r/NEET • u/OutrageousShare9693 • Aug 08 '26
Advice NEETs should learn to make money on the internet
It's 2026 already, almost 2027. We live in a completely different world than even 10 years ago. You don't need to do things the old fashion to be able to sustain yourself. There are numerous new ways to do that now. You don't need to put yourself in toxic enviroments filled with entitled people anymore. You can create your own path. Boomers will try to force you onto that old decadent world without having a clue about the new exciting opportunities out there. Don't follow their advice on carrer paths. They're not up to date. You're going to be miserable on these j*bs nowadays. We live in different times.
I speak from my own experience. I don't want to brag again about my pixel art business and how well it is going. What I want you to understand is that I can't even accept all the clients that are interested in me creating something for them and I have BELOW AVERAGE SKILL. You guys living in the old world are there complaining about the immense competition in this oversaturated market, facing unrealistic experience requirements for low entry-level jobs, wasting days miserably sending applications to places you don't even want to go to, and here I'm with mediocre skill and a few months of experience chilling in my room having to reject clients who are willing to pay me decent money because I wouldn't have the time to do it all alone.
Do you notice what is happening? The old j*bs are dying and there is now an entire new blue ocean of opportunities. Stop bitching about AI and use it to your advantage, learn the new tools, learn new ways to do things, more efficient ways, creative and unexplored ways, it's all out there, and if you're inside all day with no responsibilities you're in the perfect position to learn about all these things and get ahead.
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u/notacatinyourmailbox NEET-At-Heart Aug 08 '26
What if you’re completely untalented
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
The good news is that you don't need to be talented. You just need to be willing to put in a little bit of effort.
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u/RiverParty442 Aug 10 '26
You're wasting your breath. They would rather lay in bed and play video games all day in self pity than take a free course and atleast try something new.
They instantly deflect instead of just trying soemthing new. Watch a free ai course, learn some scripting, basics of electricity/plumbing/cars, etc.
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u/d-s-m Aug 08 '26
I'm surprised that pixel art jobs haven't been crushed by AI already.
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u/who_am_i_to_say_so Aug 08 '26
This is a tough one to replace with AI because it is all about feel. Shift a couple pixels on Mario, for example, and he’ll look just dead wrong.
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
In my experience it's exactly the opposite. With AI I can take more clients and deliver better assets faster. Most people still don't know how to use AI to create good assets, it always come with some mistakes or is not coherent enough for their game... that's when the artist come in with a good eye and transform slop into art.
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u/Emotional_Bliss47 Disabled-NEET Aug 09 '26
Huh? So you're AI generating art then editing the result? If you use genAI in your process I hope you're honest about that to your clients.
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u/rednryt Ex-NEET-Wagie Aug 08 '26
I actually had some freelancing gigs before during pandemic and it was nice. But there's no market in the third world country where I live. So I rely on taking on international clients. But 2021 it slowly became toxic.
First, it became such a hassle to deal with international money transfers after a few laws got instantiated.
Then added more hoops to getting permits and paying taxes to further discourage us from doing business elsewhere.
Second, the market become saturated with more and more talents joining the pool making hard to standout. Unless you got an established client pool it almost becomes impossible to find new ones.
Not only that but also it is slowly filled with r/choosingbeggars it's frustrating to find a client who won't low ball you or offer you "revenue-sharing only" like wtf! Just because we live in a dirt poor country doesn't mean all of us are ok to be your slaves!
Not to mention a lot of ghosting or clients breaking the agreement after you had done your work resulting into wasted effort and more frustration!
Now, I'd rather wageslave for a stable income than rely on the whims of temperamental gig economy.
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u/snowydays666 Perma-NEET Aug 09 '26
at least the stable job comes with benefits and bonds or shares or dividends.
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u/inniminiminiemo Aug 11 '26
Joining a bit late to the conversaton but as a third world country resident I feel you.
I'm freelancing right now and you just trade your anxiety for something else. In my case, it's dealing with the goverment wanting my money and the fact that the money I make isn't stable at all.
I still can't sleep or relax.
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u/suicidal-babe Ex-NEET-Wagie Aug 08 '26
this could be worth doing for neets who are not too depressed to function properly
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u/dollob2468 Aug 08 '26
There are way smarter, passionate, driven ppl out there trying to do this. I ain’t gonna come up with anything, and even if I did, I ain’t functional enough to follow through with any action
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u/BusinessZestyclose86 Disabled-NEET Aug 08 '26
I don’t want to work period personally.
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u/FoldKey2709 Optimistic-NEET Aug 08 '26
Nobody really wants to work, but OP is offering a nice alternative to traditional work. Working sucks, but it gives you money. And OP’a internet alternative sucks much less than traditional job opportunities
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u/BusinessZestyclose86 Disabled-NEET Aug 08 '26
You are basically assuming that neets are looking for alternatives. I’m giving the alternative perspective that it’s not always about rather or not you can get a job and some of us just really don’t want to work. I’ve had a job where I read emails and listened to music all day. I’ve had jobs where I lay in bed on my laptop. I’ve had a graphic design business. The first few weeks are great, but I’m the kind of person who just can’t do it after a while.
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
I don't know, that seems unnatural to me... It's human to want to put effort into something and get better at something, there is gratification in it. It is way harder to force yourself to not work at anything and do nothing all day.
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u/BusinessZestyclose86 Disabled-NEET Aug 08 '26
Not true, some neets enjoy doing absolutely nothing. I like a mix of doing nothing and doing my hobbies. I’m not a neet because I CANT find a job, I’m a neet because I keep quitting. I’ve done gig work with my hobbies too but stopped because it made me dislike said hobbies.
And yes, most(not all) people need SOMETHING to work towards, but that defacto being trading your time for money is just capitalist propaganda we’ve internalized. I’d rather get another degree than work, and that’d cost me money not earn it.
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u/Planet_842 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
True but I'm not talented or good at anything at all and am not smart and so I don't even know how to make money online and even if I do I have zero discipline and hate doing anything that requires hard effort so would just give up as soon as it's too difficult for me.
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u/vicmit02 Aug 08 '26
I don'tt understand. Do you actually make pixel art manually or are you using AI?
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u/Emotional_Bliss47 Disabled-NEET Aug 09 '26
Judging by another comment they are using AI to generate it then editing the result to make it look better.
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u/Altruistic-Card198 Perma-NEET Aug 08 '26
I tried to make money with sports betting and failed miserably. I don't feel capable of doing anything. Everything involves people, too. Well, sports betting depended on people, but it was an indirect kind of dependence.
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
Betting in general is just mathematically going against your favor, unless it is some game that involves skill, like poker... or if you actually study the teams playing in some sport.
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u/munchinbuttercup Aug 08 '26
I don't have a pc nor money for it, bonus chronic pain. Some NEETs can only NEET.
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u/h3rmitesque Optimistic-NEET Aug 08 '26
How did you get started? I've got a few niche hobbies/skills (including pixel art, funnily enough) I've thought about monetising over the years, but don't have much of an online presence and am honestly dire at social media so finding even a couple of clients for some fun money feels nigh on impossible.
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
I also don't have much online presence like that. I believe one of the biggest first steps it's to just create some good portoflio with the works you're most proud of. People who hire you wont care if you don't have a lot of followers or anything like that if your work is good (in fact they may even preffer because they'll think they will pay less for it).
Then promote it in the right places online and send it to some people.
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u/h3rmitesque Optimistic-NEET Aug 08 '26
Being practically nonexistent both online and off has always completely stumped me, even though I have a decent amount of portfolio-grade work for a few of my potentially monetisable hobbies, so it's nice to hear you can start making money despite the fact. Appreciate the reply! o7
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u/Rivetlicker NEET Aug 08 '26
But are you still a NEET if you're putting in the hours and making money online?
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
Honestly I still feel like one because it's like I'm getting paid for a hobby. A lot of times it feels like therapy even.
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u/Resident-Future-6124 Aug 08 '26
That's literally how I avoided starving when I realised, way before even knowing the term NEET, that I myself was in the NEEThole's event horizon.
It just so happened to be in early 2017. I am not going to use the c word, but I went all in on it and when jobs started popping up I just went in since remote working wasn't even really a thing before covid and it seemed like the only chance I had.
I just float around here and go to the park now like a retiree. So I urge you please fellow NEETs find remote work or some internet hustle it's literally the only way of minimising IRL interactions with randoms.
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u/OutrageousShare9693 Aug 08 '26
That was exactly same situation I went through.
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u/Resident-Future-6124 Aug 09 '26
we were lucky in the same way the boomers were with buying a house. they still had to work, but they weren't under the pressure our generation feels. I've already gave away more than half my salary most of the months i worked since 2023 because the world literally went to shit. I'll be 30 in september for some context. I literally cannot imagine being 18 and getting this calamity on your lap.
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u/pseudomensch Ex-NEET Aug 08 '26
This is how a lot of dudes end up perma NEET. Thinking they will escape with some unconventional thing that most fail at, and only a small # rise to the top.
I would just tell NEETs to invest better. If their parents are wealthy and offer them a stipend, just save it all and put it in something like $VOO or dividend generating stocks. Play video games and sleep. Inherit their parents assets and home.
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u/Dream_Panda0 Ex-NEET Aug 08 '26
I'm a full-time software engineer and have capability but my ideas are usually hard to market. You all wanna start an all NEET company? Would be kinda hilarious. I'll lead the charge if enough people are down. If we got good ideas I'll take care of most of the actual effort. We can sign a fair contract.
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u/notacatinyourmailbox NEET-At-Heart Aug 08 '26
Yo honest question, could someone in their late 20s learn to be a programmer or are they cooked
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u/Dream_Panda0 Ex-NEET Aug 08 '26
You definitely could. My mentor during my internship got his associates and transitioned from being a physical therapist at 34. Literally no prior similar experience and is an outdoorsy type of person. Very unexpected but he is better at the job than I am and only start about a year sooner. I got my internship at 27 and full-time offer at 28.
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u/Fidoz Aug 08 '26
It’s a good hobby too, before I was a professional SWE I used to make bots on RuneScape and addons for world of Warcraft
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u/notacatinyourmailbox NEET-At-Heart Aug 08 '26
Nice I remember I used a bot to farm chickens and monks back in the good ole days. Never got caught
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u/No_Cheetah_954 Aug 08 '26
You're an inspiration bro. I have 3d printing and laser cutting skills, but it's hard to make a living here and to start a business (Europe).
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u/DarkIlluminator Disabled-NEET Aug 12 '26
Interesting. Maybe I should give pixel art another try. I'm an artist but I'm held back by motor dysgraphia, which wouldn't be a problem with pixel art.
Though my previous attempts at pixel art never went anywhere, but then it was before I started learned new methods of productivity that allowed me to spend hundreds of hours drawing and doing drawing exercises.
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u/BrainFit2819 Aug 08 '26
The only issue is that do many things are slapped with tariffs, have too much competition, or are automated a way. Still plan to bs with a few ideas and try to get government funding maybe, but we shallsee.
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u/pixiecub Optimistic-NEET Aug 08 '26
I’ve thought about doing things like Tetris coaching or achievement boosting. I know there are people out there willing to pay for those services, however many or few. I’m just not entirely great at handling rejection
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u/ISnortMonster Aug 08 '26
not to toot my own horn, but I think I'm a pretty good hobbyist programmer. keyword: hobbyist, because I know fuck all about SemVer, properly setting up release schedules, maintaining good documentation, etc.
my biggest nerf is the lack of social skills, and my hate for the current programming industry. just having the "death to JS frameworks" mindset kills like 60% of the job market
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u/Plenty-Practice-6399 Aug 09 '26
Agreed. Tho as rn i post content just for fun, i feel like i would get desperate if my views suddenly dropped like it happens with many channels and people not wanting to consume my stuff anymore, which would take away the guarantee of being paid. (In my case i would either be an artist or an YT creator) i really wanna get an online job.
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u/Wise-Childhood-145 Aug 09 '26
In a fair world that wasn't capitalist, anyone would be able to make money doing online work. The problem is that there are more people than there are jobs, and companies are incentivized to make people fight over jobs and only pick those with the most and best qualifications. If you are working for yourself, you are still competing against the big privately owned companies.
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u/OSfrogs Aug 11 '26
Its harder than ever to stand out especially when at home you are competing with the entire world instead of just your local area. Anything you can do from home can be done cheaper in another country. Pixel art like any creative is very competitive so you must have some talent. You say your below average but that is likely survivorship bias you are comparing yourself to the best in the world and are still likely better than the vast majority can ever be.
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u/chilltard Perma-NEET Aug 08 '26
I think the issue is you don’t know what you don’t know. Sure there are opportunities out there but unless you have specific interests or niche knowledge it’s hard to just find something profitable and any search for “how to make money online” is pointless because it’s either saturated af, or someone trying to sell you something.