I started on Thanksgiving 2016 and right away I noticed the same thing. People who came in around the same time or even several months later began shooting up in rep by blowing smoke up the asses of the whales (something I WILL NOT do).

Excellent point about the IQ's... these same geniuses were posting shit and making money hand over fist. With me it seems that the more time and effort I put into an article, the less I make.

I don't know if you've checked out Weku or not. It's set up just like Steemit (before all of the egregious HF's). They haven't launched their coin yet and I'm building as much as I can for when they do. Here's a link.

https://main.weku.io/pick_account?referral=richq11