Artists with niche music: did early viral hate actually turn into real fans?
I’m an independent artist making work that doesn’t fit neatly into a genre.
On social media I can get solid reach (10k–60k+ views fairly consistently), but the engagement is often polarized. A lot of comments are negative or trolling, and while posts may get thousands of shares, they don’t convert well into followers or streams (e.g. 5,000 shares → ~5–20 follows / very low streaming lift).
At the same time, there is a smaller group that genuinely connects with it—they follow, listen, and reach out—but they’re harder to consistently reach through the algorithm.
What’s interesting is that live, the same material connects very directly with audiences.
So my question is:
- Has anyone here experienced a phase where early “viral” attention was mostly from the wrong audience (hate/trolling/misreads), but it eventually did lead to a more aligned listener base over time?
- Or did you find that it was actually a signal that your content needed reframing (packaging, clips, captions, context, etc.) rather than “waiting it out”?
I’ve also seen examples of artists getting millions of views with extremely negative comment sections, but still building real careers from it. I’m trying to understand if that’s the norm (misaligned early attention that eventually filters) or if that’s the exception.
Would especially appreciate hearing from people who’ve gone through something similar and what actually changed the trajectory for them (if anything did)—whether that was content strategy, platform shift, or something else.