Understood, and thanks for taking the time to clarify, it's appreciated.

I guess we could get into the technicalities of 'cancel culture' and 'downvoting' as censorship by popular opinion, but that's a whole other post I imagine, lol.

Ah, I've not been primed by anyone, but I can see how people might try and 'shortcut' the system in the ways you describe.

Great analogy about 'shouting', so perhaps I'll be taking a risk with all the tagging I'm about to do in my next post. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm gonna try it and see what happens because I really believe it'll be valuable to people.

I'm not really sure who's a big fish and who isn't (and I've never really cared anyway, since all that matters is that I'm sharing my authentic value and contributions, regardless of people's apparent status). That said, I'm so touched and appreciative to hear that.

As for following others, it's never really been my style. Christopher Nolan doesn't 'follow' many people, he just makes incredible movies, well worth consuming. Same with Neil Gaiman and his storytelling. They both pour their heart and soul into their content, and society recognizes the value and elevates it for them. I believe society will do the same for me. Is my content Nolan or Gaiman level? Maybe not, but when they were just starting out, they still had the same strategy: create greatness and allow others to do the following & engaging. Hopefully, people are able to recognize my value without me prowling around the platform and engaging... but if not, I guess I'll just 'fail' here, lol.

Still, I notice you have about 2k followers, and you follow about 200. As long as I'm following about 10% of the people who follow me... I'll have the same follower:following ratio as you. Hopefully that's good enough, right? :)

P.S. I noticed your profile mentions MTG. Do you play paper? Arena? Neither? Both?

P.P.S. At the risk of going overboard, thank you again for all your help.