Performance Insights (3 Aug – present)

Reach & Engagement

• 53,680 total views in less than one month.

• 76% non-followers vs. 24% followers - showing strong viral reach beyond my immediate network.

• 11,099 accounts reached in 30 days.

Top Performing Posts

1. Suspected chemsex-linked deaths ≈ 3 per month (Met Police data)

• 11K views

• Highest performing, showing the viral potential of hard statistics framed in bold visuals.

2. Chemsex isn’t a crisis to erase, it’s a reality to understand

• 7.1K views

• Shareable, activist-style slogan that resonated across audiences.

3. For queer people, harm reduction isn’t optional – it’s resistance dressed as care

• 4.6K views

• Value-driven framing engaged community audiences strongly.

4. Risk statistics: HIV, Hepatitis C, and STIs (Aidsmap)

• 4K views

• Reinforced that evidence-backed health content performs well when visualised.

5. Illustrated G-scene with club backdrop

• 3.8K views

• Visual storytelling added depth, though data-driven posts were most viral.

Audience Insights

• Gender: 87.1% men, 12.9% women - aligning with demographics most engaged in chemsex.

• Age:

• 25–34 → 47.6%

• 35–44 → 33.8%

• 45–54 → 8.1%

• 18–24 → 6.7%
  → Audience skews toward men in their mid-20s to mid-40s, matching established research data.

• Geography:

• UK → 57.4% (London alone 38.8%)

• US → 9.2%

• Ireland → 6.2%

• France → 5.2%
  → Core audience is London-based queer men, but international traction shows the issue’s
  wider relevance.

Analysis

The campaign’s performance reveals key insights:

1. Data drives virality → Posts using statistics (deaths, diagnoses) gained the highest reach, showing appetite for accessible, evidence-backed health messaging.

2. Bold slogans cut through → Simple, declarative captions (“Not a crisis to erase,
   a reality to understand”) spread like activist posters.

3. Demographic alignment → The campaign reached the exact communities most
   at risk — queer men in London aged 25–44 - while also engaging international viewers.

4. Design matters → Gritty, poster-style visuals outperformed sterile health content, proving that cultural aesthetics matter in digital health interventions.

5. Beyond followers → With nearly 98% of engagement from non-followers, the campaign demonstrated organic viral potential - sparking visibility outside my
   existing network.

Conclusion

This social media experiment demonstrates the power of visual culture as public health intervention. In just two weeks, a series of gritty, poster-style posts - merging research findings, harm reduction messaging, and community voices - reached more than 53,000 people, the majority of whom were outside my existing network. The campaign didn’t just perform well in terms of numbers; it proved that when health communication is reframed through the aesthetics of queer nightlife, protest art, and digital culture, it can spark conversations that conventional academic or clinical settings often fail to ignite.

The Instagram analytics confirm that the campaign resonated most strongly with men aged
25–44, a demographic at the centre of chemsex practices. Geographically, engagement was highest in London, where chemsex is a well-documented public health concern, but the reach also extended internationally, indicating the relevance of this work beyond a single city or country. Posts that combined hard statistics with bold design (e.g. suspected chemsex-linked deaths, HIV and hepatitis risk multipliers) generated the highest reach, while value-driven slogans (e.g. “Chemsex isn’t a crisis to erase, it’s a reality to understand”) proved highly shareable, embedding themselves as activist-style mantras.

Perhaps most importantly, the campaign made people stop, look, and feel something. The visuals were deliberately uncomfortable - faceless silhouettes, tipped vials, glowing screens, and the captions layered poetic reflection with evidence-based commentary. This dual approach meant that the work appealed both emotionally and intellectually, providing entry points for lived experience, community dialogue, and policy relevance. The experiment also highlighted a crucial truth: that public health messages cannot succeed if they are delivered in a vacuum. They must speak the visual language of the communities they are trying to reach.

For me, this project is not simply about likes, shares, or reach - though those metrics reveal important insights. It is about testing new ways of bridging academia, activism, and art. It shows that digital platforms can be spaces of harm but also spaces of intervention, where research can be translated into visual narratives that resonate in real time.

As I move forward with my doctoral research into digital platforms, chemsex, and public health, these findings will shape how I design future interventions. The success of this campaign suggests that there is real appetite for health communication that is honest, provocative, and culturally grounded. By combining visual storytelling, harm reduction principles, and rigorous research, there is potential to build a new model of queer public health communication — one that doesn’t erase the reality of chemsex, but seeks to understand it, represent it, and intervene with care.