Don't feel like a jerk though. Don't just upvote everything you do. Upvote some of your own stuff sometimes, but try to make an effort to upvote others. I just gave you a 100% upvote for like a dollar for your honesty.

If you need to make your comment stand out there isn't anything wrong with upvoting that if the comment is well thought out or a good response to the topic. If you are upvoting spam and low effort comments try to work on that and make your comments better.

You actually get a decent amount of followers if you write out a good comment with some length. People like to read stuff. I go on reddit and for hours just read what others typed and i usually don't even contribute, but here I do because I am building a following at the same time :)