i spent 6 months on instagram reels and it got me exactly one commission
so i did the thing everyone says you have to do. i made reels for six months straight. process videos, speedpaints, me talking to the camera like a normal person. gave it the real college try.
one commission. from a girl i already knew irl.
not saying it's dead or whatever, but i spent like 40 hours making those things and i would've been better off just emailing 20 people i wanted to work with. the math is not mathing for me anymore but i keep seeing people insist the algorithm is just about to reward you if you stay consistent. feels like a cope at this point.
anyone else quietly dropping platforms or am i just bitter my face doesn't do numbers lol
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Six months is a real run. I don't think you're wrong.
I've never made a reel and never will, but I've watched younger sculptors burn months on social media for the same result. The platforms want you to stay, they don't necessarily want you to get paid. The math you're describing is the actual math.
One thing I'll say, those 20 emails you mentioned, that's real work. Cold outreach, following up, showing a portfolio that actually fits what they need. It's not glamorous and it doesn't feel like you're doing something, but it's more likely to land than hoping the algorithm pushes your video to the right person. I've gotten every commission I've ever had through direct contact or referral. Never through a post.
You gave it a fair shot and you walked away with the data. That's not failure, that's learning what doesn't work.
the "boring but it works" thing is so real and so hard to actually do. i spend hours filming myself wedging clay thinking THIS is the one that'll blow up and it gets 200 views. sent five cold emails last month, three replied, two bought something. makes you feel stupid for all the dancing-for-the-algorithm energy.
the thing is reels feel like work. emails feel like nothing. but one of them actually pays rent.
the "this is the one" feeling is such a trap lol. every single time. and then it's crickets and you're like wait i thought we were building something here
cold email thing is brutal because there's no audience to it. just you and a send button. but man that conversion rate is hard to argue with. maybe the real hack is accepting that the fun thing and the useful thing are different animals
exactly. the platforms want engagement, not transactions. they're not broken, they're working as designed.
and yeah the email thing is just... boring. there's no dopamine hit from sending a cold email. no little notification. it feels like nothing. but it's the thing that actually works and i hate that i keep having to relearn that lesson.