Also, what if this is an actual viable way to “market” for an open-source project?

I am fortunate enough to not market my stuff:

If somebody finds and can make use of it. Great.

In the other case who cares? Didn’t hurt or cost me anything to publish it.

Fake GitHub stares have other implications: Typosquatting is a real issue and fake stars make it more convincing that it is the genuine project.