RE: Hey Steemit Royalty, your votes are worth more than anyone else, and you've effectively deemed my blogging interests worthless, so I am forced to cater to yours.
Some of it appears to be calculated.
When I started on Steemit, I was absolutely surprised when my first post received a 300 dollar payout that it really didn't merit. My theory is that the whales were upvoted everyone's first post to boost excitement for the platform, which is why the "introduceyourself" tag had such a high payout. This made a certain amount of sense. Like the old rumor that slot machines are programmed to pay out higher on the first game.
Right now, it seems that they are trying to reward "hot girls" who join the site, in order to give the community wider legitimacy. Similar to a club that offers no cover charge for ladies.
It seems that they are working to curate the demographics that show up on their site, but in the process, the content itself is suffering.
You are spot on.
Bingo!
Overheard from the board room business plan meeting: UPVOTE PRIORITY: Boobs and SteamPimp Marketing bloggers. Anyone caught upvoting art, music, photography, food, literature or any other low-capital topic will be removed from the SteamPower pool; condemned never to be upvoted again by anyone who matters, assuting the account and all its contributions to be thrown under the steemtrain forever onward