Not really. The trending list is also based upon human recommendations.
This will always face the problem that humans will shy away from reposting or recommending anything too edgy, deep, or controversial, even if that's what they prefer to read themselves.
Login to reply
Replies (2)
but upvote is not always like. upvote to me is 'something that others should see'. so it should be immune to seeking mainstream popularity
Upvotes don't really count toward trending. Just replies and reposts. Maybe zaps.
And only replies in the first level, which is why bland things trend: they have lots of replies and the replies aren't nested because there is no interaction between the repliers.