I have a few blog posts which have received only about ~250 upvotes across different communities, plus a GitHub project with just 30 stars.

Still, both of these were really interesting to my future colleagues (not the recruiter) who interviewed me in the last round of the interviews which landed me my current job. They had read them ahead of time and it really shaped the technical part of the interview.

I've had recruiters be “impressed by my GitHub profile”, when I didn't have a single project on my GitHub profile.

maybe not the recruiter but the hiring manager or prospective colleagues who'll interview you later?

not the number of stars, but I like looking what people have done online ie GitHub/blog. I feel like it is a nice thing to talk about.

I know it's an unpopular opinion these days cause everyone wants work life balance and not work beyond the office but it's always nice to see projects you've worked on it does show some interest. also while one can fake GitHub activity it's hard to fake well thought out and cared for projects.

it's easier to fake metrics from your previous jobs like I saved X amount of money for the company or had Y efficiency gains.

I hired many many people and never once I cared about GitHub stars. Not even sure what signal it suppose to be.