Over 50,000 total Instagram followers.
Yet, I paid for the AI video production costs out of my own pocket.
In six months of activity on Instagram, I gained over 50,000 followers in total.
The breakdown is about 15,000, about 7,000, about 400, and about 30,000. Adding up the four accounts, that’s a total of about 52,000 followers.
I exaggerated by saying 50,000, but that is the combined total.
After posting AI-generated videos for about half a year, more people started watching them than I had expected.
With this much growth, I thought maybe corporate deals would come my way eventually. Or at least, maybe I could earn back the money spent on making the videos.
While holding onto that expectation, I diligently paid the generative AI subscription fees every month. However, there was no such easy path.
I started using video generation AI about a year ago, triggered by my encounter with Sora 2, a video generation AI released by OpenAI.
Until then, I had never made videos with AI.
However, I happened to come across Sora 2, and when I tried it out, it produced one interesting video after another, so I became completely hooked.
I was already paying 3,000 yen a month for ChatGPT from the same company, OpenAI, and with Sora 2, I was able to make 30 videos a day.
However, that wasn’t enough, so I started a lifestyle of paying about 30,000 yen a month to generate 100 videos a day.
30,000 yen a month sounds expensive, right?
But the ability to make 100 eight-second videos a day, every day for a month, was an incredible appeal.
Sora 2 had excellent improvisation skills.
When I gave it instructions to create chaotic videos, like unreasonable events from the Showa era, it would produce things that went beyond my imagination. I felt like it understood Japanese culture quite well, too.
I would make them, laugh, and then make more. Just that was fun enough.
However, that service ended, and I could no longer use Sora 2.
I was devastated. I had to find another AI to make videos.
Also, Sora 2 had a community for sharing, but that was going away too, so I had to find a new place to migrate to.
First, I tried paying for services like Runway as a replacement for Sora 2 to make videos like I used to. But nothing went the way I wanted.
That was when I finally realized.
That the fun I was having was largely helped by Sora 2’s improvisation.
If I entered similar prompts, it didn’t mean it would be just as interesting.
While I was trying this and that, I casually tried making a video of a motorcycle using the video generation AI Seedance.
I felt that this was finally a fun video that I truly liked.
The way it runs and the atmosphere of the video are both good. I felt like I had finally found one thing I wanted to create with this AI.
I chose Instagram as the place to post it.
When I posted it on Instagram, the response was beyond my expectations.
Most of the comments were positive.
However, there were also some comments like ‘AI is crap’ mixed in.
Now, I can just say ‘Oh, I see’ and move on. But back then, it hurt quite deeply.
Within Sora, everyone around me was also making videos with AI. When I stepped outside of that, there were people who hated it just because it was AI. This was a bit of a culture shock.
Even so, people watched my motorcycle videos.
When I wanted to try other things and created more accounts, a video of a scooter went viral.
In a few days, my followers ballooned to 30,000.
The video below is that so-called viral video.
For some reason, it went super viral
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcaFm4jp8g1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&exln=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&srtk=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
It seems this video has been set to sensitive by Instagram, so the thumbnail doesn’t appear, but I think you can see it if you click the URL.
Now, once my followers increased and people were watching my videos, I started to have ulterior motives, thinking maybe there would be some financial benefits.
……There were absolutely none.
I saw AI video peers with a similar number of followers receiving corporate projects from AI video companies, but none came to me. Even when I reached out to AI video companies to promote myself, there was no response.
Is it because of my slightly risqué style?
Is it because of videos like riding a motorcycle without a helmet?
Or is it a problem with the quality of my work?
I don’t know the reason.
No, actually, I am aware of it.
Because I only make fringe videos.
On the other hand, the number of services I was using was increasing.
Higgsfield, Runway, ChatGPT. I also paid for services that create images and music, and I also paid for Gemini.
I don’t want to disclose the total amount of my subscriptions here.
I try not to keep track of it myself, but it must be quite a large sum.
There is no doubt that it was fun.
However, I thought that if I just had fun making them and increased my followers, eventually the production costs would be covered.
I vaguely thought so.
It’s my fault for not researching properly, but at least with my current method, that didn’t happen.
The number of people watching has increased.
But the generation costs were still entirely out of my own pocket.
So, I started a YouTube channel.
This time, with the goal of monetization.
Next time, I will talk about receiving my first warning there.
