Sponsored by RockWater

Markiplier appears to be an AI pessimist who is looking for a reason to be an optimist.

And I don’t think he’s alone.

Most creators I speak to think AI is interesting, but worry that it’s going to destroy the creator economy by flooding platforms with AI slop.

This week I had the opportunity to have dozens of conversations with top AI creator economy experts in LA. I won’t name names in the spirit of that open conversation, but most seemed pretty excited.

Until I asked them: where does this go in 5 years?

Suddenly, it’s not sounding so hot for creators.

I’m going to break down five potential outcomes I heard from attendees.

Also in this edition:

• Engagement Bait vs Engagement-Forward

• Hank Green’s App Focuses on Success

• The White House Heads for TikTok

• Another Week, Another Streamer Record

• Job ops from Cantina Labs, Warner Bros. Games, and Tubi

• …and a dank creator economy meme by yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

AI, AI, Aye…

AI is going to make my content 100x better.

AI is going to flood every platform with garbage.

AI is going to kill us all before the creator economy changes too much.

I heard all three statements genuinely expressed in the past week by someone considered to be a top AI expert in the creator economy.

And during a week where Mark Fischbach, known by his gamer tag Markiplier, announced his non-profit to explore how AI can be used for good, I thought it was a good time to report my very non-scientific findings when asking dozens of creator economy experts, “What will AI do to the industry in 5 years?”

Here are the five responses I heard most often.

AI will make video content far better by giving Hollywood-grade capabilities to every man, woman, and child with a computer. I heard this most often, which makes sense in a group of creator economy AI experts. And it’s hard to deny that providing tools like text-to-Michael-Bay-style-explosions can add premium shine to user generated content. This is the ‘AI is a tool’ argument that’s so often heard, which dismisses many companies that are claiming end-to-end content generation.

AI will flood every social platform with ‘AI Slop’ making it harder for content creators to compete. Some platforms are already showing signs of this. It may be because I’m visiting so many AI websites, but my Facebook feed is almost entirely AI-generated content on pages I don’t follow. My Instagram feed is also full of ‘AI influencers’ trying to be the next Mia Zelu or Lil’ Miquela. But YouTube has signaled changes to surface less ‘low effort’ or ‘mass produced’ content, which is hard to not see as a direct affront to AI. This may be true for some platforms, but certainly not all.

AI content is just going to be another genre and will co-exist harmoniously with human-made content. I’m old enough to remember when reality TV exploded and some pundits thought it could be the beginning of the end of scripted content, due to the vastly decreased cost and popularity. What happened? Reality TV was explosively popular, but so is scripted content. The markets grew at the same time reality TV took a big bite of the pie, so there was room for both (though I’m guessing my TV-industries readers may push back on describing TV as ‘growing’ based on the sorry state of the market. But I see this as a probable outcome as AI will likely create its own formats, and human ingenuity will continually lean in to more, dare I say, ‘authentic’ formats.

AI content will completely cut out creators as platforms realize they can keep viewers engaged without needing to pay humans. This is the ‘hyper-capitalist’ POV. Let’s call it the ‘super villain’ outcome. But it also doesn’t feel that crazy. Many LLMs with video capabilities are made by large distribution players like Google and Meta. If they train on enough creator content along with viewership analytics, it is entirely possible that they can eventually replicate content well enough to have it either dynamically generated as users watch based on their preferences, or create so much content that algorithms can be hyper-personalized, much like current algorithms. I always push back when people say AI will never create good enough content that people will want to watch as most content on most platforms may give you a dopamine hit, but I struggle to call it ‘good’. I think we’re a year away from my TikTok FYP feed now being just as good as an entirely AI generated feed trained on my viewership history.

We’ll all be dead soon so none of this matters. Surprisingly, this was said by more than one person, and I say with some hesitation but 100% honesty, I think about this often. When I hear about agentic AI having super-human capabilities, I immediately think about what a super-villain would do with it. Agentic AI will do whatever it takes to accomplish its task. Meanwhile, there’s a ‘non-woke’ AI movement that essentially wants a completely untethered and unregulated AI. I put those two together, along with an AI that can hack, is connected to the internet, and has all of the world’s knowledge in real time, and it’s hard not to think of a worst case scenario.

One thing we’ve learned from these shifts in the past: usually the extremes don’t happen, and the real answer lives somewhere between all of these.

But it’s good to be aware of all of them.

SPONSORED BY ROCKWATER

How to prep your creator business for a sale.

RockWater advises owners in the creator economy on the sale of their business. We have the largest buyer network, and negotiate the best deals possible for our clients. We’re proud to be the industry’s top M&A advisor.

We recently advised Lionize, an influencer marketing platform, on their sale to gen.video. We’ve also advised Long Haul Mgmt (sold to Wasserman), Bottle Rocket Mgmt (sold to Night), Bounty (sold to gen.video), and have many more deals yet to be announced.

If you want a POV on your company’s valuation and readiness for a sale, reach out to to [email protected] to setup an intro call.

GROW 1%:

Phil Ranta’s weekly social media growth newsletter with one actionable tip to grow.

This week’s ‘Grow 1%’ is titled Engagement Bait vs Engagement-Forward and discusses how to make content that gest engagement without forcing it.

Here’s an excerpt, and you can read the entire edition in the link above:

Algorithms love content with high engagement: likes, comments, and subscribing after watching a video.

But platforms HATE 'engagement bait' and specifically warns against it. Here's Facebook's warning. YouTube is a bit broader.

So where's the line between creating engagement-forward content and engagement bait?

Like so many algorithmic rules, it's not always clear, and when you overstep that line your content can completely tank.

There is nuance across platforms, but there are some relatively universal ground rules:

Repetitive comments: These are devalued or, at the very least, ignored. All of those YouTubers who say "Comment LOVE below!" are likely not doing themselves or their content any favors (sans using Stampede Social or Manychat on Meta, but that's giving up some algorithmic preference for incredibly valuable conversions).

Continue reading here.

FAME & FORTUNE:

Hank Green is making ADHD fun again! Focus Friend became the number one app in the world, unseating ChatGPT, which mixes a cozy game starring an adorable bean and lessons to help you get off your phone.

The White House is bringing MAGA memes to TikTok, despite the deadline for the app ban coming up. Not sure how they can do that considering the app is supposed to be banned on federal employee phones, but here we are…

Popular gamer Ludwig broke the creator-driven competitive event record with 330,000 concurrent viewers of his 2025 Streamer Games. Another win for eventized super-collabs, and yet another feather in the cap for Red Bull who understands wild sporting events and the internet better than any other brand.

YouTube continues to invest in tech for their Shorts platform with new AR filters, much like Snapchat or TikTok. Whether they’ll have their own version of a rainbow vomit filter is still not confirmed.

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Cantina Labs needs a Director, Creator Programs who can develop an AI avatar that can do the job so they can fire themselves.

Warner Bros. Games is looking for an Head of Social, Community & Creators. Must be willing to dog sit Crypto.

Tubi wants a Senior Manager, Creator Partnerships that’s looking to launch a series with a charming LinkedIn influencer who can talk endlessly about social platform content strategy (…please?)

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.