Get Your Weird On

Hive needs more weird people.

I don't mean crazy, or conspiracy theorists who believe in lizard people and hollow earth, though there is plenty of room for them too, and the discourse can be interesting. I mean people with personalities, people who do people things, but people things that most people don't do. Not stupid things like Jackass stunts, or that shit people do for attention on TikTok and YouTube. People who are good at what they do, or are willing to expose parts of their life that normally go unseen.

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In a world where AI is increasingly dominating content creation and algorithms curate what we consume in order to maximize profit at our expense, proof of human is going to get increasing attention. There will be more ways developed to do this, but I also think that it is worth people and the platforms they use to encourage more human content, more human interaction.

Humans are amazing.

But, because we are having all of the content we consume provided for us showcasing only a very narrow band and within our interest silos, much of what people actually do is hidden away. And, the things that people do present, is all in an effort to gain attention, popularity, and trigger the algorithms to amplify the account, not the person. It is all about ad revenue, not human value.

We always get told to stop and smell the roses, to see the wonder in normal experience, to appreciate the small things, but is that what we are doing when we consume digital content through the endless scroll streams? I don't think so. The value of an image that used to tell a thousand words, is now close to zero, as so few stop long enough to actually absorb what they are seeing. Rather than quality, the platforms give the sense that quantity can make up for it - conveniently with an advert placed every five to ten posts, where even the posts are unlikely to be human-made these days.

They are catalogues.

But, I see Hive as different, even though many, many people treat it much like the trash mass media carousels of other platforms. How I see it is that Hive is a place where humans can show their humanity, and interact with other humans. A place where no one has to be a foremost expert, or compete with the publicity machines of stars, but can showcase their interests, their hobbies, their humanness.

Get their weird on.

Have you ever thought about what makes you unique? It is an interesting question to consider these days, because "unique" is a comparison to others, and it used to be pretty easy to be different enough to have value, because our communities were much smaller. But in a global digital environment populated with eight billion people, very few people are actually unique. At the DNA level, we all are, but at the personality, looks, skill, thought and every other level that matters to us, there is someone somewhere, that is very, very close to who we are - our doppleganger of sorts.

And not only that, most of us are never going to have a single trait or skill where we are "the best" at it globally. Yes, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, but we are mostly average at most of the things we do, and there can be only one best. The internet allows us to see the best and worst of human, but it discourages us from being ourselves.

Be yourself, and you will be compared to the best to undermine strengths, and the worst to highlight weaknesses.

But there is value in being yourself, even if it is selfish. Because if you try to be someone else, you will constantly fail, and you will constantly have the sense of living in someone else's body, never truly connecting with who you are, or how great you can be, with the potential you have. And, it shows.

The least interesting people are those who try to be someone they are not.

They are also probably the saddest, which might be why so many of the "influencers" end up with mental issues and a fair number of them commit suicide. There is a conflict between what they are, and who they portray themselves to be, and that creates a lot of psychological and emotional stress, which manifests in the body.

Rather than ridicule different, we should explore it.

This doesn't mean that everything that is different is good, that diversity itself is innately fantastic. But rather, we should spend some time investigating and understanding different perspectives of the environment, as there might be value in it. Even if there is no value, at least we will know and can move on to the next experiment.

As I see it, almost all speech should be free, with perhaps the exception of inciting violence. At the bare minimum, all opinions should be free to express, because then, no matter how outlandish or disgusting, they can be discussed. As I have said many times, I would rather have openly racist people I can talk with, than closeted racists who pretend they are not publicly. And, throughout the years, I have had many, many conversations with openly racist people. Good conversations, valuable conversations, conversations that have given me insight, and given them insight. I have also had conversations with people who didn't know they were racist, until they started exploring their assumptions.

Most of those people were not white.

I think on Hive, I am in a pretty unique position through my content, even though I said above that no one is really very unique. The reason is that the way I write can only come from the experiences that I have, which means that there is no one else who has had the same experiences as me. There are plenty of overlapping similarities for sure on individual aspects, but as a collected experience, no one. And, no AI can predict what I am going to create next, unless it knows what I am going to do, each interaction, and which of the thousands of tiny aspects that will trigger a thought will lead to the creative process.

Maybe one day, but not yet.

Every day I write, and it has been over 2000 days consecutively without a break, has been a proof of humanity, because it is an expression of my unique experience. It isn't the amalgamation of bits of content, it isn't an aggregator of topics based on what I have read from the news aggregators, it is my thoughts. And these thoughts are not visible for anyone else in this way, except for those who find it on Hive.

That has value.

At least, I believe it has value for an audience of humans. But, it might not have value for ad revenue models, nor at a corporation level that benefits from selling advertising space and market segmentations to influence the audience into buying into a product, or a concept. There is value for you, the consuming audience.

Humans.

You might find it weird, you might dislike it, you might not care for it, you might think it stupid, unintelligent, basic, sad, disgusting, or glorious. It doesn't matter - because you found it, you thought about it, you take away from it what you do. The value is generated in you, not in the content itself, but the filter of content coming from real experience seems to make a difference in what kinds of actions follow.

Stop reading guides about how to create better content, and just start creating content that represents you, all your strengths, weaknesses, quirks and whatever else you are willing to share with an audience and have them discuss it, judge it, be part of it, learn on it, and progress from it.

Speak. Grow. Discover your voice.

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]