A lot of very good and salient points, (trying to expand my language repertoire-Salient), made. I still sort of see steemit as a high school type place. I know a lot of the whales, and it is mostly whales talk about circle jerk votes, there is a very good reason for that, if all the redfish and minnows only voted on each others content, then the whales would not be keeping the smaller accounts small.

A lot of new users try to impress the whales and vote and comment on their post no matter how absolutely it is unworthy of a vote. This is a vote to a fellow redfish or minnow that is not available. This is one of the reasons I try to tell new users to find a group, or a community they can be a part of and grow from there.