I've recently more or less ended my Gemini journey

<gemini://gerikson.com/gemlog/gemini-sux/Winding-down.gmi>

I think it's great the community still has buzz, and that it's probably still growing, but it's not for me.

There's nothing inherent in HTML that leads to vapid "influencer" culture. If you host your own server, you're basically doing what Gemini is doing now, but with almost infinitely more flexibility. It's just that people did that in 2005 and it's "old".