In this very special edition of ‘The Creator Rep’, I’m going to forgo the usual news segment and jump straight into the ‘Thoughts Are My Own’ to discuss what I discussed and learned at this conference.

Also in this edition:

😱 Meta Layoffs…Again

🐝 Beehiiv Goes After Class Creators

🎫 Passes Playing the ‘Creator OS’ Card

👹 YouTube Mogs Clavicular

💪🏼 Jobs from Moose Toys, Influu, and Panda Restaurant Group

🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

TLDR:

Elite creators speak a language that often feels like the scene from the movie Good Will Hunting when the Matt Damon character sticks it to the Harvard boy by preempting all his arguments with well-cited reasoning.

It’s a mix between terminally online social media speak and exceptionally nerdy analytics.

“How do you like them CTRs?”

At the Brand Innovators Creator Economy Summit last Thursday, I was in a green room with a group of people whose collective influence could take a brand from zero to a billion dollars, change the outcome of a national election, and make ‘fetch’ happen.

Then go grab a kale smoothie for lunch.

So, as I usually do when entering these spaces, I wanted to run a social experiment.

With every creator, brand, platform, and ‘other’ that I talked to, I asked, “What’s challenging right now?”

Names have been changed to protect the innocent, but here are some approximate responses (I wasn’t recording so this is from memory).

From a top viral creator: “Investors in this space have no clue what they’re doing. Their giving all of the money to people who don’t know anything while we’re doing the work.”

From a manager with millions in brand deal flow: “Most brand money is still wasted on shout-outs from creators with lousy views but a lot of hype. That sucks for all of us.”

From a top comedy creator: “Money is way down. I keep hearing people say the creator economy is growing so much, so why am I making less this year than last year?”

From an investor: “AI doesn’t change anything. It’s all just reach and relevance.”

From a brand marketer: “I still don’t know what any of this is, but it seems exciting! Nobody at my company is doing enough of this stuff.”

From a traditional celebrity with a strong social following: “My management keeps trying to mess with my content and take my AdSense. It’s a pain. It’s like fighting my own team.”

From a big digital media company: “This is all exhausting. I’m ready to retire.”

By my count, I had about 100 conversations that day, ranging from 3 to 30 minutes, and one thing stood out: Nobody is talking about this stuff publicly.

Nobody.

There are so many really great publications, podcasts, and more around the creator economy, but those discussions are mostly well-practiced pitches to drive an economic outcome.

When I hear a guy in his 20’s who has made more money than most people will make it 50 lifetimes say, “I’m confused, I’m angry, I’m tired…” it feels like this warrants a larger conversation.

And here’s where I’d like to start:

Most creators are fantastic at making content, but don’t know how to talk to brands. When I was in talking circles with creators and brands, it often felt like Gossling and Rocky trying to find a way to communicate.

And brands, per usual, mostly didn’t know what to do. Many talked to other brand marketers the whole time to compare notes, while the creators often stuck to their own.

There were exceptions, but a lot of it felt like a junior high school dance: mostly girls on one side, boys on the other, and the teachers in the middle trying to figure out whether they should do something.

And because authenticity was brought up so many times in panels, here’s my plea:

Let’s treat these gatherings with the same level of authenticity.

Tell people what you want, what you need, and what your concerns are.

Building relationships is fantastic. But I don’t see many 19-year-old vloggers and 50-year-old CMOs becoming text buddies.

They want to learn from each other and advance their personal economic outcomes.

There was so much learning on this day but so much more to be done.

Now let’s move those stock points up a few notches and get our creator another Lambo, shall we?

What creators, brands, governments, and platforms are making waves this week in the name of fortune, fame, and fun?

😱 Meta is laying off yet another 8,000 people and closing 6,000 open roles, accounting for about 10% of their staff, as the ‘year of efficiency’ enters its third year. As someone whose career depends on my relationships at platforms, I’ll speak for all of us when I say: please stop doing this…

🐝 Is beehiiv still a newsletter company? This week, they announced webinars and customizable subscription payouts to add to their already impressive technology stack. Could beehiiv become the ‘everything story’ for building and monetizing community?

🎫 Passes, the paid fan community site, has announced a rebrand to become a ‘creator accelerator’ which feels a lot like the buzzy ‘Creator OS’ pitches we’ve been hearing about lately. The difference: Passes has loads of cash on hand and a billionaire CEO!

👹 Clavicular, the manosphere hero who believes the most important thing in life is looking good, has been banned from YouTube for ‘repeated violations’. Here’s to hoping his audience moves on and gets really into soul-searching-maxxing.

Head of Social Media Strategy, Moose Toys

If you haven’t worked with Moose Toys, can you really call yourselves creator reps? The toy company that jumped onto creators faster than anyone, including running a line of MrBeast toys, needs a head of social media strategy to get those slime tubes to go even more viral!

Creator Campaign Manager, Influu

When I’m asked by my friends’ college-aged kids (ugh…I feel old…), “How do I break into the world of social media?”, I always recommend roles like this. Nothing teaches you this industry like being forced to run outreach for campaigns, manage deliverables, creative, and reporting for brands, and seeing the results. You’ll quickly realize that it’s not all lobster dinners and setting couches on fire!

Senior Manager, Guest Care (Social Engagement & Listening), Panda Restaurant Group

Customer service has gone social, and no one has felt it more than fast food restaurants. And it’s not just because Wendy’s is roasting you into the ground. Fast feedback requires fast and deft responses to keep your brand from falling into an endless loop of complaints and pile-ons. But does Panda Group need to worry about this? If anyone talks bad about Dynamite Shrimp I’ll throw down!