Personally Victimised By The Algorithm.

what to do when no one gives a fuck about you (yet)

Today i’m taking you on a guided tour of the mind-warping whirlwind of releasing music in 2025. This post is probably not for everyone. This is for the artists who are teetering on the edge of burnout. Who at times feel invisible or hopeless or like they’re shouting into the void. Who question their own talent with every struggling post.

I write with a lot of incredibly talented new artists and this is a topic that always comes up in the room. Some of them say they feel empowered by the tiktok era because of the control it gives the artist. Others are frustrated with how much time it takes away from making music. Some just feel plain awkward doing it. There’s a huge amount of pressure on the artist to know how to promote their music, which doesn’t come naturally to everyone. I guess we’re all just trying to navigate an industry for the first time, or one which practically changed overnight.
I often see people claiming they’re ‘shadow banned’—I’m way too millennial to know what this means—or the algorithm hates them. Whether or not there’s any truth to this, I’ve definitely felt it at times lol. My viral videos have often been silly and random and never the ones I actually hoped people see.

Anyway, to make this more fun we are going to create some characters.

Social Media = Regina George
You = Cady Heron

Also side note…
I didn’t use Chat GPT to write this (it would be a lot better if I did)—I just bloody love an em dash!

Let’s embark on our journey…

You're about to release the best song you’ve ever written.
The one you swear is going to change your life.
You spend all day filming videos for it.
Take after take of acoustic performances.
Curling your toes with embarrassment as you lip sync the lyrics stood in a public place.
Grab the viewer’s attention within the first second— they say.
This makes you feel a bit like a kid’s TV presenter or an introverted fish trying to breathe out of water.

You’re now sat at home—unwanted butterflies in your stomach—overthinking captions and hashtags for hours.
You send the chosen video to your manager or your friend or a family member for the final nod of approval.
Alternatively, you just watch it over and over again until you start to think your face looks weird.
It’s the first time teasing your new song on social media.
A minor event to most, but a major day in the artist calendar.
You know it’s a great song. It’s your best yet.

Finally, you press ‘post’ and your heart races.
You lock your phone and take a silly little moment of picturing thousands of faces singing back at you on a hypothetical tour.
You wonder how many views the video will reach.
100,000?
1,000,000?
It’s not impossible.
‘Drop the release date queen.’
‘THIS is how I feel.’
‘Bring me back when this is out.’
You imagine what it would feel like to be seen.
Heard.
Understood.

But half an hour goes by.
Radio silence.
Maybe it was just a bad time to post?
You delete and re-upload.
Another half hour goes by.
Still nothing.
Perhaps if you’d just chosen a different video it might have connected.

Days pass.
More videos upload.
A sprinkling of likes here and there.
1 comment.
2 emojis.
Love heart eyes and fire.
You click on the profile and find it’s a bot account impersonating a very glamorous lady.

You lie in bed endlessly scrolling through your feed like some sort of electrical appliance plugged into the mains.
It taunts you with its never ending torrent of success.
‘See you at the Grammys girl,’ over and over again.
You don’t really get the hype.
You feel like a bitch for thinking it.
Another grainy video of a girl singing in her bedroom floats by.
You wonder if she’s ever felt the same.

You look in the mirror that night and decide it’s your face that’s the problem.
You make more of an effort with your appearance in the next few videos and turn up the skin smoothing feature.
Still nothing.
2025’s version of Etta James flashes before you and you watch until the end.
She’s mesmerising.

You look back through all your uploaded videos and decide it’s simple.
You’re just not good enough.
You’re ugly and you can’t sing.
The song was never any good in the first place.
You’re completely and utterly delusional.
How embarrassing that you ever put yourself out there.

It’s death by a thousand punches to the gut when you are so brutally and silently rejected, ignored and unseen.
It feels like you’re standing naked and vulnerable in the freezing cold and no one will offer you a jacket.
Of course, no one owes you it.
It just hurts to want something so bad and not know if you’ll ever get it.

But… here’s what I think, my lovely Cady Herons of the world.
I have a hunch that you might be great.
Or at least you’re on your way to it.
I have many friends who are incredible artists.
Who—in my opinion—write songs that should win Ivor Novellos.
Who have great marketing ideas.
Who raise goosebumps on my skin every time I hear them sing.
And yet, they still haven’t ‘got their flowers’.

So i’m pretty sure when I say this…
It’s probably not you or your songwriting or your appearance or your voice or your caption.
It’s unlikely that you’re shit.
It’s probably lovely that your lyric doesn’t resolve within 10 seconds.
It’s impressive that your work is nuanced and isn’t easily defined in one video hook.

Most social media platforms are oversaturated and people are overwhelmed.
I think most people mindlessly scroll until something feels entertaining or educational or maybe just quite cute—my whole feed is filled with chihuahuas and quokkas.
Social media is a selfish beast that wants to be served.
It’s a spoilt child who has everything it could ever want.
Truthfully, I don’t think strangers want to hear about your life.
I think they want to hear about their own.
They want to be provided with a soundtrack for all their little moments.
Coming of age. Getting married. Breaking up. The place they’re from. And so on.

The artists you see blowing up have often been posting into the void for years.
Something just randomly clicked one day and that was it.
Or their label spent over six figures on ads and influencer campaigns lol.
Either way, they’ve probably felt exactly the same as you do now.
It is not a metric of your ability or talent or quality of your art.
There’s a lot of shit with views.
There’s a lot of talent with none.
There’s a lot of talent with views.
There’s a lot of shit with none.
It’s completely random.
But one day it might just be random for you.

I think it’s important to remember you, as an artist, don’t exist for social media.
You don’t have to try and mould yourself into something you think people want.
You don’t have to sound or look or act or market yourself in the same way as the people you see doing well.
You don’t have to pander to what you think the algorithm wants.
It’s boring when you see the same video over and over again.
It’s refreshing when someone does something differently.
Focus on your art being the best it can be.
That’s something you can control.
Give yourself permission to be wholeheartedly and authentically you.
That’s something only you can do.

Things You Can Do

- Try not to take it personally!!!
- Use it as fuel to become even more undeniably legendary and amazing.
- Don’t expect anything.
- Remember even a low amount of views is still real life humans and how cool would it be to have those people choosing to watch you in a room?!
- Incessantly post your audio every day as if you’re buying a lottery ticket and hope for the best but run the risk of annoying everyone.
- Pay to run ads to ensure you will reach people but again run the risk of annoying everyone. I’ve reluctantly run ads in the past but don’t love it as I feel like I’m forcing it and people don’t tend to like things being forced in their face?
- Decide you believe in your music so much that you don’t care if you annoy anyone. Good for you!
- Think of other things you want to share. It doesn’t all have to be your songs. Is there anything that goes hand in hand with your music? For example, my folk album felt perfect for me to share all things country life lol— my love for cooking, writing poems or my woolen jumper collection! A cooking video of mine went viral last year, which then in turn sent a live session video viral and people discovered my album through that. Pretty unexpected, but a happy accident?
- You’re probably not as cringe as you feel. I think there’s a difference between feeling cringed out and anxious when showing yourself to the world—when you’re actually not embarrassing to anyone else—and actually just being cringe. It’s normal to feel totally eughhhhh when you first put yourself out there.
- Tap into the fans of artist’s you admire by covering their songs, engaging with their videos or sneakily hiding their name in yours.
- Focus less on a large number of views and more on building a small but dedicated community.
- Reply to comments. If someone has shared their thoughts on your music, nurture it. How amazing that they’ve taken time out their day to do that.
- If you’re getting a bit of hate you’re probably iconic and clearly people are obsessed with you. Don’t respond, you’re above their negativity.
- Play as many gigs as you can (although I know this is tricky and can be expensive)
- If you’re at your wits end and you feel like you simply can’t go on as an artist—QUIT. Make the decision and don’t tell anyone. Sleep on it or take some time and I reckon you might change your mind. I’ve literally quit about 100 times lol.
- Keep going! We need you more than ever.

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