How Do YOU Decide WHO To Support Here?!?

I have been on here for about 10 months now although sometimes it feels longer. In that time I have learned a ton and grown here more than I initially thought I would. While there are rougher weeks or chunks of time, I spend a great deal of time here trying to not only build up myself by putting out what I feel are quality posts...but to also engage with others here be it as responses to the lovely comments I am fortunate to receive or through me opening a dialogue with others. Being active through Discord has helped me as well as I joined awesome initiatives such as @helpie (gotta give a shoutout to my peeps there). Attending Steemfest in Krakow was not only a memorable experience that I will cherish forever, but it helped me to connect and build relationships that are near and dear to my heart.

This might jump around without much structure as I am just winging it a bit so I apologize in advance if I seem like I have trouble focusing on one thing.

I am a big cheerleader for Steem as a whole. I am not a tech guy so there is still plenty that confuses me and things that I still need to learn, but I love the opportunity that this place provides. I am trying each and every week to soak in a bit more about just what makes this place tick. How witnesses work and what it takes to become one. I want to be more involved here as the days go on and I am really excited about an initiative that I am starting to work on. I do believe that there are extremely bright days ahead, and that those of us here that are taking advantage as early adopters will reap some tasty rewards down the line.

But this got me to thinking, who do you support here? I don't think there are any wrong answers here but I am curious as to how you determine that you are going to throw support behind a specific Steemian. For me it's a mixture I think. I try to throw support behind those early folks that helped me stick around here. No doubt, starting off here can be tough and full of lots of alone time. Luckily the worlds that I am immersed in most of the time which is comics, toys, art, movies, and basically anything involving the nerd world...is pretty strong here as far as support goes. Don't mistake that for a large community or a powerful one. We are small and fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of Steemit accounts, but very supportive towards each other. Kind of like how I see the Silver & Gold community being. As I'm sure it is with tons of other communities that I am not even aware of. Support from within which is great. We all want the communities that we are involved in to grow and prosper here.

What I am more curious with is outside of that element, how do you determine who you put your support behind? For me it's basically friends or people I struck up good conversations with. I had a whole new world of friends that I wanted to support after attending Steemfest. Just through my own blogging or reaching out on others posts, I have become friendly with people so far outside the nerd world. These are passionate people that have the same outlook as myself regarding this place and want to not only grow here but to help the platform grow into a juggernaut! I throw my support behind lots of those people as well.

People that do tons for the community and are fighting the good fight. Those people earn my respect and support as well. Some of these people don't even know who I am but I show them the love from time to time as I know they are working towards making this a better place for all of us.

What about the whales? I don't mean to sound ungrateful so I hope this does not come across as such...but what do you all look for? I have gotten to this point of a Dolphin with literally no whale support. I have had a few larger accounts show me love a handful of times in the almost year since I have been here, but I don't have "whale support" as lots of my friends do. So I am curious as to what you guys look for when deciding to throw some love towards a Steemian? I have friends who have a whale supporting their account to some degree and lots of times it has come by them kinda….whale hunting. I just don't have that in me so I am wondering what it takes to get on your radar? I know I have personally struck up good conversations with several of you. I even had a really nice time and connected super well with one certain whale at Steemfest just to be blown off time and time again from this person with each and every attempt since. Kinda discouraging to be honest...

How about supporting from within? I mean in the form of self voting. Do you do that? I know it's a touchy issue that is not black and white and some feel very strongly one way or another regarding it. I self vote myself. I have invested lots of fiat into this and while this place is somewhere I have made tons of friends and I love reading, writing, and interacting here...it's also an investment towards my future. I take it very seriously and self vote my pieces as I am (usually) proud of the work I put into them. Not comments but just my pieces. I have 0 problem with anyone who self votes their work but I don't like those that only do that. For me personally, spread the love around. I know there are certain users here that pretty much only support their own work with very little support going to others. I will NOT throw my support behind those folks.

Overall quality pieces are things I also get behind. I find it super exciting to throw love to a new user or even an existing one when a piece or two by them catches my eye. I also try (although I can be better) to show love to lots of smaller accounts. Even if the subject matter at hand is not of interest to me, if I see the efforts being put forth by a user here on a consistent basis, I shine some love down on them.

So I want to know...how do you determine who you are supporting on the regular here? Lets strike up a nice dialogue in the comments below!!!

Thanks for reading my thoughts.

Blewitt