Reuben Holmes, aka R.H. Sin, describes himself as a workhorse. “I came into 2016 with 251,018 followers,” he told the Newyorker, talking about his rise to fame on Instagram. “I entered 2017 with 515,164.” Come 2020, he has more than 1.8 million followers. But the content he promotes might just surprise you.
The Instagram star went viral thanks to his poignant poetry. Based in New York, his creative journey took off in 2014, using first a different online platform – Twitter. According to Holmes, Twitter has taught him how to say less and still make a point. “I think a lot of people in my industry are content with the ‘struggling artist’ ideology,” he says. “I’m not. On any given day, my account brings in 600,000 to one million ‘likes.’ The object is to be seen or heard, and I make a lot of noise.”
“Your account should be growing, you should also be growing. Evolving is the point,” he relayed. “People bulls**t in our niche, they say follower count doesn’t matter but how in the hell do you expect to reach this generation if they’re not following you in some form or capacity?”
Much like his persona, his poetry is straightforward and unapologetic. Just the sort of encouragement we need this day and age.
