This is probably going to be my Thursday project, going through my list of people that I follow and writing an entry on why I started following them, and still follow them.
I'll begin with the first guy I followed on here: @beowulfoflegend
But first we've got to go back a few years.
Like... 12.
I was getting into World of Warcraft, and had little idea about what the Hell I was doing. I played a rogue, because I had been playing too many stealth games and thought it would be similar (it wasn't), and then tried my hand at a paladin thinking a Holy spec would be more in line with the in-character story I had come up with.
That was life on Argent Dawn, an RP server.
I wasn't in a guild, because I didn't know how to join one, knew close to nothing about my class, but still, another player, @alladesria invited me to join a group because quests were a bitch in those days. It went well, I got an invite to her guild, and then I met @beowulfoflegend.
I'm definitely NOT saying this is what he looks like RL.
Anyone who plays MMOs is familiar with the friendships can that develop. After all, these are people that you're talking to for sometimes 5-6 hours a day. There was IC chat, OOC chat, questing, guild events, and it's easy to become better friends with an online guildmate than people you know RL. We've been friends ever since, surviving grad school, writing challenges, job hiccups and personal tragedies.
Also it's nice to do out-of-the-blue critique of pop culture, video games, movies, TV shows, and make definitive links between them and classic literature. Hey, we're English majors, it's our blessing and our curse.
So, last year he started posting links to his blog entries here on Steemit, and in the beginning I had no idea what exactly it was supposed to be. I had a blog after all, and a twitter account, Facebook page for my book, all to build up that magical x-factor called "exposure", which anyone in the publishing industry knows is code for "bust your ass without pay so someone influential possibly might think about considering to buy your book in the future, and then off-handedly mention it in mass media so you make enough money to get a yacht.
Yes, like fishing for whales on here. :)
I'm an adjunct professor, meaning that my opportunities to work are dependent primarily on my seniority, enrollment figures, and if I've kissed enough academic ass to be doled out a class.
This Spring... that didn't happen.
It wasn't dire, I'd planned and saved for this, there are safety nets in place, but it left me with a lot of free time to write, and @beowulfoflegend was happy to talk about the Steemit platform. No money required, just post content, don't plagiarize, don't be a dick, reply to comments, comment on entries you like. Simple. And it pays more than ad-clicks on Wordpress.
So I made an account and a week later I was approved, and wrote my "introduceyourself" post. And a month later? Still following him, but dude. C'mon. Memes? ;)