Influencers, now a slowly fading cliché in the Internet’s tableau vivant, found success articulating the cult of personality, and marketing themselves as direct-to-consumer-goods. The shift away from this algorithmic surrender can be traced to the macro and micro “creator economies” spawned by the likes of Patreon, Substack, OnlyFans and even... See more

This new model takes what we have learned from the Aggregation Era and finds a way to blend it with the independence enjoyed by the “sovereign writer”—or, to be appropriately expansive, let’s call it “sovereign creator.” It is, I believe, the natural model of the internet, taking advantage of the web’s massive scale and interconnectivity and... See more

What’s striking about the creator phenomenon is that it isn’t a vertical trend; rather, it’s a through-line that cuts across social, gaming, crypto, media, commerce. It is both the future of work, with creators forming a new class of digitally-native entrepreneurs, and the future of leisure. And while the creator phenomenon is often thought of as a... See more