I can't remember the last time I heard gunshots here... This used to be a weekly occurance where we'd hear "pop! pop! pop! pop! pop!" and I'd wonder what poor soul breathed their last all alone in some darkened alleyway.
Long ago, I stopped reading the local paper and watching the local news, preferring to delve into global issues in "The Newspaper of Record" The New York Times, also known as "The Old Gray Lady" or "WaPo" better known as The Washington Post.
There, I could elevate the discussion in their oonline comments section, and escape for a moment, the violence that plagues our region.
When I started my Twitter account way back in 2010, the original intent was for it to be a "facts" repository. A collection of whimisical notes that one could snack on, that would be forever evergreen.
The Value of Evergreen Content
When I first started out on the net, I was attracted to content that was interesting and timeless. I'd watch videos from Riddle, and Bright Side, all day long.
I learned so much, and marvelled at their ability to relentlessly mine facts from the world around them and generate evergreen content that would never grow old. However, life interveined for me, and my Twitter account (one of many), turned into a place to vent opinions on politics and society.
When I setup my Steemit account back in 2017, I made an intentional decision to leave it free from political discussion. Thus today, Hive has become a sanctuary for me; kind of like a little place in the country where I can escape from the chaos of city life.
Rebranding
A few weeks ago I found myself deeply drawn into an angry give-and-take about something political over there, and thought "what am I doing this for?" It wasn't making me happy, so I took a deep breath and decided to pivot back to the original intent for my Twitter (now X), account.
If I'm going to be using X to promote Hive and InLeo, I don't want them seeing angry screeds about current events. The rebranding into a Facts account, more aligns with the type of evergreen content that I enjoy consuming on a daily basis.
A student of history, I'm known here as a sort of two-legged factoid machine, usually sought after whenever we have trivia get-togethers.
I'm that weird guy that knows who the oldest Beatle was (it's not who many think!). What the second tallest mountain in the world is (everyone knows Everest), and what a Dummy Contract is in the music business.
Some other examples of what I call "walking around knowledge" that I like to learn, is this interesting video of 15 Words You're Probably Saying Wrong. As a
native English speaker, we sometimes don't realize just how difficult this bastardized language of our is to learn by non-native people.
I love watching videos such as this one about How to Pronounce Qatar Properly. I love reading and learning new things, and since I'm into all things hidden and esoteric, was surprised as a kid that I'd been saying Aleister Crowley's last name wrong ("CROW-ly" like the bird, instead of "CROU-ly" like "Crowd"). That's "The whole of the law" indeed. :)
Things like that.
Since tweets are indexed by Google (like a webpage), I plan to populate my account with thousands of these little factoids, so that they'll be searchable on the web. My hope is that years from now some music student wanting to know who the oldest Beatle was, will come across one of my tweets, and then see the Hive link in my X profile and decide to pay us a visit.
I've also invested in some new software that I hope will help make my graphics pop. You won't see the results in this post as my hand is still hurting, and I've taken the pain as far as I can with this post.
Leaving these digital breadcrumbs of evergreen content is I believe crucial to the future of Hive. If the saturated crypto crowd represents a city, I want to reach that adjacent audience in the suburbs, exurbs and out in the country that I can pull close to us by sharing evergreen content. Think evergreen, and let's bring them home to Hive.