Excellent work, @shenobie. And I love the quotes from the movies you selected. The Layer Cake is a must watch for the school of life, in my opinion, and Gattaca remains to this day in my top 3 favorite movies of all time.
There is indeed a TON of noise out there on the interwebs and Steemit is certainly no exception. The sheer volume of traffic online and the near impossibilty of sorting through it all really highlight the fact that networking and connections are crucial both in life, art and any kind of business venture (although those three elements do seem to have a way of intersecting that can make them difficult to distinguish from each other) :-)

I really learned how true this is when I finally went solo and opened my own English school in Japan after working for other companies in the area for about 7 years. It was a big wake up call in regard to the importance of maitaining relationships, speaking well of others and sacrificing short term gains for long term gains. Underneath it all is the notion of community. No one rises without the support of others and no one will support you if you lack the fundamental decency to make a positive and sincere impression on others.
The online community, with its added elements of global reach, semi-anonymity and sheer, epic size creates a very different type of playing field than the type of old world of offline networking and promotion. But the principles are the same, no? Principles are such a beautiful thing. So timeless, applicable and, in a way, transcendent of the given situation in which they are applied. Futher, would add that there is actually more opportunity online than off but it seems to take a kind of hyper leveraging of your skills. I've read so many stories of people finding the right angle via the right principles and intent and than almost having the thing 10, 100 or even 1000x itself. Of course they did put in the time and work (those lonely long hours of the artist) but it paid off in the end because they did it right.

I'm happy to have crossed paths with you @shenobie. You strike me as one with a good heart and a sincere desire to do things the right way. Good luck with building your audience and sharing your work. I, for one, am already a loyal follower.