Cinderwave began in May 2025 as an experiment. Fourteen reels, ten posts, most views capped at 178. Almost no one saw it.
By August the account reached more than 10.4 million views in a single month. Individual reels passed 1.8 million. Over 3.1 million accounts were reached. What started as invisible became unavoidable.
The idea
Cinderwave is not only a station or a feed. It is part broadcast, part record, part self assertion.
“Cinder” is what remains after fire. “Wave” is sound and broadcast. Together, the name became a shorthand for something reduced yet still moving outward.
The project treats Instagram as a place to study as well as a place to publish. It sits between stealth influencer and digital anthropology. It is a running experiment in how cultural observations travel and how presence can be asserted online.
The toolkit
Cinderwave runs mobile first. Most content is conceived, produced and published on a phone, with a laptop used for heavier tasks.
- Video generation: Veo 2, Veo 3, Kling
- Editing: Canva and InShot on mobile, ClipChamp on laptop for refinements
- Audio: BandLab for mastering, Audacity on laptop for other edits
- Broadcast: Shoutcast with Centova Cast as the web panel
- Images: NightCafe and ChatGPT for visual concepts
- Ideas and analysis: Perplexity, Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini
- Website: WordPress
The mix changes often. Tools are picked up when useful and put down when they are not. The priority is speed, clarity and instinct, not a fixed recipe.
From invisible to unavoidable
May to August 2025
| Month | Reels | Posts | Views | Reach | Top reel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | 14 | 10 | 0 to 178 | about 0 to 100 | 178 |
| June | 58 | 26 | 84,375 | 47,370 | 6,200 |
| July | 785 | 231 | 3,878,012 | 1,706,227 | 1.8M+ |
| August | about 400 | about 100 | 10.4M+ | 3,153,128+ | ongoing |
The first clear break came in June when a Coldplay meme about the CEO affair began to travel well beyond the usual circle. July and August confirmed it was not a one off. Output remained high and so did reach.
Against the benchmarks
Small Instagram accounts with fewer than one thousand followers typically record:
- 1,000 to 50,000 views in a month
- 500 to 10,000 accounts reached
- 4 to 30 reels in a month
- Viral posts are rare
Cinderwave in August alone:
- More than 10.4 million views
- More than 3.1 million accounts reached
- About 400 reels published
- Several reels above one million views
- Discovery at about 99 per cent from non followers
By output and reach the account sits within the top fraction of creators under one thousand followers, performing at the level usually associated with far larger accounts.
Influencer levels and where Cinderwave sits
- Nano: 1 to 10K followers. Niche, community centred.
- Micro: 10 to 50K. Trusted voices in specific areas.
- Mid tier: 50 to 250K. Larger visibility while retaining some intimacy.
- Macro: 250K to 1M. Broad reach, less direct contact.
- Mega: more than 1M. Celebrity scale.
By followers, Cinderwave is nano. By reach and impact, it operates in macro and mega territory. That contradiction is the point. Small on paper, large in effect. A form of stealth influence.
What it shows
Cinderwave suggests that influence online is not only a follower count. It is reach, retention and whether people recognise themselves in what they see. It also shows that a mobile first set up, combined with fast iteration and clear voice, can create outsized results without teams or big budgets.
The work continues. From invisible to unavoidable, Cinderwave is ongoing digital anthropology and ongoing self assertion.
