#creator-economy

#creator-economy

Anyone in marketing gawking at the near-billion price tag attached to TikTok creator Khaby Lame and his deal with Rich Sparkle Holdings isn't really looking at innovation. They're witnessing faith. Faith in what this industry has collectively agreed to let numbers represent. Because that $975 million valuation doesn't seem to be rooted in the nuts and bolts of Lame's company Step Distinctive Limited's financials so much as the gravitational pull of his audience.

For years, the creator economy has rewarded founders who built audiences and companies simultaneously, serving as talent, brand, strategist and executive all at once. But as teams grow, revenue diversifies and operational complexity increases, that model is increasingly under pressure. One of the clearest examples comes from Smosh, one of YouTube's longest-standing creator businesses. Nearly two decades after its founding, Smosh has survived multiple platform evolutions, monetization resets and cultural changes by intentionally separating creative leadership from executive control.

Segal developed ELLO over seven years, drawing from his background operating a licensed YouTube Multi-Channel Network. The result is a hybrid platform that merges media publishing with secure messaging, eliminating reliance on social algorithms or third-party dashboards. ELLO supports video, audio, livestreaming, and digital publishing within a unified interface. For legacy media brands, the platform enables mobile-native magazine publishing-eschewing PDFs in favor of scrollable, interactive formats optimized for smartphone consumption.

What Patreon is referring to is the mandate Apple announced in 2024 around subscription billing changes. It said that Patreon must move all its creators to subscription billing using Apple's in-app purchase system by November 2025 or else Patreon would risk removal from the App Store. Apple made this decision because Patreon was managing the billing for some percentage of creators' subscriptions, and the tech giant saw that as skirting its App Store commission structure.

"Net-30 is still the most common, but it's definitely extending," said one talent agency executive. "I'm seeing a lot more 60, 45[-day payment windows], or 30 days from the end of the month [as opposed to from the date the campaign went live]. I've occasionally seen 90 and 180, but that's been a little rare. But it's extending a lot."

Despite selling Step Distinctive Limited to Rich Sparkle, Lame will remain as the controlling shareholder of the company. "This is not just an equity acquisition, but a revolution in the global content e-commerce model," Rich Sparkle said in a statement. The content creator also signed on for an AI likeness of himself to take shape, allowing more of his multilingual content to be shared on the global stage.

Michela Allocca, founder of the personal finance brand Break Your Budget, got started with just her iPhone and an Instagram account. She had a friend take pictures of her around Boston, where she was living and working at the time, "and I would literally post a picture of myself and write a long caption about three steps to start investing," she told Business Insider.

In a Financial Times op-ed late last month, he pointed to a major milestone in the creator economy: an analysis from WPP Media indicated that creator-generated content would fetch the same share of global ad revenue as the radio and newspaper industries would in 2025. "Advertising revenues are not flowing to traditional platforms," Donovan wrote. "To get a message across in the modern world, you need to find a 15-year-old with a smartphone and a nice set of dance moves."

According to XCreators, the initiative is designed to encourage creators to produce high-quality, original content that sparks conversation, breaks news and shapes culture. The winning article must be original, a minimum of 1,000 words and will be primarily judged based on Verified Home Timeline impressions. The official announcement states that content that violates X's policies or is hateful, fraudulent, or manipulative will not be taken into consideration, and that only users in the United States are eligible.

The resolution, known as the Creator Bill of Rights, expresses the sense of the House of Representatives that creators and digital workers represent "a distinct and growing class of small businesses and independent economic contributors" who deserve fair treatment, transparency, and economic opportunity in a platform-driven economy. The creator economy is currently valued at $250 billion globally and is expected to reach $480 billion by 2027, according to figures cited in the press release announcing the resolution.

Wonder Project quietly enlisted a group of eight social media creators last year to help promote shows such as Amazon Prime Video's " House of David " and the upcoming family drama "It's Not Like That." The creators were given broad access to Wonder Project series, including early screeners, set visits, clips and other assets that are ready-made for creators to craft social media posts that help spread the word about the shows.

At $8 million for a 30-second Super Bowl spot, celebrities are expected to maintain their monopoly on Big Game commercials this year, keeping influencers and creators in the wing for social and experiential campaigns. "It's just viewership demographics. You cast a really wide net of people watching it, and you want as many people as possible to recognize the person you're putting on the screen," said Jerry Hoak, chief creative officer at The Martin Agency.

We are still at the early stages of another big shift in technology (Generative AI) which threatens to upend the news industry by offering more efficient ways of accessing and distilling information at scale. At the same time, creators and influencers (humans) are driving a shift towards personality-led news, at the expense of media institutions that can often feel less relevant, less interesting, and less authentic. In 2026 the news media are likely to be further squeezed by these two powerful forces.

Even more influencers than usual are flocking to Dubai this weekend for the 1 Billion Followers Summit that will take over the city's financial district, the Museum of the Future, and government hub Emirates Towers. Touted as the world's largest gathering for content creators, the three-day event kicked off Friday with 30,000 attendees expected - including YouTuber MrBeast, Republican figurehead Lara Trump, and Dubai resident and former soccer star Rio Ferdinand.

At the start of the year, we asked 11 experts to share their social media predictions for 2025. They pointed to big shifts - world-building, private communities, AI in everything and everywhere, LinkedIn's rise, and a creator economy moving toward more sustainable businesses. Now that the year is behind us, it's a good moment to pause and check the tape. Some predictions held up almost perfectly. Others played out more slowly or looked different than expected.

The world's largest tech showcase does not come without theatrics. Innovations and gadgets like a lollipop that sings to you as you consume it, a laundry-folding robot, and a "smart" LEGO brick have stolen the spotlight so far at CES 2026. But underscoring this year's programming is a strong focus on an industry that relies on a similar theatrical flair: entertainment.

EXCLUSIVE: CAA has signed Scalable, a newly launched, female-led media company dedicated to covering one of the fastest-growing sectors in media and technology: the creator economy. The agency will work with Scalable across opportunities in media, partnerships, live events, and brand extensions as they continue to expand their footprint. Scalable is founded by longtime collaborators Kaya Yurieff and Jasmine Enberg, who have chronicled the creator economy, social media, and the broader tech landscape for more than a decade,

Across X and other social channels, creators have begun posting screenshots and testimonials about sharply higher payouts tied to the most recent revenue‑share distribution. Analyzing the screenshots and reports, it's evident that creators are seeing two to three times their previous checks, with some describing the new numbers as "the first time X feels like a real income stream" instead of pocket change.

At the time, I wrote that his reply to an X user, "Ok, let's do it," with a tag to X Head of Product Nikita Bier and a warning to "rigorously enforce no gaming of the system," felt like a line in the sand for how serious X was about paying people who keep its feeds alive. Now, early 2026 payout reports suggest that X is starting to follow through.

One of the biggest shifts in 2025 was how quickly everyday moments turned into shared cultural moments.