At some point, everyone was talking about it, I've even seen people in the introduction section writing how they quit their full-time jobs, etc... just to stay with Steem and now, It's pretty much gone with ~100m $ market cap while It was almost 300m $
They got some thousands $ from their introduction posts,( pretty girls mostly) and believed their income will continued like that. I haven't visited steemit recently but the last time i checked some bloggers made significant amount of $ on every post. (because they were upvoted by whales).
It's a thought committee. Steem whales upvote the women's posting their travel blogs, thinking bumping attractive women to the top will get more men, who spend money, to come onboard. Giving $1000s to these women per post? It's just a marketing cost.