I don't have nothing against those animations and "upvote/follow" signs and images under your text at the end of your posts.
But I simply don't do that!
The most people here have that, I follow and upvote many of them. But do I follow and support them because of that "follow me" GIF or an "upvote" animation? NO! I would support those people also and without it.
I already said that I have nothing against that, but 
wouldn't be without letting you know what is on my mind!
If there was something what could be called underground Steemer, I would be that! I'm definitely not a mainstream Steemer, I don't follow trends and hardly that I will be inspired with some new popular movement on the network. I have my own things to write about, my way to do it and my followers to support me! And they do support me, even without that shiny GIF "FOLLOW
And I don't think that more people would follow me if I had that image.
That image/animation is often used as a link that leads you on the blog page of the author of post that you just have read. There are really beautiful versions and people can be very creative by making those images with some cool font! There are really original ideas for that, there are also those who make those signs for others, they give them away or even sell them. So you can find a hundred users with same "UPVOTE ME/FOLLOW ME/RESTEEM ME" GIF image and I kinda miss the point of it. But true, it can look good and make your post look more colorful.
And it also depends on what kind of followers do you want!
Do you want to have followers who will follow you because of your post, or because of you cool "FOLLOW ME" sign at the end of your post?