No, conspiracy theories are not a good way to describe the situation, and certainly don't help people believe you if they are doubting the legitimacy of a submission.
Another user postulated the same could have happened in the opposite direction (trolls trying to discredit this submission), I told him he might have a point, you label me as a conspiracy theorist.
That's for sure fair.
you didn't just do that. you edited your comment since I replied to it, so my comment now looks out of place.
(And there is some difference between "fake" and "just signed up to help promote a thing". And yes, suggesting that is also somewhat of a conspiracy theory, but one where we know that people asking their users to help upvote and promote a HN submissions happens regularly at least)
This post was in the first page thanks to dang, who decided to let me make a repost, after this comment generated a lot of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23589798 now 6 months ago
and this post I created immediately after got huge interest although being only visible in the "show" first page because it was "flagged": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23591953
and that is just the standard policy of HN.
But you could have just discovered most by yourself just checking my account info, instead it looks you are prone to see conspiracy behind everything.
I am not saying that you "faked" anything, and don't think you did, but understand why it looked suspicious to other commenters, because it looks pretty much like what happens if someone tries to game the system by asking others for upvotes.