Hahaha! Not to worry. I'm glad you stopped by, anyway!
The truth is that I didn't receive any support for the first few months I was on Steemit and disappeared until I was persuaded to come back and join a group on Discord. That made a HUGE difference. It provided me with the opportunity to meet people who'd been around a while and I learned the ropes from them. It wasn't an onboarding group like Steem Terminal, or set up to build minnows (they weren't around then), but for me it fulfilled that role. And the more experienced Steemians helped me to learn the ropes. Largely by osmosis.
I agree that Steemit is unique. It does provide a broader appeal to those who, like me, are largely defeated by the deep and detailed tech and crypto stuff. It's exactly that to me: cryptic. The other platform that appealed to me was Narrative. It struggled and was shut down and is in the process of being resuscitated in an new iteration. Time will tell.
I like how you included random cat pictures in your blog.
Thank you: it's a hangover from when I wrote learning materials and knowing that dense bodies of text can often be off putting. And then the last few, I did try to integrate into the gumph.
You've hit it on the contest issue: it's about the topic that grabs my attention. I sometimes find I've written about something that would fit into a topic or theme but forget to tag or whatever, and which I should because, as you rightly say, they are a great way to meet new people and find new content.
Appreciate your stopping by!