There are a good amount of people who use the +fav function as a 'to read' list, I think. But hopefully they read through all your stuff at once and then summarily +fav it all after the fact!

heh, if it was one of my stories maybe xP. But the most recent one that spurred me to this question was one of the covers, which does get lots of faves, but when I checked this user's webpage they had been on FA for 5 years, with a gallery full of favourites, without any real rhyme or reason to their selections and each one only moments apart, sometimes in the same minute so more like seconds. It just... feels like this is just something automatically favouriting pieces but there's no actual person behind it, just tapping the Favourite button without actually seeing the art itself.

I remember some people call them lurkers. They basically come here with an account to enjoy art and fav what they like but they don't really interact with community.

It's fine tbh. To each their own. At least you know they like it.

So there really are operating them?

Yes :D
They just lurk

I kind of started out like that: they're just lurkers, most likely. To this day I still fave somewhat impulsively, though I don't really write like I used to.

Some lurkers just fave anything the vaguely like, and your work will end up on page 3 of their fave list in just an hour.

But it's the hidden favorites users that creep me out.