Yesterday I was reading @lesliestarrohara's satire post which is part of her newly created series, THE HIGH ESTEEMIAN, and I realized two things: 1. I have severe attention problems 2. I need to create my own series on Steemit.

Read her post, dammit. She's on my Rising Minnow list for sure. Her post made me realize that my inability to niche down is the cause of a lot of failures, problems, but also some successes. After all, it was because I went on all over the map in my research that I happened to stumble upon Steemit by accident in June. But I'm tired of me: ATTENTION ISSUES, DISTRACTION AND ULTRA WANDERING MIND......

Specializing in just a few topics has always been my Achilles heel. In college, I was taking graduate level psychology courses (even though I had no intention of getting a degree in psych), martial arts, photography courses (even though I wasn't in Art School), videography, Eastern philosophy, Japanese and I was also a research assistant to an English comic writer. After 5 years of college, I actually never wanted to leave because as corny as it sounds, I loved to learn. Unlike most people who had clear ideas about what they wanted to do after college, I was there to learn and explore ideas. It was the exploration that I loved. From my college days onwards, I have had a vast array of interests and the idea of specializing seemed like an odd and narrow path that I wanted nothing to do with.

But I think it's time I drilled down and focused on certain areas of research in order to make my contribution to Steemit more valuable.

I will always be writing the random, out of the blue post, but I'm announcing that the Secret Writer is officially over for now, and my energies are going into the creation of two new series: YO ROBOT and THAT'S FUCKING SMART. I'll discuss each series below to tell you what they will consist of and what topics to look forward to.

YO ROBOT: A Series To Explore Individual Robots In A Comprehensive Style

The idea of creating a series to explore individual robots came out of my frustration as a writer working for the Interesting Engineering website.

There were many occasions in which I had researched various robots and suggested writing about them. I thought it would be interesting to create a full series that explored each robot in detail. I suggested that I start with Asimo, a humanoid robot from Japan. My boss wasn't happy with my idea stating that it did not have appeal and that it would not do well on IE's Facebook page. Asimo was old news, after all, and had no controversy surrounding it. Even though Interesting Engineering is not exactly a mainstream media outlet, some of the same rules apply to journalists writing in that space. Everyone was happy when my articles went viral, especially the advertisers. When one of my articles flopped, they were less than enthusiastic about my subject choice. I even suggested that I write an article about Steemit and my boss's reply was along the lines of "No way. That would not be appealing to our Facebook audience."

I'm not dissing my boss at IE.

He was doing what the status quo advertising system wanted and he was actually fairly lenient about letting me decide what to write about. He also let me create the images and collages I used for my articles. This is a big deal since most writers never get to pick out their article's images. He was pretty fair, but because I'm a perfectionist and generally hate people telling me what I can and cannot do, my days working for IE began to feel more and more unhappy and constricted. Whenever I get this feeling of being confined, I begin to look for new opportunities. Freedom of expression is perhaps my number one priority in life.

So, YO ROBOT will be an ongoing series that is designed to be a comprehensive look at robots that have been created so far.

Image Source: Wikimedia

Instead of this series being opinion based, like so much of mainstream media, my series will be fact-based. I might add my opinion in some areas, but not much. Facts are strange enough. Some of the robots I'll be covering are NAO, BigDog, iCub and also the numerous realistic humanoid robots like Jia Jia from China and Ricky Ma's Mark 1, the robot that looks exactly like Scarlett Johansson. I want to devote each article to only one robot so you get a comprehensive overview of what the robot can do, who is working on it and why it's being built. There's a lot going on in robotics, as you can imagine, but I feel that the information you get in mainstream media is too superficial and lacks details. I'll be releasing the YO ROBOT series at least once a week, maybe more. Asimo will be the first robot I cover.

My second series will be titled, THAT'S FUCKING SMART.

Taking inspiration from the enormous success of Elise Andrew's I Fucking Love Science website, I've decided to create a series that highlights amazing ideas, people and things that would never make it in mainstream media. Well, some of these things could end up on them, but most would be slashed by editors, bosses and ad executives. Some future topics include: Ada Lovelace, What's A Blockchain?, Nikola Tesla's inventions, obscure theories like Obliscence, Theories of Forgetting and the Problem of Matter, new technologies and materials, things geniuses do, etc. I can tell you what topics I WILL NOT BE COVERING: life hacks, business tips, how to be successful and all bullshit, mamby-pamby mainstream drivel that is designed to manipulate your limbic system instead of giving you real knowledge.

This series will be purposely designed for the Internet 2.0 world where we have evolved out of the Life Hackery bullshit phase.

These new series have evolved out of a desire to make Steemit become a higher quality, idea-driven environment.

Steemit has a unique opportunity to stand out and become a place where truly original, humorous, thought-provoking and unusual content can exist.

Do we really want to become like every other watered down, mediocre blogosphere? I believe that value is created when you offer the world something unique and different. Sure, it's great to have all kinds of blog posts, which represent all kinds of different interests. But let's all get clear on one thing: if the delivery of your blog posts is half-assed, then you're actively ruining the quality and value of Steemit. I think it's time for us all to push ourselves a lot more and deliver something truly exceptional that pushes the boundaries. Mediocre shit is not going to cut it moving forward, here or anywhere else on the decentralized social media space. Competition is coming, and it's coming fast. Steemit is in a unique position, having the first mover advantage. We call can improve our game if we take the future of Steemit seriously. Afterall, it's a fucking blogging platform. The shit better be good.

Okay, let the blogs roll......up to outer space. And next time I read the HIgh Esteemian by @lesliestarrohara, I'd enjoy seeing it with some whale votes. It's hysterical writing, well, she is a writer outside of Steemit, so I guess that's why.....

Stay tuned, Asimo is coming your way....