Actually It's the opposite, his meteoric rise was because of whales. They alone have both the power to elevate and downvote everything to heaven and hell. The rest just follows, even if they don't agree with the content they sure like making money and SP rewards from curation. That makes Steemit the perfect self censored machine, if you say something out of line you face the wrath and get downvoted into oblivion.

https://steemit.com/scam/@moonjelly/the-dollar-vigilante-exposed-god-s-gonna-cut-you-down