Part I - What is a Weird Internet Career?

The cornerstone of a Weird Internet Career is that you a) make a thing on the internet that people value and b) provide a way to convert that value into money. (If you have the first but not the second, it’s not a career, at least not yet. If you have the second but not the first, well, you probably don’t have much in the way of career yet either.)

Weird Internet Careers are the kinds of jobs that are impossible to explain to your parents, people who somehow make a living from the internet, generally involving a changing mix of revenue streams.

You don’t need to be famous to have a Weird Internet Career, though it often involves building a certain amount of reputation for you or your thing in some corner of the internet, but most of that reputation is built by doing the thing, not by starting off as notable from something else.

The cornerstone of a Weird Internet Career is that you a) make a thing on the internet that people value and b) provide a way to convert that value into money. (If you have the first but not the second, it’s not a career, at least not yet. If you have the second but not the first, well, you probably don’t have much in the way of career yet either.)

Weird Internet Careers are weird because there is no one else who does exactly what they do. They’re internet because they rely on the internet as a cornerstone, such as bloggers, webcomics, youtubers, artists, podcasters, writers, developers, subject-matter experts, and other people in very specific niches. And they’re careers because they somehow... See more

You don’t need to be famous to have a Weird Internet Career, though it often involves building a certain amount of reputation for you or your thing in some corner of the internet, but most of that reputation is built by doing the thing, not by starting off as notable from something else.