Creators: You’re Investing More Than Money-
Okay, crypto people, let me ask you something. Who actually loves working for free? Because I sure as hell don't. And if you understand crypto, investing, ownership or digital assets, then maybe you'll understand why I've started looking at social media completely differently. We talk all day about value. Bitcoin has value. Crypto has value. Data has value. Attention has value. A digital asset can have value even though you can't physically hold it in your hand. So why do creators suddenly forget that same principle when it comes to their own content?
Your video is an asset. Your voice is an asset. Your audience is an asset. Your creativity is an asset. Hell, even your attention is an asset. Yet every day millions of us deposit those assets into giant social-media platforms hoping that eventually the algorithm looks down from the heavens and says, “Congratulations, little creator. You may now make some money.” 😂 That's a pretty strange economy when you really think about it.
You can spend hours researching, filming, editing, uploading, making thumbnails, answering comments and trying to figure out what the algorithm supposedly wants this week. The platform gets another piece of content. The audience gets something to watch. Advertisers get an ecosystem to advertise inside. And you? You might get 83 views and a notification telling you to keep creating. Thanks, I guess.
That's what started bothering me. In crypto we're constantly told to understand what we own, understand where we're putting our assets and don't blindly hand over control. Yet creators can spend years building on digital land they don't own. One algorithm change, one policy change or one platform decision and suddenly you're standing there wondering what happened to something you spent years building.
That's one reason I started thinking more seriously about building something of my own. For me, that's Cellphellow. It's my entrepreneurial experiment, my product, my idea and something I'm building outside of whether a social-media algorithm decides I'm interesting today. I'm not saying abandon social media. I'm still creating. I'm still on YouTube. These platforms can be incredibly useful. I've just had to change my mindset from “I work for the platform” to “the platform is one tool I'm using to build something of my own.” That's a huge difference.
Crypto people should understand diversification better than almost anybody. And maybe diversification doesn't belong only in an investment portfolio. Maybe creators need to diversify too. YouTube shouldn't be your entire economy. TikTok shouldn't be your entire economy. Facebook shouldn't be your entire economy. One algorithm change shouldn't be capable of giving your whole damn business a heart attack. 😂 Build something alongside it that has value to you. Maybe that's a website, a product, a service, a newsletter, sponsorship relationships or a community. Let social media introduce people to your world instead of becoming your entire world.
There's another asset we're terrible at protecting, and that's our mental energy. Creators can watch analytics the same way crypto traders watch charts. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Why did that drop? Why isn't this moving? Yesterday I got 10,000 views and today I got 112. What the hell happened? At some point you've got to close the chart. The same goes for your analytics. Make the video. Upload it. Learn from the numbers. Then go live your damn life.
You don't need to check your views every seven minutes. You don't necessarily need to post three times a day because somebody online told you that's the magic formula. And you definitely don't need to destroy your mental health trying to satisfy an algorithm that doesn't know you're sitting there exhausted. Protect your human capital, because that's something we don't talk about nearly enough.
While something is uploading, stand up. Stretch your arms. Move your legs. Drink some water. Walk outside. Look at something that wasn't generated by a screen. Touch some grass — literally. 😂 The original organic content is still outside. Your body doesn't care how many subscribers you have. Sometimes it just wants some water, movement, sunshine and five minutes where you're not staring into a phone.
And then there's AI. I actually love AI. I use it to organize my thoughts, sharpen ideas and help turn some of the mess inside my head into something useful. But I don't want technology replacing the thing that makes human creation valuable in the first place: lived experience. AI can help me organize my story. It didn't live my story.
That's the asset humans bring to the table. Your weird childhood. Your heartbreak. Your failures. Your humour. The business you tried that went nowhere. The investment you were convinced was going to make you rich and instead taught you a very expensive lesson. 😂 The day you wanted to quit. The day you didn't. The mistakes, the emotions and the little pieces of wisdom you picked up along the way. Those experiences belong to you.
So maybe we need to start thinking about content differently. Don't just create content; think about what you're building. Don't just chase followers; build relationships. Don't just chase monetization; try to build something that can survive without it. And don't invest every ounce of your mental energy into somebody else's platform while leaving absolutely nothing in your own wallet.
If you're creating because you genuinely love it, keep creating. If 50 people watch your video and one of those people hears something that changes their day, there's value in that too. Not everything valuable immediately shows up as dollars sitting in an account. But you still need to know what you're investing. You're investing your time, creativity, experience, attention and mental energy. Those are real assets.
And here's the part I think crypto people especially can understand: you are investing something every single day whether you realize it or not. Every hour is capital. Every click costs attention. Every argument costs energy. Every piece of content costs some portion of your life to create. So maybe the question shouldn't always be, “How much money did this make me?” Maybe sometimes the better question is, “Was this worth what I invested in it?”
Because unlike crypto, you can't buy yesterday's time back when the price dips.
So create. Experiment. Use AI. Learn about crypto. Build businesses. Make videos. Take chances. Get things wrong and try again. Just don't forget the most important asset sitting in your portfolio.
You.
Take care of your mind. Step away from the screen sometimes. Build something that belongs to you, and don't let a view count, wallet balance, market chart or algorithm determine what you're worth.
I'm QueenB.Divine, and remember: self-love and self-care will get you there.
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