Millions of Views, Then I Stopped Posting: What Sim Racing Reels Taught Me About the Algorithm

I ran a sim racing account called periperimouse. A few of the reels pulled millions of views, with single clips at 950,000, 662,000 and 612,000.

Then I stopped posting.

Here's the honest version of how those numbers happened and why they weren't enough to keep me going.

It started as Forza and it was just for me

There was no strategy. I've got an Xbox Series X, a PC with a Ryzen 7 8845HS and an RTX 4060, a wheel setup, and I actually like driving games. So I posted Forza Horizon 5 clips because I liked watching my own runs back. That's it. You can still see what the account really was from the highlights: Forza, Assetto Corsa, Euro Truck Simulator 2, flight sim, and F1 only later on.

The numbers were small and I didn't care, because I wasn't posting for numbers. I was posting the way you keep photos.

Then one F1 clip blew up

I posted an F1 gameplay clip and it did numbers nothing else had come close to.

So I posted more F1. Then more. Eventually the account was pretty much all F1 24 and my bio said "F1 '24 Rookie | Assetto Casual", which was accurate about my skill level and honestly kind of accurate about my interest too.

Here's the bit I should be upfront about: I'm not that into F1. I was playing it, learning it, enjoying getting better at it. But it's not what I'd have picked on my own. I posted it because it worked. Small thing at the time. It matters later.

The clip that went furthest is the one people made fun of

The reel that broke everything open wasn't a good lap.

It was Monaco and I took a corner terribly. Obviously terribly, the kind of bad anyone who's played the game spots straight away. The comments filled up with people telling me how bad it was.

It went further than anything else I'd posted.

That's when it clicked, and it's not a flattering lesson. Good gameplay is easy to post and almost nobody watching cares. Something people can criticise gives them a reason to stop scrolling, comment, and send it to a mate.

Being good isn't interesting. Being wrong in a way people can point at is. A clean lap gives a viewer nothing to do. A bad one gives them a job.

Once I worked that out, it's what I went after. That plus trending audio, which did more for my reach than anything about the actual driving. Views came in daily. From outside it looked like the account was going great.

Going great, not fun

It was going great. I wasn't enjoying it.

At some point I noticed I was picking clips based on whether they'd perform, not whether I liked them. I was playing a game I felt lukewarm about because it's what the account wanted. And I'd started feeling that thing everyone who posts regularly ends up feeling, where you owe the audience something. Where you have to show up. Where a quiet week feels like failing.

None of that was in the deal I made with myself at the start. I started because I like playing and I like watching myself play. The second posting became an obligation, the game stopped being the reward and became raw material.

So I stopped.

What I took from it

The algorithm rewards reaction, not quality. Anything that gives someone a reason to respond, including telling you you're bad at something, beats work you're actually proud of. That's not a conspiracy, it's just what engagement measures.

Optimising changes what you make, and not in one big decision. It's a hundred small calls about which clip to post, and then one day you look up and your account is about a game you don't really care about.

And getting the thing you were chasing isn't the same as wanting it. The views were real and they kept coming. They didn't make posting feel good, because what I actually wanted was the playing, and posting had turned into a separate job stuck on the side of it.

What I play now

These days I fly.

Flight sim is slow, it's hard, and almost none of it would make a decent thirty second clip. A long haul approach is never going viral. That's most of the appeal, honestly. I'm not learning it because it performs, I'm learning it because I want to, and there's nobody waiting on my next post.

I also got a Meta Quest 3 for it, which has been ridiculous and great in equal measure.

Maybe I'll post some of it eventually, when it's something I want to share instead of something I owe. If you're running an account for fun, the question worth asking is whether you'd still do the actual thing if nobody watched. For me the answer was yes, which is exactly why I could stop posting and keep flying.