Why circle jerking isn't so bad
I am sure by now we have all seen some variation of the meme above. It has been floating around for quite some time and used for any manner of arguments. Before I get too deep into this one, let me be clear about one thing. Abuse is abuse. I don't condone it at all, if you come away from this post thinking that abuse is okay, then you totally missed the point.
What I am saying, is that circle jerking isn't necessarily the horrible thing that everyone makes it out to be. There is a line in some of the American Pie movies where the dad (Eugene Levy) explains that (oddly enough) jerking is totally natural. Let's take out minds out of the gutter for a second and unpack that.
Say I am following person "A" on Hive. I start commenting on his posts and upvoting him because he writes really good stuff. In turn, he gets curious and starts reading my stuff. He likes it and begins following me back. He starts upvoting all of my posts and commenting on them.
Then lets says person A writes a post and mentions that they have been following persons B, C, and D for a while. Since I have been following person A for a while, I know he has pretty good taste, so I check out persons B, C, and D.
Surprise, surprise, I really enjoy the stuff from B, C, and D as well and I start commenting and upvoting each of their posts. Once again, in turn they get curious about me. Turns out they like my stuff too and they start commenting and upvoting back on each of my posts.
Let's say that happens two or three more times. Due to the fact that Hive is a community drive platform, those connections start to intertwine and grow. Before long, if you were to look at one of Asher's charts, you would probably see what looks like a pretty solid circle jerk.
This is multiplied even more when you bring individual communities into the mix. Imagine what a small (or large) group of people would look like supporting each other within a community...
Isn't that the whole point?
Personally, I think the key comes down to the quality of the content. My opinion is that circle jerks (or voting circles) aren't inherently bad, but supporting low quality content with them is.
In my time working as a "referee" for the Sports Talk Social community we were bombarded with all kinds of abuse. There were quite a few instances of circle jerking. I was always a bit hesitant to flag first until I got a chance to look at the content.
In some cases it was two sentences and a picture that had been stolen from Google. In other cases it was outright plagiarism of an entire article. Those were easy to spot and make a decision on. However if a handful of people were writing high quality content and following/upvoting each other, is that really so bad?
Isn't that just the natural evolution of a social community?
I'd hate to think that I would ever be hesitant to start supporting someone because I was afraid that I would be accused of circle jerking. Even worse, retaliated against by someone due to their misconception or erroneous perception.
Like I said, some people abuse the system for sure. I don't support that at all. Bad content is bad content. I guess that is subjective though, and probably a topic for another post. However, I don't think it is fair to say that all voting circles are bad simply because everyone can't agree on what is good content and what is bad content (besides some clear exceptions).
I just know I still see the term circle jerking thrown around in posts and Discord with a certain amount of contempt and disdain. I think it is important that we take a hard look at what Hive is, what we want it to be, and decide if we are focusing on the wrong things.
Change my mind!
Disclaimer - I have not to my knowledge ever been accused of being in a circle jerk. This is just a line of thought that I have kicked around over the years as I try to understand Hive and grow my account here.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
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