There are whales that sometimes vote, but they are not going to vote for someone if they see it as "sucking up". I have not done a close and careful examination, but like almost any group of individuals, they tend to hang around with those they have known the longest. Some that have been around awhile do greet new members, some do not. There are a lot of people joining all the time.

I remember when I first joined @firepower was greeting a lot of people, he would spend hours on the introduceyourself tag and give a vote and say hello to those new users. He got accused of somehow or another of gaming the system and being a bot by someone. I do not remember all the details, but the accusations were totally uncalled for.

I don't know if he still greets new users or not. But there are groups that try to help out new users. Some of the support comes from low level whales, (I think but am not sure), and some pretty well off dolphins. @greetersguild, @newbieresteemday, and a few others that I can not recall at this moment. Those two groups were formed by people that did not even have 500SP and vote sliders. Yes, like any place in the world there are going to be bad neighborhoods, but not all the "communities" on steemit are exclusionary, Look for a "team" tag like @teamnigeria, @teamusa, @teamcanada, ect...find one for your area, then look in there and see if you can find the support you need.

Meanwhile continue to feel free to use our drop box over at newbie discord chat, I have dropped my long add style comment and now will just be my comment alone with an occasional mention of the communities I try to help via a small vote and comment.