I was reading through this today while I was at work and was seriously happy you made this thread @TheTinMan, I’ll admit right now, I try and keep a professional attitude to the majority of the cockwombles who heckle me or start drama but I fail miserably when someone brings up #Teamfreeshit, nothing winds me up more and I just can’t keep my mouth shut (or…fingers still…as the case may be) I had a rant at someone on FB last week over it, but there was this one guy who was being really really obnoxious and smarmy over it last year sometime, can’t remember what forum it was, anyway, the topic was how many mods we owned so I told him it was like 40 or 50 or so at the time but told him it was because I was a reviewer, so he went at it, calling me a freeloader and that i should only mention mods I had actually bought and not …‘freeloaded’…
But I kept me cool, and just said “yeah I’ve got loads of stuff I got free, too much really, more than I’d ever use, do you want some?”
Too which his mood changed slightly…“really?..sure!”
“OK”…I said…“All you have to do, is send an email out to all the main suppliers telling them that you’re a writer or vlogger and you are trying to get into reviewing and that you would like to work with them if they are looking for anyone, do this 30 or 40 times all to different suppliers and manufacturers, out of 40, probably 3 or 4 will acknowledge your existence but you might get lucky…OR…enter competitions and hope to win something where as the promoter of said competition will want you write something about the thing that you probably wouldn’t win…OR…buy stuff, do a bunch of reviews first…THEN repeat the first stage with a few examples of what you can do to show them…that’s the first stage, then you actually have to take whatever this item is, let’s say an RDA, and take 100 or so photographs of it, takes an hour or 2, and would probably work better if you buy yourself some things to help this, like a tripod for your phone or a nice camera even, maybe a light box and some adjustable lighting and a lens kit, then once you have your photos you have to edit them with photoshop or something similar, choose your favourite 20 shots, edit each one to make it a bit punchy, get rid of blemishes, do a bit of spotting etc etc…takes another hour or 2, then when you have your favourite pictures of it you have to test it for as long as your supplier will allow to give you a real good feel of the thing, I like a week at least of solid testing but I have taken way longer and occasionally a little shorter, make notes throughout and do a bunch of builds, maybe even take a few more pics with a few different builds in it and go through the edit process again…THEN…when you have your pics, notes and opinions you need to sit down and work out a format that you think will work to put across these opinions to everyone, and sit and right them out in a way that you think might engage people, this is the longest stage, it can take anything from 5 to 15 hours depending on distractions…writers block…having a life…THEN…when you think you have a good review all laid out you need to ask the permissions of any Admin on anywhere you want to post your masterpiece where people don’t know you, be it another forum or a facebook group or whatever…wait for those replies or you’ll get shut down instantly, THEN…when you have a few permissions from those that bothered to reply you will need to re-edit your review to fit whichever format they use, some have a maximum amount or pictures you can use, some have a maximum character limit or file size…so you’re best uploading your pics to a free host site like Imgur, then once you have copied your text over to this forum you then need to re insert every image with the imgur addresses…one by one…takes a while, THEN when you’ve hit the forums that have allowed you to post (I do 7) you can hit social media, facebook and Insta, I post on around 30 facebook groups all of which I have to remember the admin name that allowed me and include their name in the post to say you have been approved by them…this also takes a while, I cheat with Insta because I am fortunate enough to have a Lolly…Lolly is awesome and does my proofreading and insta post for me, which saves me a heap of time because I also spend an hour or so on creating some artwork to put up, that’s pretty much all you need to do really…might seem like a lot of work…but hey!..after everything you just did!..you get to keep that $25 RDA…like…FOREVER…isn’t that just the coolest?”
He didn’t reply…I notched that up as a win 
I have nothing but massive amounts of respect for anyone that tries their hand at reviewing, be it writers or vloggers or whatevs because this shit is GRAFT, and unless you are dedicated and willing to spend time away from your family to keep plugging away at it - it just won’t work, I’ve been doing this 2 years now and although sometimes I simply don’t have time to do it as often due to having young kids, us both working and a managerial career that kills me sometimes, it’s just not possible to do it as much as I’d like…but I still really enjoy entertaining people, and I LOVE working with my team who are fucking incredible people for all that they do…and it’s vaping man, I fucking love vaping, I’ve become friends with some awesome awesome people along the way and even though I have come close to giving up on more than one occasion…I don’t think I will ever actually be able to.
FUCK ME I can go on with myself…jeeeezus 
thank you
…damn that Beryl…
