What it's like making art for Reddit's "Reddit Collectible Avatar" program
A surprisingly kind, collaborative, and exciting community — with a sadly expected corporate red-tape minefield.
I was literally still in the psych ward at Kelowna General Hospital when I was invited into the Reddit Collectible Avatar (RCA) program in November, 2023. It felt like a rather auspicious time as I was begining to rebuild my life from the destruction caused by an error in my prescription medication. I began researching everything about RCAs and within a couple weeks was submitting Tara Kinesis, my first RCA.
Submitting Avatars & Initial Sales
Submitting avatars was easy enough. The guidelines were extremely helpful, and I seldom ran into the same troubles other artists appeared to run into when submitting art. Upon submitting Tara, sales were being made instantly. I was shocked. I submitted the art while my partner was selling her art at a Christmas market at Apex Mountain in the Okanagan. We were both a bit perturbed how copies of my drawing were making more money within minutes while her, in my opinion, much more thoughtful, useful, and interesting creations were going to pay her table fee by the end of the day, and not much more than that.
The Community
I don't know how to describe the community and not make this page long-winded. I was so surprised by how welcoming everyone was. They encouraged self-promotion (which is normally a cardinal sin on Reddit, the platform best known for claiming to be starved of original content (OC), yet lambasting anyone posting their own works as if they are shifty, aggressive marketers). Artists and buyers alike were happy to give advice, tell you how they feel about your art, and made spaces both on Reddit and Discord a place to share and enjoy the works of others.
Getting Banned
All good things come to an end. I would assume my banning partially had to do with how stressful the submission process was becoming for me. One of my triggers after still recovering from my aforementioned health incident was feeling like I am not being heard. When my art was continually being kicked back for violations that didn't appear to match their terms of service or guidelines, I began to get a bit snarly with each submission being returned for adjustments. There was one time where I snarled back even though I was completely in the wrong.
That said, getting a little heated in the absence of cursing or personal attacks is not grounds for getting banned. Instead, I was banned for 3 instances of submitting art that infringed copyright. However, when receiving the rejection messages, they do not state which copyright I am violating. This leaves me to guess which copyright I am infringing. To this day, I still have no clue who I am infringing with the piece that officially struck 3rd and got me banned. Maybe you can tell me.
Art Sales Data
Overall, I was surprised by how much I sold by the time I was banned. The sales below are prior to fees from Reddit, Google Play Store, the Apple App Store, Stripe, and currency exchange fees. There were multiple instances that Reddit, Inc. was late with fulfilling payment, violating their own contract agreement. The fees seem a bit confusing, because you can see compared to the revenue, the money I received was much smaller.
After getting banned, I stopped receiving payments. My Stripe account was disconnected. I decided to walk away from trying to get paid for a couple months so I could cool down and make sure I don't say anything unreasonable. When I was ready, it was only then I learned my Stripe account was disconnected. I re-connected it and began sending messages to receive the missing payment. As of writing this text, it is no longer available to access the part of the website that would let me reconnect Stripe, should it get disconnected again. All this in combination is beginning to lead me to believe that Reddit, Inc. is intending to make it as difficult as possible for people in my position to receive what we are contractually due.
| Image | Art Piece | Quantity Sold | List Price | Total Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Mage of the Marsh |
11 | $49.99 | $0 |
|
Tara Kinesis |
97 | $9.99 | $0 |
|
Normcore Ned |
27 | $4.99 | $0 |
|
Orplasm the Dark Wizard |
25 | $24.99 | $0 |
|
Koqav, King of Self-Care |
171 | $4.99 | $0 |
|
American Crow |
25 | $9.99 | $0 |
|
Ollie |
5 | $4.99 | $0 |
|
Quiver King |
5 | $9.99 | $0 |
|
Mucky Mycologist |
15 | $9.99 | $0 |
|
Astrilasz the Consumer |
15 | $9.99 | $0 |
|
Terminally Online Dave |
14 | $24.99 | $0 |
| Grand Total (Revenue, USD) | $0 | |||
Process Work
Evidence of Delayed Payment
Note: Now resolved as of January 2025 after sending a formal payment demand to their legal department.
Email Exchange
Since getting banned from Reddit, Inc., I had not received payments due from my art sold for the last period. By their own admission, it was $400.05. I had reached out to all available channels, including their legal team.
No Payments
I had on a more than weekly basis monitored my Stripe account for any incoming payments from Reddit, Inc. I did not receive any payments after getting banned in August until January 2nd, 2025 after writing a formal demand for payment and sending it to their legal department.
Proof of Sales
I was able to find my sales as of August 5th, 2024 from a screenshot I sent to a friend. Compared to the Open Sea pages listed on the table above, there is a +/- margin of error $40.00 on each side equating to approximately the same amount.
Final Remarks & Next Steps
It strikes me that Reddit's Collectible Avatar program is a combination of the worst of both worlds that Silicon Valley has engineered for the tech industry:
- Preys on the competitive nature of artists getting paid work by creating a work environment that prefers an unspoken feeling of the "privilege" of being a part of the program rather than the actual reality: they are employed artists producing commodity works for the Reddit brand.
- The artists are not actually employees — instead they are contractors as part of a greater ecosystem of "independent contractors" to skirt labor laws, much like the model pioneered by Skip the Dishes, Uber, etc.
- Bonus: Reddit's built-in culture of favoring moderator lordships that produce highly variable results when moderation action takes place — in some circumstances, it functions as it should. In many others, there are scenarios of abuse, favoritism, and overworked moderators. Said overwork leading to inconsistent and/or copy/paste moderator actions that dehumanize users and put moderators in a position where offenders are missed and false positives slip through the cracks. Except in this case, it's not unpaid moderators, it's program facilitators that are underequipped to handle the volume they are tasked to manage.
All that said, for someone in my position, it was a great opportunity to get my art out there and make some money. I am grateful for the opportunity and the community that I was able to be a part of. I am also grateful for the opportunity to learn how to write a payment demand letter and how to follow through with it. ChatGPT seems like a great way, if correctly used, to understand and apply basic legal actions for people like me who would not be able to otherwise afford professional legal assitance. You may download this letter to get inspiration for how to make one for youself if you need to — I had ChatGPT help me learn how to follow the payment demand process as well as draft the letter. I made edits from the initial AI draft.