

I’m sure there are people who fall into the “whale” category on here that don’t feel, act, or think in the pejorative way I’m describing here.

But they wouldn’t be affected by reading any of this anyway, because they’re already necessarily aware of their amazing luck and of the ridiculously exaggerated value that people on here ascribe to them versus their real value-qua-whales they contribute to society.

By all means downvote or flag this post if you feel the need. I get it. Egos can be fragile. Mine is like porcelain. It’s a character flaw that I struggle with on the daily.

And if the flags send my “reputation” to oblivion then that’s ok too.

I’ll be happy to have had the chance to do something I enjoy and will find another platform on which I can babble away like a raving lunatic.

Either way, if you want to make one positive change to your life and to this great platform, the first thing you could do is make sure that you are creating content that you love and believe in, and that you’re not tailoring your creations to some conception of what any wealthy individual or group on steemit might want.

The community will be enhanced by experiencing your real work, and you will be able to live with the joy that you are creating art, inspiration, and value that is uniquely and authentically yours.