I have this same "problem". It's something I don't understand as well... I get how certain artists are the popular hot shit, but I don't understand /how/ or /why/ they get picked to be the popular ones...

I am thinking of three certain artists in a particular fandom, and everyone tries to base their style and way of drawing off them...on the chan website, the users always say "You should try drawing more like ---- and ----."