image credit: @satchmo & @atopy & @yunkzilla on Steemit.com

(btw, I have paid 20 SBD to each of the four orginators of the #yunk trend in advance of this post. Their yunk contribution is precious to me, and deserving of rewards. If there is a co-originator that I left out, please comment below. I learned that @mobbs is a co-originator, too.)

Bitcoin is getting divorced tomorrow but Yunk has just been born.

All your yunk are belong to us.

You know that feeling that comes over you when you find something earth-shattering by accident, something that has the power to change everything in your life as well as, even the course of history?

Well it is happening to me right this second. I cannot sleep. I cannot eat. I am in the process of being yunkified.

Yunk is now in me. Yunk is me. I am yunk. I will never be the same as before I found yunk. I know you’re confused, so let me explain how this all began.

I first learned of the word, yunk, from one of my students. I just opened up a free Bitcoin School in Kansas City, Missouri last Saturday. Ten people showed up, and one Steemian (a Steemian is someone who is on Steemit.com) named @empath told me about yunk. He didn’t tell me what yunk meant, but I felt confused and intrigued, so I looked it up on Google. It popped up in the Urban Dictionary and here’s an excerpt:

Yunk

The yunk term used on the social media steemit (A social media that based in Steem cryptocurrency) for a community of people who support themselves and the same cause through the #yunk by posting relevant and irrelevant new and original content of quality. I used as a verb that’s yunking is awesome in the strangest way, unique.
It’s started at Steemit chat around 3 hours of random conversation on 7/12/2017. Even though there are different definitions on the word/term, the main purpose started just for fun, by a group of users followed by the “motheryunk” so created the first post tagged #yunk. -Urban Dictionary

The word, yunk, originated on the social media site, Steemit.com. A group of friends were chatting in the Steemit Chat app, in a room named #general. Spontaneously and organically, the term yunk emerged and it was reported that the spark came from a user named @yunkzilla. It was this yunkness that formed, then began to spread the word about voting for the @yunkzilla witness.

Yunk was born.

After being seized by a mad desire to fully grasp this yunk way, I joined the #yunk channel in Steemit Chat to find out who was behind this, and how it came to life. I met @siragrays in there, and she embodied the yunk spirit to an extreme degree. I felt the yunk hooks digging deeper and deeper into my brain crevices. I wanted more yunk. Yunk was beckoning me. Yunk was becoming part of me. I was powerless against the force of yunk.

Now come with me, and explore the meaning of Yunk, as defined by the co-originators of yunk: @yunkzilla, @siragrays, @satchmo and @saywha.

From the mouth of @yunkzilla:

image: @yunkzilla

“After countless messages, countless phones calls, and with countless people out front of my house, I have to set the record straight. I am not yunk or “the real Yunktoshi Nakamoto.” The world didn’t need me and didn’t want to hear what I had to say. They needed the spirit of something collectively. They needed the yunk, so the yunk was conjured into existence by a collective force. This projecting has formed an entity, a way of life, a thought, an all encompassing belief. They didn’t need me to do this, they just needed me to be the spark. Now yunk is everything, it’s all things, it’s no one, and everyone at the same time. Yunk is not something that you understand, and it’s not something that takes long at all for you to grasp. Yunk is just something you never knew that was missing inside of you.” — @Yunkzilla

From the mouth of @siragrays:

“Yunkers do support @yunkzilla as a witness, but I wanted to clear up that these two things are different. @yunkzilla alone is not yunk, but as we all are yunk, he is yunk, too. HE IS YUNK AS WE ARE TOO”. @apsu
Yunk isn’t copying your friends work and getting profit from it.
Yunk respect is the key.
Engagement is not just hellos.
A serious movement that might change the world we are living in and end the over population problems.
Yunk isn’t that serious and a one color palette, it’s more bright and relaxed. Yunk is what we make of it. Yunk can’t change your personality or the mistakes you make, however you can spread Yunk in the way you want it to be, improve yourself through Yunk and learn more.
Yunk has its own planet, town and even train.
Yunk has nothing to do with a selfish movement that only wants to get people divided.
YUNK is open to all people, all races, all languages, all planets, all hashtags and all users (new, old, dolphins, sharks, fishes, and whales).
Yunk is art, research, language, fun, activities, science, wonder, poetry, cosmology, psychology, medicine and more…
YUNK isn’t only about Yunk, Yunk is about you.
A dog’s last name. Do I have to explain it?
Not Better than other people. Yunk isn’t better since Yunk looks for equality and diversity.
Logic. You can simply understand yunk by studying, yet you simply understand YUNK by using it and just yunking.
A flaggers meeting. Since Yunk doesn’t look to shame people, because yunk accepts everything, it’s above logic and accepts even people who hate yunk.
yunk is everybody and everyone is YUNK -@siragrays

From the mouth of @satchmo:

image: @satchmo

“The YUNKlosophy is about spreading good vibes to the people that matter, to encourage content that matters to you. To encourage people to explore themselves and the community on steemit as whole. To make new friends and to forget about enemies. There is nothing adversarial about YUNK. It’s not a cult, but yes we have kool-aid.
This is why it changed me. During my tenure on the internet(my whole life) on other social medias i have trolled a bit, there are times where I’ve been downright mean. But through steemit, I met the people behind the posts after a few hours in the general chat, and then YUNK happened, and it kept happening. It became a community where the door is always open…no literally it’s 24/7.
The Yunknomena drove me to realize that boosting the bottom line would become a monotonous task, boring and un YUNKable. YUNK drove me to care about the people I am interacting with and the content they post.” -@satchmo

From the mouth of @saywha:

image: @saywha

“Our speech became garbled, we started talking in code that I am not sure even we understood. It encompassed the entire chat… for a time. Hours went by, yunk yunk yunk, they were still yunking. @yunkzilla even tried to stop them yunk yunk yunk, it had NO effect. … And then it happened.
Yunk took me over completely, and within me deposited the yunky idea for a tag… A TAG that could surpass all tags. yunk. I went to my post from earlier that day, and was yunked into editing the last tag (it had nothing to do with yunk) and it became the first official Yunk tagged post on steemit…
https://steemit.com/design/@saywha/making-a-band-logo
and more followed….
https://steemit.com/yunk/@saywha/how-to-yunk
I made a simple tutorial on how to yunk… maybe to get it out of my system. I dont even know anymore…
All the while @yunkzilla was trying to stop it. He launched a counter-yunk campaign to try and stop the yunk, only to be adopted further by the yunklings……
What I woke up to the next morning was pure and absolute chaos.
Yunk tags EVERYWHERE
Posts were going to the moon left and right (Im not sure how many people are even left on the planet)
Everyone was getting upvotes
Everyone was getting resteems
We had NEW yunklings. Yunklings I had never even heard of before.
People started becoming Yunkosexual, They started claiming yunk as their savior, as their leader.
All the while @yunkzilla fighting it. All while trying to campaign for witness.
Then it happened.
The Whales came
@kevinwong was the first
Then @roadscape and @rok-sivante
They began upvoting the yunk tag… It was getting out of control. I have to stop it before the yunk tag becomes too powerful.
We have to stop. Or this could be the future…” -@saywha

These are the originators of yunk on Steemit, as far as I can tell. If you were among the originators and I have not named you, please comment (were @reneenouveau and @clevercreator in that first conversation?). There were many yunk early adopters, and supporters that quickly emerged. The thing is, yunk is truly infecting the Steemit platform, and using the tag #yunk is also increasing. Here’s a screenshot of how many posts and comments have been linked to the word, yunk. And you’ll notice that over $4,000 has been paid out to posts that contain the #yunk tag:

What I love about yunk is that it's universal.

It’s kind of like Taoism, but for the digital age. And it requires no specialized training, no schooling, no fees, no permission, no admission, no belief, no religion, no language, no age, no gender, no political belief, no race, no class level, no formal usage. It’s open to all. Yunk can be anything and nothing. You can create your own definition of yunk. It's like water for thirsty humans.

But there is one important thing about those who yunk, and it’s something you must know.

People who yunk give credit to others. Yunk and respect live inside each other. Yunkers don’t steal, intimidate or do violence to others. People who yunk share their yunk, in the same way that tribes have done for thousands of years.

The world’s people need yunk more than ever, because yunk is precious.

It was not born in the backroom of a media strategist’s Powerpoint presentation, hence, it’s not a staged corporate trend, manufactured for profit. Yunk is abundant, just like our imaginations, and nature itself.......and Steem.

Yunk was born from friendship.

It was born from that magical feeling of being accepted, trusted, loved and respected by others. It was born from something that exists in all of us, but which has been left out to rot by our decaying, overly superficial society, and all those who symbolize that superficiality.

Vapid people can embrace yunk, and yunk will not reject them, but they will not embody yunk in its most precious state at the beginning. In time, yes, in time, they will begin to embody yunk.

Open-source software is yunk.

Creative Commons is yunk.

GIFs are yunk:

GIF by @atopy

Co-opting ideas without attribution, stealing ideas, putting locks on innovation is not the yunk way. Silencing others is not yunky, either.
Yunk is air, yunk is your blood, yunk is the sound of your heart beating. Yunk is free and alive when you dream and when you draw.
Yunk is Bitcoin. Yunk is Bitcoin Cash, too. Yunk is already inside of miners. And yunk is in China, South Korea, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, France, Germany and………

And yunk is turning Japanese now, too:

art by @granturismo89

Cryptocurrency needs a makeover. Bitcoin was a technological innovation not a social revolution. Bitcoin is getting divorced tomorrow. Yunk has just been born. Let yunk money be free.

Satoshi is the original yunk.

But I think Dan Larimer is the practical yunk. Dan helped set me and a lot of others free, therefore yunk=freedom. Yunk is unconditional love, too.

Dan=Yunk.

We all are Yunk.

Yunk it like you mean it on Steemit.

(growth idea from mars....hey, by the way, where are those marketing boyz? Haven't seen them posts in a while.)

In Yunk We Shall Be,
Stellabelle

(Bitcoin School info coming soon! Also, don't forget to enter my Steemfest2 Giveaway! I might need to rebrand it as the Yunk Giveaway)

psss: I first published this article in Hackernoon. I am waiting on the editor to approve this story. Let's bombard his Twitter with tweets, begging him to publish Yunk: https://medium.com/@stellabelle/what-is-yunk-410745b70428

Take Action: Go to Twitter and send a tweet like "I want Yunk story on Hackernoon" to this Twitter account: https://twitter.com/hackernoon