Getting Played
I make money on the internet by sitting with feeds and PR agencies and the endless low-level noise of it all. The decent stuff gets bundled with people I work with and shipped back out. That’s the job.
The money comes from brands. We work them in between the actual posts—Adidas, Calvin Klein, whoever—and they land the same way everything else does. I’m saying this because I watch a lot of bloggers struggle to figure out how any of this actually works.
I’m in several blogger groups. Most of them are a wasteland. Naive fashion bloggers and exhausted writers running giveaways that are obviously sponsored, and you can see it immediately: they’ve gotten completely played. Not for the first time either.
You see it everywhere: someone giving away Maybelline lipsticks, H&M vouchers, stuff from KiK. The merchandise is often garbage. But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is how little they’re being paid—or nothing at all.
Most get zero. They make content hoping to pull a few people over. Some score vouchers. Ten euros. Twenty. Maybe a hundred if they’re lucky. Almost never actual cash, and when there is it’s still nothing. That’s fucked.
I’ve watched this for years. The brands make bank off free PR while you feel excited that some agency finally noticed you. They did notice—noticed you work for free. No guilt, no sleepless nights. If I ran a PR operation and bloggers were volunteering to get exploited, I’d take it too. Why wouldn’t you? Simple math. And they’re not wrong. If people will sell themselves cheap, why pay more?
What’s worse is that it ruins everything for everyone else. Not just the person getting screwed, but anyone actually trying to make a living. Anyone doing real work. The whole thing gets poisoned.
What would have to happen: brands come calling and you tell them no thanks, not for vouchers or pennies. Not for a hundred euros. A few hundred, real money. Post plus social. Suddenly you’re not free. You have leverage.
Most will say no budget, call you insane, try to walk away. But the ones who get it—who understand what you’re actually worth—they’ll meet the rate when it’s real.
I made it because I got in early and learned to charge. But I watch every new batch of bloggers repeat the same mistakes I see everywhere else. They think being asked means something. They think showing up for free will matter. It won’t.