The Importance of Shitposts

Scrolling through my steemit feed today as always I came across a post by @eveuncovered asking us a pretty interesting question. What exactly defines a shitpost? You can find the post here. I commented on the post and It got me thinking more about shitposts and why it's become so prevalent on steemit as opposed to other platforms.

There is quite a bit of frustration regarding the frequency of so-called shit posts on Steemit and its various platfroms and make no mistake shit posts exist. There are plenty of uses creating content for content's sake, making sure we scrape out every reward we can find.

Content bias

When we hit steemit we all looking for content we like and can engage in, I'm not about to go commenting on parenting posts or relgious posts I know nothing about and hence I already have a bias to some content. So when I see for example a Yoga post with a big payout I would sort of get annoyed since I know nothing about it, but to that commmunity it may be a valuable piece of content while to me it's not.

Same goes for the other way around, cryptocurrency is what im interested in and when I post about it many users couldn't give a damn, they only here for Steem and Bitcoin naturally. The deeper more technical part im interested in would only appeal to a small subset of crypto users. Its a two-way street and both parties need to understand that.

Payouts

Shitposting is by no means special or specific to steemit, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit are filled with them so why aren't people as upset about it as on Steemit? Because of the payouts of course. We all feel we should be rewarded for our content and when we see something we feel isn't worth the dollar value compared to what we're getting you automatically categorize it as a shit post.

The problem with disproportionate payouts is not simply the quality of the content but also the categories. Steemit whales are trying to attract content creators from a range of categories in order to keep them motivated and producing and perpetuating a cycle that attracts more creators into the system. Some categories will have better payouts than others, some authors will too since they've built up an audience or have a whale on their side. Quality content isn't the be all and end all when it comes to payouts and people need to realise this.

The value of shitposts

This may be an unpopular opinion but shit posts do serve a purpose in the current ecosystem. Shitposts allow us to constantly have fresh ideas thrown at us on our newsfeed and make sure our feeds don't get stale. If you were to login to steemit and only see quality posts you'd run out of posts to look at pretty quickly and probably leave the site. Also seeing old posts sitting around in main feeds isnt inspriing it shows the website is not well supported and struggling to gather an auidence and momentum.

Shit posts also help us iterate, so when many people shit post on a certain topic someone can take that as inspiration and produce a piece that encompasses all of those shit posts into one solid piece of valuable content which i've seen happen before.

Shit posts also allow us to sift through various ideas and topics without having to go too deep into the context and give us a breif overview of various issues.

Finally shit posts help us draw a line thats constatnly moving. We can use it as a persoanl line between what should be rewarded and waht shouldnt be. As more users come on board and the qulaity of content rises and payouts become more competitive shit posts will get less exposure and so the ecosystem will begin to evolve and what was once seen as decent will then be a seen as a shit post.

It's all relevant

The fact of the matter is "Shit Posting" is really nothing more than just a members opinion and perception. All content is not created equal, time, energy and access to resources do play a big part in the level of quality brought forth in a piece of content. Because all that is happening it makes it very hard to judge what is good or bad content and it's up to the community of affiliated content creators to draw the line on where a shit post starts and end

How to reduce the frustration of shitposts

The one issue I have with steemit where I feel I could add value as a UX and data analytics expert is the flow of users, interaction and curation of content. This part of the website is clearly lacking and the way content is currently funnelled to users is the main source of frustration with unrelatable content thrown in your face as you sift through something you can relate to and try to comment and add creators you like to hear from regularly.

housekeeping

The other issue is followers, many users want followers for follower's sake and following people shouldn't be taken lightly. You are choosing to receive that persons content consciously and whatever they resteem, so if you don't like it, unfollow them and move on.

Have your say

What do you think about the state of shitposting on steemit? Does it bother you? Are you a self-confessed shit poster? I'd love to hear your thoughts! Let me know in the comments :)