Elizabeth Goodspeed on the rise of the designer as influencer

For creative people this hits especially hard as social media’s invention of “personal brands,” “influencers,” and the “Creator Economy” turned the few remaining aspects of life that hadn’t yet been marketized into the last ways we could make a living without working for somebody else. Gradually and then suddenly creative people found themselves do... See more

Kids these days don’t start magazines; they go straight to launching creative consultancies and editorial workshops, hustling for clients with a portfolio site and self-published zines that are almost not about marketing (“place making,” “identity building”). It used to be that you had to contribute to the culture first, establishing your reputatio... See more

With or without social media, I have things to say, wisdom to share, and plenty to teach! But how do I disentangle all that from the problems I see with the influencer-slash-content-creator business model?