Face it, "minnows" and "whales" are bad labels. Both terms are awkward, passionless, and even have a negative connotation. On top of that, they don't really fit with the Steem concept. There hasn't been growth in active content creators in months, and there is a great divide between the powerful "whales" and weak "minnows". Steemit isn't approaching mainstream use and in my mind one reason is insufficient marketing, including this labelling issue. It may not be the biggest problem, but it's one of them.

<center>![whale minno.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZ9tszjP6Kynz7vbXD8YyXRGqonJq65oMwj5CNwNrwbUm/whale%20minno.jpg)</center>

Insulting the people you're marketing to or people using your product is one of the worst mistakes you can make.

Here is the Webster's definition of minnow.

>1 a :a small cyprinid, killifish, or topminnow
>b :any of various small fish that are less than a designated size and are not game fish
>2 :a live or artificial minnow used as bait

In other words, a nearly worthless thing that's only good for bait.

>Definition of a whale

>it's only an animal in the dictionary, however in investing/business it's seen as someone extremely wealthy who is typically a sales target or basically known for their numbers, not for being a real person. <b>It is not a flattering term.</b>

What does any of that actually have to do with Steem? I think we're more than a security investment like the whale analogy implies.

We want Steemit to grow, we need new <b>active</b> members. Not just scammy curators, but active authors creating content. Although many dedicated people are trying hard and sincerely and there is great content, in terms of growth we are not doing a very good job. Calling ourselves and others whales and minnows is a turn off. They are inappropriate terms, not positive or attractive, and they should probably go away. Maybe they made sense when Steem was starting I don't know. Times change though, let's just let 'em go.

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I love @minnowsupport, @make-a-whale, et al. I think services like that are great and help the platform. Their hearts are absolutely in the right place. Unfortunately and completely unintentionally by them, the labels used are borderline derogatory or at best too divisive, and I believe a turn off to most people in conjunction with all the use of the terms in people's posts.

I don't think anyone enjoys being called a "minnow", and people see "whales" as not people but dollar signs. We need to close the divide and become less polarized. Getting rid of these terms would be a start. Nobody is forcing us to call each other whales or minnows. As it should be with a decentralised community we make an individual choice to participate in a group effort.

<center>![labels1.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmTwArTs6dVLV9NSvdzkqUY4ScowZicZt3BoRhkGQ3GhfT/labels1.jpg)</center>

I also want to put this in context, it's not the biggest problem with Steem to be sure. Our growth issues are largely technical as well, but I do think it's worth mentioning. 

Sidenote: I admit Dolphins are cool though :-)  Everybody loves dolphins. We can all be dolphins in the sea of Steem. Let's cuddle in the Steem as equals, regardless of size.

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Just my opinion. Thanks for reading,

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