Youve been really in-depth!...on a normal day I wouldn't have read something this long at an odd hour like this..it's 1:49am in the morning over here..but you caught my attention right from the start...nd I read nonsos post for clarity.
I get where he's coming from. My friend and I had a conversation and he was a little heartbroken, apparently he'd put in so much work into making posts this week and he hardly got upvotes, he got annoyed and said something, Hive is biased and I think I made a post regarding that issue...and I tried to explain things to him..at first it might seem like you're not getting that attention because you come from a country of less power and popularity..it surely might seem that way...I get to see spanish posts being curated by appreciator a lot...and some bangladesh posts curated by bdvoter.. it used to get annoying until I noticed that some of my Nigerian friends are also getting votes from this two curators too...the realization dawned on me...hive is like real life... everything works with building connection...and like you said difference in culture is a barrier but then there's no way any one can dispute how good you are when the evidence is clear...they might not upvote you like you deserve but then the fact that they even actually upvote you means that they know you deserve it and as time goes by and a certain understanding begins to grow, then things would change...
But I don't think we can ever strike a balance in issues like this...we Africans would always feel inferior because of the things we've had to go through and because of our experiences..but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be friends with someone who's English, or French...if we both connect well then surely we'll share a lot..that's what I love about hive..I've made a lot of friends who are miles away and we've even shared a lot than even my own people ..and one thing I've noticed that'll surely always affect us is that we Africans most times like to compete against each other..we love to be better than the other person so they'll worship us (I'm just generalizing though, not all are like that)... I've noticed how some cultures who carry themselves together and they grow...I've seen that my fellow Nigerians are beginning to do this..nd it's great, if we grow together and build more connections then we'll all have more stake and with more stake comes more ability to affect change...
I don't know if I made any sense, but you'll pardon me, I wrote this with a sleepy eye...just couldn't resist the urge to comment..
I love how vast you've come in trying to understand cultures and trying to have a taste of how the outside feels like...not all would want to go this.
Sorry for the slow reply, I really wanted to reply to you in particular cause you left me two awesome comments in 3 days.
I want to see more people, as you say, carry themselves together, not only based on nationality or ethnicity, just based on the fact that we are humans. It's hard to do it across all borders because shitty resource distribution creates a massive cultural gap (which is one of the things I was indirectly talking about here) and most people all over the world are too busy trying to figure out how to survive to care about what happens elsewhere.
I guess where I'm different is that people are one of my biggest passions and I would like one of the main focuses of my life to help them understand each other better. It's tricky cause I can't force them and sometimes I get drained because I also need to figure out how to make it sustainable.
As for hive...you can often find other reasons but I think people are not curious enough. From my perspective, Nigeria gets generous upvotes considering there aren’t any Naija whales, but it's kind of out of pity, or from curators who curate randomly.
I think there are probably more Nigerians here than any other country, some do great and some not so well. And it’s not always about quality but that goes for all of us.
I really hate the idea of supporting people out of pity. If I am giving it’s because someone has gained my respect or is authentic or original or I think they deserve more than they are getting. I don’t want to pity Africans even if they’ve had it hard, because pity doesn’t allow for equal relationships.
I know this is an awkward topic which is why I feel I need to express it, because if I don’t, most westerners will not. It has to do with the passion that I mentioned above.
We are kind of lucky at hive because nobody cares about any of us, at least those of us us who don’t have massive wallets or go trending often (I know my Hp is more than a lot of people here, but most larger accounts don’t care what I’m doing lol).
Anyways, I hope your friend stays with it and feels better about hive. It’s a strange grind but we can learn a lot from it