Long gone are the days where millions of kids dream of shooting towards the sky to become astronauts. Today kids are shooting for the screen, in hopes of becoming content creators.
“Young people want to become influencers [and] content creators [because] they see all of these creators living these dream lives, even though people on social media are only showing the highlights.”
YouTube content creator Makayla Lysiak constantly puts her life, and knowledge of the inner workings of the entertainment industry, on display for more than 250,000 subscribers. On social media the working actress seems to be living the dream with over 11 million YouTube views and acting credits on hit shows like “New Girl”, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, and “Grey’s Anatomy.”
But there is more to becoming a social media celebrity than meets the eye.
Today nearly 75% of kids between the ages of 6 and 17 say they want to be YouTubers and a whooping 98% of middle and high schoolers want to be an influencer, according to Bloomberg. With many social media figures displaying fun, carefree, and profitable lifestyles, it makes sense why someone would want to make a career out of living their lives on social media. However the long hours, career instability, and wage uncertainty are a few parts of the job that don’t always get shared on screen.
“I have always wanted to be a part of social media to reach a broader audience, I would say since middle school. That was like 2012 for me,” recalls content creator Sophanit Getahoun. "I was obsessed with YouTube. I didn't even watch TV at that point. I stopped watching TV. I would only watch Youtube.”
Sophanit currently has what some might define as a "dream job" working at Google after graduating from UC Berkeley this past spring. Google’s New York office is where her job is but content creation is where her passion is. Currently growing a TikTok community of over 16,000 followers, Sophanit would welcome the chance to be full-time content creator, but it’s not as easy as it seems.
Makayla had her YouTube channel for years before gaining a consistent audience. “You can't just start creating content and then make money. You have to go through a process, show that people are interested in your content, that they stay engaged and they're consistently watching,” Makayla explains.
Content creators generate revenue through a combination of sponsorship deals and platform revenue. Only about 12% of creators make more than $50,000 a year. YouTube is one of the most accessible money-making platforms, but the bar for entry into the exclusive YouTube Partner Program is high.
To be paid by YouTube for a portion of the revenue generated by those ads that we’ve all come to expect before a video, a creator must have 4,000 public watch hours of views on their channel and 1,000 subscribers. Generating quality content usually means investing in equipment, lighting, or editing software. Being a professional YouTuber is far from a get rich quick scheme.
On apps where creators aren’t usually compensated by the platform itself, creators like Sophanit look for brand deals as a way to generate revenue. Securing a brand can be a challenge in itself, with creators also acting as their own business managers, negotiating deals based on factors like how many followers they have and how many viral videos they’ve created.
“I definitely have had to negotiate [with brands]. It depends on what type of content that they're asking for, because the partnership could be one video or the partnership could be three videos," Sophanit explains. "A partnership could be a story or it could be just making a video, [but] you don't have to post it. It's for them to post on their platforms. It's so many different things.”
“Juggling all the social media platforms is a lot of work.”
One of these things is the emerging tactic of whitelisting. Whitelisting content happens when a creator gives a brand control of their social media handles to promote a sponsored post. While whitelisting can increase exposure for content creators, it can also be misleading to followers that don’t know that they are interacting with a brand instead of their favorite creator.
When someone has been doing it long enough followers and subscribers don’t just want skits or informational videos. As time goes on, communities emerge, and parasocial relationships begin to form it takes more to grow engagement.
“YouTube is my primary thing, but I found that when you gain a bigger following, they want to know what you're doing on a day to day basis,” Makayla explains. "So on Instagram, I'm able to post photos, some more of my day to day life. Then [there’s] also stories, but also creating 20 minute YouTube videos on this site and then posting Tiktoks over here.”
“Juggling all the social media platforms is a lot of work.”
However, the reward that different creators can reap from their work is impacted by a crucial factor.
Norris Jay, an emerging Black queer musical artist who uses TikTok to engage with his 25,000 followers, knows all too well about the inequality creators face on the platform.
“It's very frustrating sometimes, you know. You're putting in all this work, and then a white guy takes his shirt off, dances in front of the camera for three seconds. Boom! In one day he gets the platform you've taken, years to build.”
“I definitely thought I was gonna have like one viral video,” Norris recalls. “And then I have like a million followers, chile. I learned the long, hard way. That's not normally how it works.”
Creators can spend hours, and even days making a video that’s only a few minutes long. Even for the most established creators there’s no guarantee that those videos will yield returns.
"I learned the long, hard way. That's not normally how it works.”
— Norris Jay
“You get money every month from people watching your videos, sharing your videos and that’s not what was happening." Comedian Glozell Green, 50, is referring to a change in the YouTube algorithm that occurred around 2016, but no one quite knew what this change was. "I’m still living up here but the money [was going down], with no savings.”
YouTube, like many social media platforms, does not disclose the inner workings of its algorithm. Creators and academics alike have done extensive research trying to understand and optimize the YouTube algorithm, which is largely reasonable for if videos get put in front of consumers.
“[YouTube] changed and not even the people that were subscribed were seeing me."
While the algorithm is going through minor adjustments, this major shift in which accounts YouTube chose to promote nearly bankrupted the creator whose success online previously led her to interview President Obama and star in the animated blockbuster “Trolls”. Glozell confesses in an interview with TooFab that this change forced her to take out loans and borrow money from relatives despite having over four million subscribers on YouTube.
Even though her platform on YouTube changed a little, at least she still had one. Popular short form video platform Vine was removed from the Internet in January 2017, after just four years online. In September 2020, President Trump said he wanted to impose a ban on TikTok, creating fear and uncertainty for many creators who rely on the site’s existence to sustain their lives.
Despite putting out work on websites like YouTube and TikTok, content creators aren’t actually company employees. Therefore they are on their own for benefits like health insurance and retirement plans.
Even with uncertainty, content creation continues to grow as a career path. A SignalFire report estimated that about 50 million people worldwide would consider themselves content creators, with about 46 million creators labeling themselves as still in the amateur stage.
“I have this love for my community and it's been such a long term relationship that I don't want to abandon it.”
— Makayla Lysiak
“Community seems to be the common thread among creators for why they continue. “I do feel like I have a community that I very much value, especially my mutuals on Twitter and TikTok. I really was grateful to find a community of other black queer people on Twitter specifically,” Norris Jay describes.
As she continues to pursue acting, when the career changing role comes around, Makayla's subscribers don’t have anything to worry about. “I have this love for my community and it's been such a long term relationship that I don't want to abandon it.”
