@williamwest. I just joined this platform pretty recently, and found your post interesting. I don't really talk about myself directly in my posts but express myself through writing about topics that are deeply profound to me. But, something that has happened lately is that I am a college student who doesn't really resonate with college anymore, and my parents are perturbed by this fact. And for the first time in my life, I am starting to be true to myself and although my parents tell me to be happy, they fear that I am heading down a path that won't bode well. It makes me sad, not that I don't have their approval, but that they think I am unhappy, because for once in a long time am I really being honest and true to myself and I'm pretty fucking happy for that. I have more passion and energy and don't have it sucked up by trying to veil my true self. I think although you have some valid points about how Steemit has monetary incentives for the circle-jerk, I would argue that Steemit is great because unlike in traditional social media channels no one really knows who the fuck each other is on here. And because of that, we are much more honest and transparent with unveiling who we really are like you have just done in this post.