A few days ago, we all got to play the modern day's most popular game of Guess the Shooter.
Par of the course, people on the right were really hoping that the shooter was a muslim, whereas the left had their fingers crossed that the shooter would turn out to be a white supremacist.
People on both sides hope for more shooting to occur - just as long as the shooter is from the opposite camp.
That's not what this post is about, but I wanted to point out the grimness of the sociopolitical pornography that is unavoidably tied to these things.
It was bad news for both the right wing and the left wing, however, since Nasim Aghdam's motives have been revealed to be frustration over her YouTube videos not making enough money. It wasn't islam, it wasn't white racism. It was a YouTuber angry over money.
She felt she wasn't making enough off of her YouTube content.
And then she basically decided she's going to shoot everyone.
Hey, we've all had those days.
Her content? Well...
I mean. That is. Different.
Hey, okay. I'm no one to judge anyone's dancing abilities. Maybe that's even considered good in those circles, I don't know. Personally, I find dancing to be a giant waste of time, but then again I just spent 12 hours yesterday mastering a specific jump in a video game released 1993, so, you know, there's that.
Serious topic, sorry for the light tone.
Many of those dance videos show off her - admittedly good - body, and if making money off of your cleavage is how you want to make it in life, okay, fine. I guess. But for her to expect that she's going to be able to do that at 39 does bring me to the actual topic of the post.
It sets a pretty scary scenario, I think, where people feel so entitled to fame and fortune on social media that if they're not getting it, they're ready to shoot people over it.
The same culture of entitlement can be seen all over Steemit, as well. One could argue it was responsible for the latest failure of a hardfork.
Like I said, if you want shaking your titties to be your meal ticket, no one can force self-respect down your throat (though you may have a price for other stuff being shoved down your... okay, SORRY!) so whatever.
But if that's what you're going to do, you will always be competing in the market with 19-year-olds. And 19-year-olds always win. I mean, if that's the market you choose to participate in. That's just how it is.
This era of social media has really skewed people's perspectives on how life works. How reality works. And I'm not just talking about Dancing Queen here.
I'm talking about the wider phenomenon at work here which is basically people looking at sites like YouTube (and even Steemit) and thinking:
"Hey, there are people doing stuff there and getting paid. I should go there and do stuff and get paid!"
It then leads to:
"Well I'm here doing stuff, why am I not getting paid?"
Eventually escalating to:
"Guys, seriously, I'm doing all this stuff here where people do stuff and get paid! Pay me!"
Completely lacking self-awareness and the slightest insight on how the world works - or just plain common sense, for crying out loud. Yeah, a market for sexy dancing (which I can only assume was what she was going for) does exist, but, like I said, it's not exactly a market where 39-year-old women thrive in.
Just like here in Steemit we can see people come in, share their stuff, and just expect to be paid for participating.
Yes, one can argue that the dynamics in Steemit are different from those of YouTube since YouTube keeps tracks of views and every view is equal, whereas Steemit is a stake-based platform where it's only the votes of maybe a dozen or so people that really mean shit, and if those dozen or so people don't enjoy you or your stuff for whatever reason, you're never going anywhere, ever, but the point still stands.
I'm just wondering when the first Steemit shooting happens. When will the first whale get shot?
I'm not even kidding, I really started to think about whether or not it could happen. Steemit is so full of drama, I'm beginning to think that it's not good for a person's mental health - especially if it's taken seriously in any way.
We've already had a certain somebody threaten a shooting at Steemfest. We all know why, no reason to name him and give him publicity. Now, that certain somebody is a fucking loser masturbating in his mom's basement until he's 80, but theoretically, a more capable nutjob can snap one day. And Steemit is full of all sorts of nutjobs.
A whale stops voting for someone, a whale flags someone, a whale removes someone from an autovote bot...
All these things - and more - I can see resulting in killings.
It's because people take this shit so seriously. Not just Steemit, but internet money-making in general. People leave their day jobs at the drop of a dime immediately as they see some internet money come their way - be it SBD or YouTube ad revenue, or whatever.
The YouTube shooting goes to show why I've always been extremely skeptical of putting all of your eggs in a basket like YouTube; that stuff is fickle and constantly changing that even if you do make it, all of that can go away in a split-second.
Like barbara4u2c who I like a lot. She kept growing and growing and growing her channel, she started getting Patreon supporters - including yours truly - and it really looked like she was going to make it on YouTube.
It took one flag war for her videos to be taken down and for her content to start getting demonetized.
Luckily, Barbara is not an idiot so she's fine with or without YouTube money, but the point is that this shit can be really bad for a lot of people's mental stability.
One should always have a plan B, C, D, and so on. Whatever the basket is, it's never a good idea to have it carry all of your eggs.
The other factor is the entitlement mentality I talked about. The mentality of entitlement is why people still take flags so fucking seriously and make neverending whineoramas about the fact that someone dared to downvote their awesome content. And the community encourages this by always upvoting those fucking whinefests, sometimes all the way to trending.
You get what you subsidize, people.
I've said it a million times and this seems like a good place to repeat myself: you're not entitled to shit, and people can downvote you for whatever reason they please. No explanations are required.
Unfortunately, people like Nasim feel so entitled to social media success, they're capable of completely snapping when they're unable to get what they feel they're entitled to. It's unfortunate, but I think it will become an ever-increasing reality as social media and the money-making schemes that come with it, get bigger and bigger.
I posted this so I can give an "I told you so" when the first Steemit shooting happens when a whale decides to flag the wrong user.
I really hope it doesn't, but I have a bad feeling that all this will have a rather tragic ending at some point.
Oh, and don't be a fucking idiot and take this post out of context to say "@schattenjaeger supports shooting whales!" or anything equally ridiculous. Read the part where I say I really hope anything like that won't happen. I just fear it will.
I sure as fuck wouldn't go to Steemfest unarmed. Who knows what might happen.