Thanks for sharing @steemmatt. Your post is funny but true. Not all trending content is great. Some people use the bots to promote substandard content. I use the bots quite a bit as well but at least I put in the effort to produce quality unique posts.
It is tough on those that have great content but don't have the SBD to promote their posts as content gets buried very quickly if you can't get upvotes in the first hour. @curie is good at identifying quality posts from minnows but there is only so much to go around.
Thanks for your reply. Bots can help when used properly. Some people use several bots at once for horrific content to game the system. What upsets me most is the preset voting trails some authors have that boost up posts to hundreds in hours that I wouldn't even feel good about upvoting a penny!