Creator Natives, Creator Immigrants

Hey there! Welcome back to the IGIN newsletter. Thanks to the 54 new IGIN readers that have joined us this past week. That puts us at 137 people who can now impress their friends at a dinner party with their knowledge of web3, the creator economy, and the internet. Congrats. You get it now.

Let's face it. Everything is different now. 

I'm pretty young myself, but even I can remember what it was like in the days before social media and the smart phone. 

Hell, I can even remember the exact morning in 2007 when my dad first showed me his cool new gadget: the original iPhone. The very first thing I said was, "Mom's gonna be mad that you bought that". (What can I say...I was a money conscious kid.)

In reality though, I, along with most people, had no clue that the smartphone (and the internet ecosystem built around it) was about to change just about everything.

Fast forward to today. 

We live is a much different world now.

No more printing out MapQuest directions before a trip. You can just get directions on you phone. You don't even have to grocery shop for yourself anymore. You can literally order groceries to your door with the click of a button. You can even book a stay in someone's spare bedroom. All of this would have seemed insane just a few years ago. 

And yes. All of these have been huge innovations in their respective industries, but for as cool or convenient as some of these innovations can be, they aren't generation-defining shifts. They aren't a part of our culture. 

But there's one development that is coming to define internet culture. Not only that, it is going to become a generation-defining shift. And what would that be? Did you guess it?

It's the creator economy.

So let's talk about it:

• The Creator Economy. What's the big idea here?

• Creator Natives. The next generation.

• Takeaways. This is just the start.

The Creator Economy.

If you look up the term "creator economy", you could find a thousand different definitions. With this being my newsletter and all, I'm gonna take a crack at it myself. I would define it as this: 

Whether or not you've noticed it yet, the creator economy is all around you... and I bet you don't even realize the full scope of it's influence.

Probably the most prolific of all creator platforms is YouTube. (I mean... who hasn't watched something on this platform.)

Then of course, there are tons of creators on the obvious social media platforms — Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, Twitch.

Then we have the less obvious platforms — Pinterest, OnlyFans, Cameo.

Creators can even use the old-fashioned practice of using written word with newsletter platforms like Substack, Medium, and beehiiv (ahem... as in where I write this newsletter).

Creators can now be teachers with online course platforms like Podia, Teachable, and SkillShare.

Creators are all over the podcast scene. There's also the emerging live audio platforms like Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces...

Have I overwhelmed you yet? Probably.

It seems like an insane amount of avenues for people to pursue in this sphere, but really the craziest thing about it is that nearly all of these platforms are less than 15 years old. So in less than two decades, the creator economy has gotten a strong foothold in audio, video, print, education, video games, design... I could go on. For simplicity's sake, let's say creators specialize in content.

So we've talked about platforms and types of content, but there's still two more key terms from my definition — monetization and audience.

Monetization is key as to why the creator economy is becoming so important.

Firstly, the fact that individuals can now turn creative passions into careers — well, that's just f*ckin awesome. 

Secondly, on a more society-wide scale, the creator economy is literally turning industries on its head. The structures of the media industry already are beginning to transform because of creators. Another big one, the advertising industry, is going to undergo huge changes.

In the US alone, ad spend was upward of $240 BILLION in 2020. Yet, I bet a lot of that money went to waste because frankly...no one really cares what companies have to say anymore. Everyone has become pretty desensitized to the countless TV commercials, spam emails, and highway billboards. It's all stale.

Although people might not care what a company has to say... we do care what people (as in your favorite creator) have to say. I'm betting that in a few years you'll be receiving most of your advertising through a creator. 

Now the last bit of the equation — audience. This is arguably the most important piece. That's where the new term I've coined comes in...

Creator Native

To understand the importance of a generation of creator natives, it might be helpful to give you some background on where I spun this idea off from...

So back in 2001, some smart dude named Marc Prensky, coined the term "digital natives" to describe the generation of those who have grown up in the era of computers and the internet (later applied to smart phones).

All of these technologies saw very slow adoption speed initially because nobody was native to the ecosystem. The first generation that worked with computers were all "digital immigrants". However, as soon as the next generation came around and grew up in the computer ecosystem... the technology was off to the races.

Not only was this generation more adept at using this technology, the way they thought about how the world worked was fundamentally changed. They effectively thought in a new language compared to those born before the digital age.

So, now back to the creator economy.

We're at the onset of the “creator native” generation. Up until now, nearly anyone involved in the creator ecosystem was a creator immigrant. They had to learn everything from scratch and evolve as the space grew.

Now that the creator economy has had to time to cement itself, the next generation can arrive. Every kid born within the last ten years has been raised in and around this ecosystem, and every year, more and more will be born into this generation.

Not only will this generation be more adept at accessing all of the content through the various platforms of the creator economy, but they will come with an expectation that their content to be delivered in this form. They will think in a new language of sorts, backed by the idea that nearly all of their media and advertisement consumption should flow through their favorite creators.

This is the audience that fulfills that last key piece to the creator economy equation.

So what might come from a generation that has lived and breathed content from creators their entire lives?

Innovation. As more people begin to pursue a career in creatorship, we will see things in this space that I could never imagine. I don't think we've even scratched the surface of what creators can do with their content, community, and businesses. The building blocks are still being built, with Web3 being one of them. 

This space has exploded over the last few years, but this is just the start. Soon we will have a population of creator natives, and then the fun will truly begin. I don't think we're too far off from a future where you'll be seeing the biggest creator's names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Takeaways.

1. Creators can do anything. If my long list of creator platforms didn't totally give it away, let me tell you a secret. You can be a creator in just about any way you could imagine. Even from the simple outlook of content forms (audio, video, writing, etc.) and categories (cooking, travel, sports, etc.), there are limitless combinations of content to make. Yet, those are just the obvious formats. Creators could be community builders with Discord, design curators with Pinterest, and so much more.  

2. Creator-to-Audience Relationship. One of the most powerful draws that content produced by a creator holds is the connection that the audience member feels towards the creator. Most people today (especially creator natives) don't care for the messaging and media created by huge companies. This generation desires authentic connection and community. Creators provide that, which is why they can develop such strong audiences. This is the backbone for the entire creator economy. This is also why monetization is possible. Companies need a way in to peoples lives, and creators will be that avenue in the future.

3. This is just the start. What started as just a select few people posting blogs or YouTube videos for fun in the early 2000's has now evolved into a massive industry. The infrastructures for turning creation into a career has gotten much better, but the ecosystem is still evolving. We're just now beginning to see creators leveraging their audiences to grow their own businesses and build huge brands. There are so many possibilities yet to be explored.

Whether or not you have a favorite creator today, you will in the future. I'm betting that the creator economy will eventually become the backbone for all traditional media and advertisement. 

In the world of yesterday, celebrities status was reserved for movie stars, but in the world of tomorrow, those stars will be creators.

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-Levi