Full disclosure: I did not create these trends myself. I’m a faux master at spotting trends and then co-opting them for my own purposes. Tip: When you find a good idea, make sure and co-opt it before anyone else does. That way you’ll be the one whom people will think invented it, instead of the actual inventor.

On Steemit, you may have noticed the following tags being used on some posts: HQ, FULLHQ and 4KHQ.

What are they and what are the differences between them?

I noticed that @full-steem-ahead had mentioned he wasn’t sure what #FULLHQ meant, so I realized it was time to reveal what this new Super Steemitah post trend was all about. By the time this post hits the interwebs though, these trends will probably be dead, and I’ll be forced to find new ones to co-opt.

HQ

Here’s a HQ visual:

Image Source: Water Lilies Claude Monet

I’m not going to tell you about the origin story of HQ because that might get me in trouble and stir up negative feelings in some human beings. If you are desperate to know how HQ started, you’ll figure out a way to do so.

HQ stands for High Quality.

For illustration purposes, the birth of HQ can be likened to the time in history when the Impressionists swept across the art world. Impressionist artists represented everyday modern life in a new, easily digestible but very high quality, skilled way. It was easy on the eyes, palatable and provided the viewer with pleasing information about the known world. It became very popular.

Bloggers on Steemit are encouraged to write High Quality blog posts that will appeal to a wide variety of people. HQ posts are well-written using standard grammar and contain a lot of useful information. Photos are carefully selected and placed within the post. HQ posts are formatted for maximum reader engagement, too. Creating HQ posts will in theory be capable of attracting readers who are currently not on Steemit. In theory, non-Steemians will find the HQ Steemit posts from the interwebs and become so engaged that they will join Steemit, happily finding and reading more HQ posts within our blogging ecosystem.

Within the HQ genre, there also exists a secret sub-genre called FAUX HQ.

This sub-genre is not widely understood, defined nor acknowledged. Only highly trained blogging specialists are able to distinguish true HQ from FAUX HQ. Also, some bloggers may believe they are creating HQ posts, but in reality, they are writing FAUX HQ. Newbies will not be able to tell the difference. No bloggers use the FAUX HQ tag because they are unaware that their posts are FAUX HQ.

FULLHQ

Here’s a visual of FULLHQ:

Source: Banksy

FULLHQ posts go above and beyond the scope of HQ posts for a variety of reasons. FULLHQ was born out of a desire to move beyond the everyday mainstream HQ blogging world with its “everyday world” focus, and into the subjective and warped mind of the artist. It can encompass parody, comics, art, writing and basically anything that lies on the outside of mainstream HQ. The central identity of FULLHQ is a rejection of the standardized topics of the HQ world, both within Steemit and the broader blogging ecosphere including Medium, online blogs and self-help guru idea factories.

It shares some similarities with the Post-Impressionist movement:

The movement ushered in an era during which painting transcended its traditional role as a window onto the world and instead became a window into the artist's mind and soul.

Source

FULLHQ has a modern, misanthropic, mischief-filled twist. The punk movement is similar to FULLHQ. Viewers of FULLHQ content will immediately understand that the creators of FULLHQ content made it out of a need for authentic expression, not whale votes. This is not to say that whales won’t vote for FULLHQ content, but it is content created “for the fun of it” instead of placating whale topic preferences.

It is an artistically rebellious movement and also encompasses parody, absurdity, criticism, anarchist thought and basically anything that reflects the subjective whims of the artist, no matter how crude or unconventional it might be.

4KHQ

Here’s a visual of 4KHQ:

Image Source: The Persistence of Memory Salvador Dali

Also called “imagination without chains.”

This blogging movement is characterized by supersonic, high octane creativity that goes way beyond the scope of FULLHQ. It’s like FULLHQ but is 4000 times as powerful, either in time spent, bizarre vision or message impact. Only trained blogging specialists can tell the difference between FULLHQ and 4KHQ. 4KHQ is a very new Steemit trend and was born out of the FULLHQ movement. Both movements share rebellious characteristics but only 4KHQ can leave the reader/viewer in a total state of shock, laughter or confusion.

4KHQ shares similarities with surrealism and can be defined as:

A rebellion against all restraints on free artistic creativity, including logical reason, standard morality, social and artistic conventions and norms, and control by forethought and intention. Uses automatic writing, dream material, states of mind between sleep and waking and natural or artificially induced hallucinations. Often united briefly with revolutionary political or social movements.

Source: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~dsbeckma/222Surrealism.html

There you have it. Now it's time for a quiz. Is the following video HQ, FULLHQ or 4KHQ?

Now that I've explained all this, it's time to start up a new trend. Looks like I'll go into Steemit.chat now.

Thanks for your attention,
Stellabelle