The "chick in the bikini" is just Melissa Schwartz a good friend of mine.  It's no bikini, although she can choose what she wants to wear.  That's the photo she asked me to post because she didn't like the red wig photo.  She's a grown woman, a known photographer and videographer who's work was the subject of this month's Laika magazine cover.
http://www.laikamagazine.com/

She wants to join, but can't right now because ill guided attempts at marketing this platform have resulted in an influx of catfish and spammers that the system apparently can't handle.  Meaning legitimate new users are left out in the cold.

As for facebook, the difference is that Facebook already had the mind share.  They had it long before they opened to the public.

Facemash was quickly taken down for violation of terms of use of the computer network at harvard.  

Facebook was created as a MySpace for Harvard students and alums and was invite only for quite awhile.

I'm not judging you.  

I'm explaining that your post directly cost steem close to 30 users, mostly female between the ages of 18 and 24.  The demographic you claim you're trying to attract.

I was showing my daughter the platform while it's closed to new users.  She came across your post.
You lost upwards of 30 actual potential users from this posting alone.
Not because of anything I said, but because you underestimate the intelligence of the audience who is reading what you write.

My daughter, her friends?  They think you're a creep.  To quote her *I think he's got something I don't want to catch, issues*

The whole line of thinking in posts like these is sociopathic.  
That doesn't mean you're a sociopath.  In fact I'm sure you're a jolly fellow and if we met in person we would probably get a beer together.  But you are espousing a viewpoint that is in line with the views a sociopath would tend to hold.

You can in fact change people.  Moving hearts and minds through powerful, persuasive arguments and appealing to the inner good in people is done every single day.  You need to have the one thing that is lacking in people with sociopathic tendencies though... Empathy.

Put yourself in the mind of the people you are trying to bring to the platform.  What do they want to see?  Then build it for them and they will come.  But you have to leave the doors open.

Right now money is being spent to attract people.  It's your money too.  

People aren't going to go "ooh goody steemit is finally open, I hope they let me join!".  They're saying, "Wow that was a neat experiment, too bad I missed out and they had to shutter it like that.  I don't want to burn my social cachet by being associated with it, so I guess I'll just give it a pass".
Or worse...

"Yeah  right, some mommy blogger made $10k overnight?  Where have I seen that before?  Oh yeah, every scam ad ever!"

See my point?  Money is being flushed down the toilet and  you're encouraging the whales, which you evidently are one of, to keep doing so.

You can do it, but you'll build a reputation you'll never be able to live down while you watch the price of steem catch up to that of bitshares.

Thanks for the upvote BTW.  None of this is personal.  You guys have your platform, it's neat.  Reminds me a bit of  Friendster and MySpace back in the day.

I am really curious to see how a social media platform built, run, managed and curated by people who hate social media & social networking will play out.  If nothing else it's an interesting social experiment.