If you’re a weeb on social media, you must’ve seen those huge Instagram anime accounts and wondered why they keep coming up in your feed. I mean, do Instagram anime accounts make money? Or is it just a fandom thing for them, where they are doing this solely for the love of the medium and nothing more. I mean, in a way, it can be both. Social media like Twitter and Instagram played a major role in anime getting popular, after all.

So, Instagram Anime Accounts work a lot like other influencer accounts on the app. In that scenario, they do make money. But unlike those influencers and bloggers, that money isn’t a lot. A bulk of their profits are made through shoutouts, affiliated links and promotions. But because of how niche anime tends to be, with its audience being younger without mone to spare, the profit margins are low. Instagram itself doesn’t pay the bills here, it is the many companies that use the Instagram anime accounts as advertisers that help them make the real money here.

And honestly, I have rarely seen anyone using their Instagram anime account as major money makers. At best, they are a fun side hustle, like most things in the fandom. The content also matters here because most fandom accounts are just spliced videos or memes. And don’t get me started on the legalities of reuploading certain series content, because copyright striking is a very real thing. All in all, it’s just a minefield to navigate if you capitalize on something like an anime meme page. It’s just more hassle than it’s worth. 

Though, Instagram is a platform that has immense reach. So, if you do end up gaining a following that is both substantial and consistent, alongside posts that garner enough attention, it ends up working out for the best. Though personally, I think Instagram anime accounts should remain places of fun rather than constant advertising. And they definitely shouldn’t become your main source of income. So, Instagram anime accounts make money, but what’s the catch here? Let’s discuss!

Instagram Anime Accounts: Not A Lot Of Money, But Fun Regardless!

So, here’s the glamorous truth about being an influencer: Most, if not all, of your profit comes from paid content. Which means that a company on the internet saw you had a large audience that actually engaged with your posts, and decided to pay you to post about them so they could get in on the exposure. And this amount can easily go up to thousands of dollars if you have the correct numbers. Of course, this usually works for glamorous lifestyle bloggers VS an anime geek on the internet. The money won’t add up there. 

Don’t get me wrong because anime has gotten extremely popular as the years have gone by, with a ton of amazing content creators coming out with original posts that are fun and eye-catching, while being very organic about their passion for anime. These usually lurk on TikTok, but Instagram has quite a few of them as well. This includes anime video essayists, fun anime influencers and even cosplayers.  And usually they’d be sponsored by a legit company like Netflix and Crunchyroll to help promote either some newly released anime or merchandise for said anime.

But those are very few and far in between, because of how much work content like that would require. For example, cosplayers have to create cosplays specific to the anime they are being paid to promote, then have to edit photographs of them wearing it, or create film reels that showcase the project being made while doing voice overs to actually describe what they are promoting. However, most Instagram anime accounts are not dedicated people creating real life content. 

As we know a lot of them center around uploading either memes from various anime that have been floating around on the internet, or just splicing scenes from popular anime and uploading them in bite-sized posts for the audience to binge through. At best, some mass production sites might give them affiliate links that they can promote and get a cut from the purchases made, but the money is very little and it’s just a bonus on the side, rather than a full-fledged pay for content described previously. 

Not to mention that a lot of anime enthusiasts that actively use social media, are very young and usually broke. So, it’s not like they are going around and buying all the anime merchandise. Which is why the money that you might get from promotion and affiliate links, won’t be a huge payout.

Taking Care Of Copyright Strikes

So, when I talked about Instagram anime accounts, I meant ones that make original content. Or at least, content that isn’t stolen. A lot of people forget that most of the ‘fansites’ we see on Instagram aren’t that. Instead, they are just entire episodes being uploaded, or fan art being stolen. 

While Instagram might not do anything about that immediately, at some point you do get reported for using artwork or projects that weren’t your own and went uncredited. Sadly, it is a truth of fandom everywhere that a lot of artists lose their works to reposts across it. And while you might avoid their ire because, well, everyone else is doing it, bigger corporations have much more legal leeway. Which is why music and OSTs are so copyrighted. 

It’s like with the Walt Disney Corporation sending everyone a cease and desist, solely for using maybe 10 seconds of footage in a video essay. It’s also why Nintendo is so protective of its own intellectual properties. But anime doesn’t have that much reach, so it’s easier to steal from small scale artist accounts and repost their work, taking the attention away from the actual creator. 

So, it’s very much a high risk for very little chance of profit. Of course, that doesn’t mean fans stop posting content about the anime and manga they love. But it’s imperative that if you are managing an Instagram anime account, it’s for the best to simply create content for fun, rather in an attempt to make serious cash. 

Simply put, Instagram anime accounts don’t make much money at all, and you’re better off just having fun with it instead.