Steemit can be as much fun as you want it to be and as much crap as you want it to be. When i first joined steemit, i started following people who were trending. I could have very little interaction with them because a lot of them did not engage. Then i started looking at different posts to find people of influence who seemed to have diverse interests. Through that came across a post about the best people to follow on steemit and thats when i came across all the witnesses and other interesting content creators. I now have a lot of engagement on steemit and my experience in the second month has been entirely 180 degree of what it was in my first month. I am actually learning something new about the platform and topics that i am interested in.

A diamond has to be cut and polished before it will shine.

I think this idea from your post sums it up -

"Successful people figure out their environment and learn how to work in it."