Depending on the context, zero can either be amazing — or awful.
- Zero spam emails? Amazing.
- Earned $0 commission? Crap.
- Zero Slack messages? A relief — sweet, uninterrupted focus time.
- Zero Slack messages… does anyone even know I’m here?
In this post, I want to talk about that last one.
That feeling when you see 0 views on the Loom video you finally shared after five takes. 0 views on the Confluence doc you wrote to help with onboarding — the one you thought was really important. 0 replies to the RFC you spent all day writing.
That feeling of doing a lot — and receiving not a little, but nothing at all.
Nothing
Zero isn’t just nothing. It’s something. A presence, not an absence.
It’s the silence you feel when you keep refreshing. When you scan for the little eye icon. When you hope for a familiar avatar to pop up — and… nothing. That moment? It’s subtle, but heavy.
As you sit there in that quiet, invisible feeling — of doubt, of dread, of wondering: am I invisible?
Because “0 views” isn’t just a number. It’s a blank you rush to fill in.
Maybe I wasn’t as helpful as I thought. But didn’t they say they needed this? I care about this — do they? Was this even worth making?
Maybe zero means no one cares.
Or maybe — just maybe — zero is the cost of caring before anyone else does.
50%
Let me offer another number: 50%.
Sometimes, you don’t get a crowd. You get one. One view. One emoji. One reply. And maybe it’s from the same person. Over and over again.
That matters.
Don’t let the silence of zero drown out the quiet consistency of someone who sees you. That one co-worker who always reacts to your message with a 🙌 or 👍? They’re not background noise. They’re signal.
Zoom out.
Maybe half your efforts land in silence. But the other half? They don’t.
50%.
That’s not failure. That’s rhythm.
And if even 50% of your work makes just one person feel seen, helped, inspired, motivated, or understood… then you’re doing better than you think.
In my case, I record and share several Loom videos every day — demos, explainers, walkthroughs. And I check in on them. Top right corner: 0 views. It’s incredibly easy to feel discouraged by that. I know past me would’ve been.
But I’ve learned to see it differently. Because when a video does get watched — even by just one or two people — I can feel the impact. I see how it nudges the work forward: pull requests move faster, decisions come easier, conversations go deeper.
And yeah, I’d say I get engagement about half the time. That’s enough. Enough to feel like I’m helping. Enough to keep going.
Value
Silence is feedback. Yes. (Unfortunately.) But it’s not the whole story. One person listening closely is worth more than a hundred scrolling past.
It’s not about going viral. It’s about creating value.
Zero isn’t the end. It’s the start of the quiet phase. It’s quite literally how everything begins — The first post. The first doc. The first try.
If you only ship things that guarantee a response, you’ll never do your best work. Or… any work at all.
Zero is not rejection. It’s the courage checkpoint. A chance to ask:
Will I keep going — even when no one claps (...yet? ever?)
Learn to sit with that silence. You don’t have to like it. And honestly, you probably never will. (I certainly don’t.)
But you can grow familiar with it. And when you do — you’ll realize: zero doesn’t mean you suck. It means you started.
P.S. To those who see my work — thank you. Truly. Thank you for seeing me. I see you too.