My throat is on fire, I’m exhausted, my legs hurt.

Either I just escaped the eruption in Pompeii or VidCon 2026 is finally over.

I just pulled four straight 16-hour days talking to everyone I could, from grizzled vets to bright-eyed micro-influencers, with a strange goal:

I didn’t want to do any business.

This was a listening tour folks.

I’ll break down who I saw, what they said, and a whole lot of hot takes (some mine, some others).

Also in this edition:

🎩 Top 5 Takeaways from VidCon 2026

💪🏼 Jobs from Rockwater Industries, SuperOrdinary, and Passes

🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

TLDR:

I’m a VidCon stan. Haven’t missed one since 2012. But it does feel like it’s in a lull from it’s 2018-ish peak.

Cannes took away a lot of top creators and execs, ownership changes can be felt (not in a good way), and the ‘educational’ part of it is struggling.

Still, I got a lot out of it this year.

I had over 100 convos with over 100 execs, creators, start up owners, brands, and randos last week and my agenda was not to have an agenda.

Of course I told them what Stealth Talent did, but I felt it was more valuable to hear about what they need. All part of working in creator economy infrastructure…

So here are my top 5 takeaways. And, no, it’s not going to be ‘the industry is growing up’ or ‘creators are businesses now’.

Let’s go deeper:

There’s always a lot of complaining in the creator economy, but this year felt far more warranted.

On the first day, the registration line was over two hours. Fans were grumpy. Speakers missed panels. If there’s only one chance to make a first impression, this was like showing up to a date with a ‘Who Farted?’ t-shirt.

The VIP area on the floor simply didn’t work. The space was too big, too empty, the sponsor booths were completely empty the whole time. Compared to the booths at the Hyatt when that was the creator hotel, and there is no comparison.

And this is a positive/negative, but VidCon was completely overshadowed by the sub-event GorillaCon on the conference hall, where VR fans of the Gorilla Tag game absolutely swarmed the back of the hall all three days. By far the most enthusiasm on the floor.

The business-y panels were almost 100% empty, including those for huge keynote speakers from massive companies. I felt bad for the speakers often so I tried to sit near the front and look super engaged.

Even industry day fell off a bit. A little too pitchy. Not very spicy. Not very informative.

It feels like VidCon next year should go one of three directions:

Honestly, I would go with number 2. GorillaCon was a vibe. If every section of the floor focused on one massive fandom and built everything around that: vertical drama fans, Dream SMP, murder podcast zone, the 4chan dump, it would bring the floor to life.

Never take your customer for granted.

In any business.

Never, never, never.

And this year, YouTube, TikTok, and Meta being practically invisible was criminal.

Seeing Pop.Store on all of the banners was amazing for them (sans my point 5 below) but felt like a pop in the face to YouTube.

I get it. Your marketing budget is limited and it means you can’t be everywhere.

But this is a conference of 50,000 online video fans and you’re the number one online video platform.

Show up.

You can right-size it, but this is insane.

YouTube had a party, TikTok I believe wasn’t there in any way, shape, or form (correct me if I’m wrong), Twitch had a couch space in the VIP area but no programming I could see, Meta had a reveal of Instagram TV that involved a chips and salsa bar with two TVs showing Instagram Reels on a TV. I went to that one and left without having any clue what Instagram TV is, which is a pretty dang bad sign. No Kick. No Twitter. Pinterest had their former CCO speak, but that’s it. Amazon had a small booth in the VIP lounge.

C’mon people.

Guess who actually showed up on the platform side? Rumble.

Yes, White House UFC sponsor Rumble.

They won hearts and minds in this move. I saw lots of creators wearing their swag around the show.

Twitch slept on Kick and it’s coming back to bite them in a major way.

Platforms: get off the bench and get your head in the game. Creators, especially aspirational mid-tiers, are your future. Don’t take them for granted.

I’ve run VidCon activations. $250,000 is a rounding error for you, and with a little creativity, you could be the hero of VidCon.

Every single night, sans Saturday, had multiple parties.

And unlike past years where YouTube and TikTok parties were a hot ticket, everyone was begging creators to show up.

Some parties I went to were so mobbed the line was wrapped around the hotel lobby.

Some organizers spent the day of the party begging people to RSVP.

And the ones everyone talked about: the ones where the parties gave people something to do!

You can only network so many hours in a day. It’s exhausting. At night, giving someone yet another reason to stand around and chat doesn’t cut it anymore.

Shout out to Rumble’s floor party, where Millions Seoul had tons of mini-games and gave away huge amounts of K Beauty products. It was absolutely popping off! Plus the Rumble hats were cool. I’ve seen floor parties bomb in the past, and this one was unmissable.

And Rae & Xia’s cruise party sponsored by Buy.Video (warning: they’re clients of mine) did a mannequin challenge with the attendees, had plenty of beautiful sunset selfie spots, and the sponsor gave away $100 bills to try out their tech.

Nowadays, an open bar is the cost of doing business, food doubles your chances for attendance, enviable swag helps get creators to the door, but something to do that creates FOMO is massive.

Without the creator hotel, it’s hard to find the hot spots. But if you plan to throw an event next year, don’t just book out a location and a bar. Give meaningful people an interesting reason to attend.

The market may be growing astronomically, but the day-to-day creator isn’t feeling that.

I won’t name names, but I talked to one creator with more than 5 million followers still doing UGC videos for $250.

I talked to a long-form video essayist with strong views panicked because a $1,200 per month brand deal didn’t pay on time.

I talked to a TikTokker doing over 100,000 views per video whose manager hasn’t gotten them a single deal in the past year.

It’s easy to say, “Diversify! Grow a high-conversion audience! Build a business!”

But when more power is continually driven to the platforms as brands more success paying a random person to make a video and boosting the heck out of it, it becomes hard to stay motivated to be a creator.

I heard a lot of massive creators mention that they are not satisfied with their management because brand deals were light.

As I started really digging in with them, I’m not 100% sure the reps were actually doing a bad job selling.

I think they’re doing a bad job designing their brand for monetization.

If a creator isn’t getting considered for brand deals, it’s generally one of the following issues:

What solves all of these problems? Knowing when the creator isn’t ready for this and finding other ways to make money in the meantime.

My advice? If you want to make this a career, build with economics in mind from day one.

The key sponsor this year, Pop.Store, had a large banner proclaiming it is ‘The Agentic AI Creator Platform’.

I heard multiple creators reference that tagline, and not in a good way.

Creators still feel AI is here to advance the enshittification of the internet, not help them in any meaningful way.

Even the AI-curious creators talked about it with caution.

“I like AI to help me with BLANK, but I hate AI that does BLANK!”

It echoes web3, where promising applications continually took a backseat to million dollar monkeys and pump-and-dump schemes.

This isn’t a Silicon Valley tech conference, where everyone cheers the concept of replacing expensive, annoying humans with sleek, sexy robots.

If you bring up AI, you have to explain yourself. Fast.

Those that follow me know I’m not an AI hater, but I know how to listen to a market. And right now, AI companies are as tone-deaf as AI generated opera ballads.

Okay, I just re-read what I said and I sound like I’m dumping on everyone and everything.

Not the intention, nor did I leave the convention feeling angry.

I had a blast. I got to see some of my best industry friends, had amazing conversations, and everyone I met (sans a few well-known industry jag-offs) was excited to collaborate, giving, kind, and interesting.

I’m going to be a VidCon fan until they decide to stop having VidCon.

But it feels like it’s time for a real evolution on all sides:

Okay, that last one is a joke. But maybe it shouldn’t be (?)

SPONSORED: Coordinator, Creator Economy M&A, RockWater

Big companies raised big money to buy smaller companies to…I don’t know…own them I guess. But that’s a huge win for whoever gets this job. You’ll be on the front lines of the biggest deals made in one of the fastest growing industries. And you’ll get to talk to people like me!

General Manager (Creator Focused), SuperOrdinary

TikTok Shop and ecommerce execs: you have to check out SuperOrdinary. Their founder Julian is amazing. They just won the best agency of the year in beauty for TikTok Shop. They have infrastructure. They know funnels. This is a real place to learn and win.

Creator Success Manager, Passes

Paid community tech can be exceptionally profitable. And at Passes, they have Lucy Guo as a CEO, who also happens to be one of the youngest self-made billionaires in America. Their office is the old FaZe Clan office in the heart of Hollywood. It’s a cool vibe. And, most importantly, meaningful creators are already on the platform so you don’t have to work through those clunky ‘cold-start’ days.