Welcome to a day in my life as a not-safe-for-brand creator.

Today is going to be a day of hard work on social media for me. People expect me to post about women in sports, that is what I built my profile around. But today I plan to post about the process lapses in the recent state level selections. I know people would like me to only post feel good sports stories, but my work would make no sense without talking about the uncomfortable parts.

The industry buzzword for creators like me is brand unsafe creators, which means what I post sometimes is considered controversial. Brands usually stay away from me because of the fear of getting embroiled in controversies. I stay away from many brands because of my principles.

On days when I post such content, I feel a mix of excitement, fear, happiness and despair.

Come with me, as I walk you through this day.

8:00 AM - thick skin check

My last reel was 6 days ago, which you know is an eternity on reels. But I just checked and my thick skin is still intact.

It was not always there. The first B word and the R word on my reel were hard to ignore. It took me 1-2 months before I got numb to it.

There's two conflicting facts that I have made peace with :

1. I prefer less views with high quality comments than more views with hate comments.
2. When I get many negative comments, it means that the reel is reaching corners of the internet where I am not known.

I want to express myself freely while ensuring that I am safe mentally and physically. So the first 2 days after releasing a reel are spent in "monitor" mode where I keep up with the comment section. I want to ensure that the message of my video was successfully communicated. I don't post content to ragebait people.

I genuinely enjoy engaging with people with a different opinion in the comment section. I have seen people change their minds about something after interacting with my content, so that does drive me to keep up with this.

After 2 days, it's hard to keep up with the comments on a reel that has done well. There's probably good interactions on it, but it's too difficult to find good comments.

This is usually also when I get reminded of what many people consider "criticism" online. While there are a few people in the comment section engaging with my arguments, many take their disagreement with it as an excuse to abuse me, make comments about my character or body or some other unrelated flaw that I didn't know about. It's worse when I have genuinely made a mistake that I would like to acknowledge and rectify. All hell breaks loose then because a deluge of commentary and reactions pour in, that I can not possibly respond to or contain.

The urge to hit back is real. I know creators who do it, I have dabbled in it but eventually I think it's not worth it. I just disengage or block.

10:00 AM - community check

A few of my peers—online and offline—always know when I am about to post a video. They act as a sounding board for the reel and also a support system if and when things go wrong. Family might not necessarily understand what I do, so I value this group a lot more with my well being.

Sometimes they have taken over the mentally painful work of dealing with hate comments for me. They've used my account on my behalf to clean up my feed, deal with hate comments and filthy DMs. I have seen a good Samaritan effect in comments as well when male allies have stepped up to other abusive men and helped quash a fight.

This community has been very valuable in also providing me a reality check which can be very hard to find online with strangers.

2:00 PM - publish the damn reel, already!

It's out in the world, now I'll brace for impact.

3:30 PM

This went fairly well. This one doesn't seem to have rattled many people.

5:00 PM - comment section check

Gah! I had configured my Instagram app to hide a certain triggering words and now it looks like some trolls have found a way to spell it so that the algorithm doesn't detect it. This is a regular occurrence where the platform moderation tools can't keep up with how abuse evolves on social media platforms.

The platform's moderation tools do leave you wanting for more power. Bulk delete, bulk block, bulk hide would be something I'd appreciate when trying to organize and make sense of the comment section.

Also a customizable moderation policy that I can enforce on my feed. I wish there was AI that didn't burn the planet to enable this.

7:00 PM - reflecting on the day

I was ruminating about what I went through today. I was thinking how I had shared the idea that was in my reel in person with so many people. In professional settings, on panels and on stages. Yet never feared any major pushback. People are definitely much nicer in person. The fear I felt had a lot to do with the online medium, where people are emboldened to show their worst self.

I wish there were consequences to such behaviour. To begin with maybe platforms should put a limit on their account activity for a few hours. If possible, maybe ban the repeat offendors.

I don't know, maybe social consequences for them would be more effective?

8:45 PM - offline harms

I just thanked my luck that this post did not lead to me being doxxed or coming in the cross roads of some online group with political backing. Because that could have easily made this reel a year long ordeal!

10:00 PM - good night

Signing off. The reel did well but it was still opinionated and political enough to continue my not-safe-for-brand status.

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Between June to Aug 2026, as part of our UNICEF Femtech Venture fund project, we spoke to women content creators to understand their experience with negative engagement on social media platforms. This blog is an exercise in capturing the essence of those interviews. A lot of nuance and individual experience has gotten flattened, but we hope this helps provide some insights into the experience of many women creators who face gendered abuse because of being visible and vocal.