I am so excited to finally have the time to tell you more about my journey with my little clothing brand.
Being a programmer, I wanted to create something of my own. Something I could build from the ground up, shape in my own way and keep developing over time. I already loved graphic design, 3D modelling and creating strange characters and worlds, so eventually those interests started coming together.
What might be unusual is that the characters living in these dystopian environments actually make me happy. They are strange and funny in their own ways. Somehow, a character starts as a sketch or an idea and then just comes alive. Its habits and weirdness seem to appear automatically, becoming another little piece of the Urban Magpie universe.
Coding the website began in October 2025. After many long hours and long weekends, it gradually started to feel like a real website. Not long afterwards, I thought it was a masterpiece.
Being ridiculously proud of what I had achieved, I went live only two months later. Since then, there have been improvements of all kinds, and there always seems to be another one waiting. Honestly, there is rarely any time left to work on new designs.
Once the website was online, however, something became obvious very quickly. I had created a great clothing store and delivered it into a random desert.
There was nothing but silence. No traffic whatsoever.
Until then, almost all my attention had gone into the web design and the features running behind it on the backend. Suddenly, I was facing something completely different. Marketing.
And that was how my adventures on social media began, for the first time in my life. I felt like a blind chicken desperately trying to find corn.
The lack of money forced me to be creative. I didn't have the money to pay fancy model agencies and marketing experts, but I knew I had to show my little brand to the world. So I decided to bring my characters to life with the help of AI, making short videos showing what they were up to.
One particular day is still very clear in my mind. After a lot of work, my latest video "masterpiece" was ready. It combined real photo footage with AI-generated character movements, while all the other elements were put together by me to make the whole thing look really cool.
This was, without question, the best video I had ever made.
Onto social media it went.
And then... nothing.
No views.
Eventually, I decided to pay Meta to actually show it to the world.
And then...
Shitstorm.
I'm not going to lie to you. What followed was such a wild shitstorm that I was shattered. Some of the comments were incredibly mean. People said things about my work, and sometimes about me personally, that I can't even repeat here.
Maybe it's easy to forget that there is an actual person behind something you see while scrolling through social media. Well, in my case, there was. Someone who had spent countless hours building a brand from scratch, learning things along the way, creating the characters, coding the website and then sitting there excited about a video she was genuinely proud of.
Seeing people tear into it hurt.
It made me really sad, and for a while, it took the fun out of something that had previously brought me so much joy.
My first thought was basically, great. After all that work, and I am talking founder hours, plus the money I had spent just to get the video seen, this was the result.
Eventually, I needed to walk away from Urban Magpie for a couple of weeks. At that point, I started questioning the whole thing and myself. Was the idea ridiculous? Was I dreaming of something that would never happen? Were all those hours going into something nobody would ever want?
Those questions stayed with me for a while.
The truth is, I still don't know if I'm dreaming of something unrealistic. Maybe I am. But I love Urban Magpie. For the most part, it brings me joy and a lot of fun, and I'm not going to let some randos from social media stop that.
So, if you've somehow found your way into my strange little universe, welcome. Let's see where this thing goes.