If honest people like you still walk the face of this earth then believe me , it’d be a better place for all of us and this is also applicable to Steemit as a platform , a community and a big and yet not grown social media. 
I’ve seen lots and lots of people do this , when I just got in , the first thing I know is steemengine and I used it for quite a few days and when I got to realize it’s not vote it , they just take my upvote and follow and I get not what I was told to get . I moved on and since then , my music has brought many to me. Before now my following are much more than my followers but with honesty and hard work, I have more followers now. 
I totally get the concept of you not bragging about you followers but I’m certain it’s a proud thing to be able to tell you got them without cheat, now that’s worth bragging about. 
I totally agree your steem power contributed to 50% of the numbers of followers you have right now , this is very simple to understand. 
Talking to a friend, a teacher and a mentor today through the comment section of her post @reddust 
She stated that .... 
> We need all the help we can get cause so many bad things happening in the world today.

It is not only in the world , it’s happening right here on steemit and we actually need all the help we can get to stop this . Thanks @acidyo for such a wonderful topic of discussion