Hey Evan,
Often times the portfolio people interview with is different than what you see online. There are certain things that people may not put online but will share during in person interviews. This could potentially be for confidentiality reasons or maybe because it’s process heavy work and is more meaningfully digested in person.
Also people’s online portfolios are often a collection of years/decades of work, or they might not even be up to date. Speaking personally, if I was to interview for a job tomorrow, there’s probably very little in my current Behance/Coroflot that I would use.
I sense your frustration with struggling with the job search, and I think you do have the skill set to make it. I’d urge you to focus less on trying to find what “things” others used and focus on answering some fundamental questions for yourself:
What am I passionate about?
What sort of work do I want to do?
What are the gaps I need to fill to make it happen?
Also it might make more sense to get in the front door through another internship as a chance to test the waters for both you and your employer. Might not be ideal in the short term but in the long term might make the most sense.