Punk Backstories: Rhett Downs | Where there's Hive, there's home

Have you met Rhett Downs?

It's possible that you have read one of his books if you're into reading fiction. Rhett is a writer and published author of 3 books. Although his name may not be as familiar as some other authors, he sure managed to do pretty well by pursuing dreams to become a published author. Rhett, now 35, got his first book published at age 31 and since then, 2 more came out. Like many other writers, since he started writing and had the dream of becoming a professional writer, he had his fair share of people advising him to get a normal job. He got so tired of people not taking him seriously that he snapped at some point, to the degree that he lost a few friends that could not forgive him.

They could not see past their own judgment

It's quite sad if you think about it, that your closest friends, who you've known for 20 years, can't see how passionate you are about something, and don't even bother to read any of his manuscripts, while still having an awfully painful judgment against Rhett to pursue his dream. These so-called friends, who he truly adored were very narrow-minded people, so it turned out. When they parted ways, Rhett fell into a short depression, it was hard om him and he even started to doubt himself for while. Until some new online friends tried to lift him up.

While browsing online like a zombie, he found a place called Hive

If you've felt depressed or a writer's block yourself, you probably know all too well how it feels to endlessly browse on your socials or click from one website to another one. You're consuming what's on your screen, but you're not actually recording what you're reading. This behavior is usually part of a downwards spiral and hard to get out unless you have a bright moment of realization or someone else that steps up to show you this isn't going to get you anywhere. One good thing came out of this endless browsing: Hive. He never heard of it before, and he wasn't actually looking for a new place to share his content at all until something piqued his interest. This place called Hive had quite a few chillers on social media, all sharing each other's content as well. He started to follow a few of these people to find out more about this blogging site.

Down the rabbit hole he went

He thought he just bumped on a new social website like F.book and stuff, but the community members would probably be offended if he were to compare it with that. He soon learned that this site was a blockchain where you can earn cryptocurrency for publishing your content if someone likes it and drops a vote. Wow, that sounds much better than that negative bullshit going on at F.book lately. Although he had no experience dealing with any cryptocurrency yet until the day he joined Hive, he decided to just jump in and see if this was for him.
He learned about storing his keys safely and about all the different frontends that he can use for different niches. And there was more, as there are a ton of communities set up where you can publish your related content so that they are nicely bundled for like-minded people. He was reading about so many things he never heard about before during his first days as a member on Hive that he started to get troubled eyes. He decided to use special sunglasses that would make reading on a screen easier on the eyes.

Introduction post and engaging

As he went through the introduction section, he noticed the @lovesniper comments, a curation account with support from another big curation account that votes for under-rewarded quality content. It was mentioned every time that it's good to write a decent introduction post on Hive before starting your journey. There's even an example of a good post in there. This was actually very helpful, according to Rhett. And so he took some days to think about and write his introduction post. Once done, he was so relieved and wanted to publish it quickly as he was very excited to see how many responses he'd get. Until he realized he didn't think about the right tags yet, oops, this was all new to him. And honestly, quite the challenge at first. But once he found some tags, he published and he decided to start engaging with others on the platform as he noticed some really cool people there. He received many comments back and he loved it when they visited his introduction post afterward. He went to sleep quite late that night and when he woke up, he had a pending reward on his post of $100! He could not believe what he saw. Is this really happening?

When there's Hive there's Home

The monetary value was awesome and a true motivation to keep going! But the best thing about finding Hive was that he felt like his old self again. Maybe even better than he ever felt! He started to crawl out of his shell and he started to connect with people all over the world. He met a girl in China and a guy in Prague. The best thing about these connections was that they were trying to lift him up, instead of bringing him down like his former mates. It must have been ages since he hung out with a crowd that saw the good things in people and took the time to compliment them about it as well. He was quite used to hearing all the negative comments, but nothing positive in between. It was not that weird that he fell into depression. In these few first weeks on Hive, he learned a lot about himself, what he wanted, and also what he didn't want anymore. He wanted to meet more of these people that he could share his passions or just have a silly chit-chat during a boring moment. They made him feel welcome and at home instantly. He felt that where there's Hive, there's home.

I bet this will be the title of his next book, what do you think?

Previous Parts of my Punk Backstories

Helen Wilkinson the music therapist
The Bartender Tales with Alistair Richmond
Zayn Villa's Tinder Date

Thanks to @themarkymark for creating the @punksonhive!

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