Well they kind of do to a small degree. If you know a curator theyre more likely to stumble upon your post.
Say you have one in your discord group. Many of them check the promotion pages there especially if they know the discord group generally creates quality content.

It boils down to knowing where to place yourself and where its most likely a curator will find you.
Do curators vote their friends.. Sure they do but the many restrictions make it impossible to do that on any kind of regular basis.

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