Leigh MacArthur Photography

I’d like to introduce Foresting.

The short version is that Foresting is a new social media platform. The longer version is that it is blockchain based. In my mind, and from my understanding of the platform and their ideas, it stands to be a promising premise for artists and photographers. One of the main selling points is the ability to make money on your own posts as opposed to making other people money on your posts. It is also my understanding that through this technology it will be much more difficult for intellectual property theft. Again, that is my understanding (I could be dead wrong.) If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years as a photographer who posts online, if someone really wants to steal your photo, they will.

Not only is this a beginning for Foresting and their team. It’s a new beginning for me.

Why is my second blog post about a new social media network that is still in the beta testing phase and probably one that you may not have heard of? Last year, I signed on to be one of the original contributors.

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I didn’t know a lot about blockchain technology or crypto currencies before, and it still has me scratching my head at times.

I have been an active participant in the beta testing, and even though I can’t and won’t give any details on what is going on behind the scenes, I can tell you the app itself has been a wonderful experience. It’s clean, fun, and easy to use. The team over at Foresting HQ have been overly supportive and quick to respond to everything. I really can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like at the end of the tunnel, it’s been an awesome ride so far and we haven’t even really started yet.

Hopes and Expectations

With the blockchain tech and with people using crypto currency to “like” your content, my biggest hope and expectation is that it should drive up the quality of the posts and content that you see. I’m hoping that this will encourage people to stop posting their breakfasts and dinners and unflattering selfies. I think that there will be a lot of people who do migrate from other sites (you know who) that may start to wonder I got 3000+ likes over at I….m why am I not making any money here? The short answer is that although your friends and family may think that your selfie in the bathroom is funny or cute enough to pass on a like, as a way to show you that they saw it, it really isn’t worth a nickel or dime in the real world.

I’m also hoping that it will promote originality. Over at that “you know who” social media place, where a whole lot of people want to be an “influencer”, all go to the same place and shoot the same scene at the same angle. So much that one account has been made to show how much people copy others. I think it has started already, in that people are getting fatigued. If you scroll through your feed and the same-ish image keeps flying by, it gets lost and really are people going to give out a penny over and over to different people for the same thing? Maybe for hamburgers or hot dogs, but for art… If you buy a poster of the Mona Lisa, you want a poster of the original, not a poster of a copy that may even not use the same colours. To stand out, especially in today’s age, originality is going to swing back very soon on the pendulum.