My advice is to avoid looking at the trending pages @imperialcactus! You'll see mainly the same handful of people earning lots for posts that you'll often feel don't deserve such handsome rewards. This is to be expected, but it's not a true reflection of the real Steemit, the Steemit that celebrates every sincere blogger in the community. Personally I skip past most of the posts with biggest rewards... they are doing fine and it's the less-noticed bloggers needing more attention. I hate seeing quality posts with 2 votes or teeny rewards, it's not very nice for them to think their posts aren't worthy of more. I try to visit all kinds of categories, and I generally click 'new' rather than trending or hot, and scroll down, reading and upvoting the posts that catch my eye, especially 'original' ones and not just info articles paraphrased from elsewhere online. I try to support the artists and creative folk who are obviously on this platform because the mainstream world is brutal and doesn't make it easy to earn a living, and IMHO Steemit is for these people more than the 'look at me' people. I hate FB, I tried to do a Health Page of my own there and even my real friends were reluctant to 'like' anything! I hope you discover the real Steemit @imperialcactus, and I hope that you will fall in love like a lot of us have! :-)