Greetings Fabulous Felines and Hoomans of Hivelandia and surrounding communities! Hope this day finds everyone happy and thriving!

It has been interesting to follow along in the Alpha Release of LeoFinance's THREADS, along with all its attendant spike in activity and excitement!

I know the whole idea of "Microblogging" has already been much discussed... and perhaps is never far from people's minds, especially following all the various "moments" involving twitter, Elon Musk, Donald Trump and various controversial "deplatforming" storms we've seen over there.

Yes, I do have a twitter account. And yes, I intend to used Threads, from time to time.

That said, I'm not really a microblogger, but I can totally see the appeal for those who are not really writers, but still like to share a few quick thoughts.

Are All "Ponds" Ultimately the Same?

My experience with virtually all social media is that it tends to be dominated by the top 1/2% of users, with pretty much everyone else basically "shouting into the wind;" words and thoughts nobody will ever see or hear.

I suppose we'd all like to think that social media — including Hive, LeoFinance and other communities — are primarily meritocracies... but are they really?

In many instances, it seems far more likely that unless you know and are friends with the right people, you can look forward to a long uphill climb. Or you can perhaps buy (or "invest") your way into some influence and visibility.

Invisible Content

Sometimes, I actually take the time to "lurk" on the recent Hive posts within certain tags... just watching what people are publishing, in a sort of "live stream."

It's pretty amazing just how much content that is quite worthy swims by in almost complete obscurity. And quite a bit of somewhat mediocre content gets well rewarded... for little reason other than being upvoted by someone who's followed by an automated trail of hundreds of users, none of whom will ever actually see or read the publication in question.

Don't get me wrong, I am not criticizing curation trails and auto voting, merely pointing out one of its inevitable downsides.

But Let's Get Back to Ponds...

As I close in on my 5th anniversary of keeping this blog, I have also reached the point of being approximately "half a dolphin," by Hive metrics.

I have never powered down, and this adventure started with an actual US $50 worth of "skin in the game." So I suppose I have done OK, managing to become a small-to-mid-sized fish.

Even so, I have my doubts I will ever enjoy sufficient visibility to become much more than that. Which is OK... I'm quite content with the results, so far. I'd call them fairly "steady," but I can't recall ever having had a $50 post, for example... and it's very doubtful I ever will.

But most of the greater world probably doesn't have my patience and perseverance, because they come from a reality increasingly mired down in an instant gratification paradigm: "If I'm not rich and famous after 3 months it's a FAIL!" But that's not a Hive issue... same holds true for twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok, Instagram, etc.

And hence, we end up with a myriad "tiny fish" swimming around... and a tiny handful of very large fish. But I'd submit that's just normal across pretty much all parts of the spectrum of life. You're either obsessedly dedicated to something, or you're pretty much a "hobbyist."

I'm OK with being a hobbyist. Just a shame more people aren't... we might have a much larger "Middle Class" on Hive, if they were!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a beautiful day!

=^..^=

Love Cats? Get Involved in Hive's Cat Communties!

If you're a cat lover and often/sometimes post pictures or other content that includes your feline friends, why not become an active part of Hive's growing Cat Communities?

These are some of the more active Cat Communities — why not join them ALL? Remember, you can also "cross-post" your cat posts to them!

HiveCats by @curatorcat is a central "gathering place" for cat content on Hive; promoting the use of the #hivecats tag for feline content!

Cat Snaps by @manorvillemike is a place to post pictures of your cats when you don't have a whole lot to say beyond just sharing your cute photos!

Caturday Community by @saboin is a community where we get to celebrate posts relating to Saturday — aka "Caturday" — our own special day!

Cat Photos by @andrarchy is a "mixed use" cat content community; posts can be just photos or longer, as long as the subject is CATS! It has a lot of subscribers but is not very active.

Cats by @captainklaus (and Sissi!) is another "general" cat content community; it's there, but not very active.

Last, but certainly not least, a special shoutout to the Hive Pets Community which has become quite active and typically has quite a bit of cat content!

There are a number of other feline communities listed on Hive, but I am not sharing them for now as they have not had any activity (by their Admins OR users) since the Steem/Hive fork. Updates as they become available!

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