I never had any support by a whale and also don't expect that to happen.
I see self-upvotes as an act of self-love and encourage my followers to do so! This is also out of selfish reasons, because I prefer to have SP-rich followers to "poor" ones and the best way to grow, is to also give a big percentage of your VP to yourself. Doing this, my followers grow and in the future, when they upvote my posts, their vote will have a bigger weight, which is good and helps everyone. So self-upvotes are a social act and if for example you do 60% self-upvotes, the 40% you give to others will grow in weight more and more and everyone will be helped.