Open the YouTube app today, and a Short starts playing before you've even tapped anything. Your subscriptions and recommendations are pushed a layer deeper. This is the hostile takeover of your user experience. For most of its life, YouTube was a place you visited with a purpose. You searched for tutorials, watched creators you followed, or looked up something specific.
In the bright, brand-new lobby of a Back Bay advertising agency, a step-and-repeat bearing the city of Boston's seal is set up like a Fashion Week photo wall. Mayor Michelle Wu, cradling her infant daughter, leans in for snapshots with a steady stream of visitors: a woman in a crimson corduroy coat, another in a cardigan dotted with three-dimensional flowers.
It seems like you have to be a little bit more online or up to date with how fast culture moves just to determine, yes, this is a 'safe brand' - a brand that I'm willing to work with versus a brand that's [in] a little bit of hot water right now,
Here's what most people don't understand about this industry: it's still the Wild West. Some brands are sophisticated and know industry rates cold. Others are winging it completely. I've seen deals vary wildly for similar deliverables, and frankly, those "industry standard" rates you find online? They're largely suggestions-and often irrelevant. This reality presents both opportunity and challenge. One popular question becomes: who should make the first offer?
"As the definition of talent continues to evolve, so must the systems that support it," said Andrew Ruf, Managing Partner at Paradigm. "Reign Maker Group has built a scalable process that meets creators where they are, with an eye towards where they're going. By combining our global reach with their innovative infrastructure, we're able to accelerate opportunities for a new generation of talent and the professionals who represent them."
For decades, telecommunications companies have been the quiet power behind the world's digital transformation. They connect billions, fuel global commerce, and enable nearly every modern convenience. Yet despite that foundational role, telcos have often struggled to capture the consumer imagination or command the kind of loyalty enjoyed by tech and social media brands built on top of their networks. Today, two converging forces can change the equation: the rise of the creator economy and the rapid maturation of artificial intelligence.
Individuals trying to support themselves via subscriptions are as dependent on the whims of the marketplace as those working for large corporations, and it's not just the lack of health care and 401ks that make the career of a patron-supported creator precarious - it's the rawness and immediacy of the relationship.
Inside a historic aircraft hangar in Playa Vista, crowds of people gathered on Thursday to browse the latest fashions from handbags to clothing and shoes as they prepared for the holiday shopping season. These weren't shoppers or retailer buyers searching for the latest products. Instead, they were YouTube video creators who were being courted by brands from Lowe's to Shark Beauty to encourage online audiences to buy their products.
By the numbers: Gospel Stats tracked 65,759 sponsored videos in the first half of 2025 that drove 19.1 billion total views, up nearly 28% year-over-year. News aggregation app Ground News was the top brand sponsor based on number of sponsored videos with 1,863 integrations in the first half of 2025, up 202% year-over-year, followed by Squarespace, BetterHelp and DraftKings. Ground News also ranked first based on total video views at 664 million, followed by Shopify, BetterHelp and Incogni. MrBeast was the top creator by views on sponsored videos at 1.4 billion, followed by The Ramsey Show, Linus Tech Tips and MeidasTouch.
"I remember back on my agency days, seven years ago, that the upfront conversation started around Christmas," says Cohen, who worked at Magna prior to IAB. "CES was the kickoff to upfront conversation. So there was nothing magical about May for the NewFronts."
Now, a new crop of storefronts want to make it easier to shop what we see on our favourite creators' feeds by positioning them as the curators of their own online stores. As the traditional wholesale model falters, it's shaping up to be the next creator economy battleground. In the last three months, ShopMy launched direct-to-consumer (DTC) creator storefronts on its platform, which currently provide affiliate links to creators to tag their recommendations.
What makes Reid a slam dunk for the role is her rare combination of real athletic experience and creative expertise. A professional basketball player, she most recently made her mark on the NBA's Digital and Social team, where she played a key role in shaping the league's on-site coverage strategy, traveling to major events to capture viral moments and produce real-time digital content across multiple platforms.
I still remember when social media first felt like magic, a place where creativity could travel the world in seconds. But as my audience grew, I also realized something else: the platforms owned the data, the content, and the rewards. That imbalance is what SocialFi is changing. And Growing. Per Micro Marketing Insights, the global SocialFi market is projected to exceed $10 billion by 2033.
Doing it right means systematizing everything: how much creators are paid, which campaigns they worked on, how those campaigns performed, what channels delivered results and whether one creator outperformed another. Most brands simply don't have that level of organization - at least not yet. Their creator programs are fragmented - split across teams, agencies and regions with no consistent way to track performance or reconcile budgets.
In Hollywood, actors do not wait half a year to get paid. Under SAG-AFTRA contracts, residuals are distributed within 30 to 60 days of the union receiving payment from studios. That is the standard in one of the world's most complex entertainment ecosystems. Meanwhile, in the creator economy, worth $250 billion and growing, creators are still waiting 90, 120, sometimes even 180 days for money they have already earned.
YouTube has grown tremendously over the years and has become a popular place to earn a living for many talented creators, while others use it for entertainment. They complemented each other and helped YouTube grow the way it did since its inception. In addition to this mutually beneficial relationship, Google's algorithm deserves credit for YouTube's meteoric rise to become one of the best streaming platforms.
The creator economy isn't just a trend; it's a full-blown economic shift. Valued in the billions, this new digital landscape has empowered individuals to produce, promote, and monetize content with the efficiency of a startup. As a hub for relentless innovation, New York City is naturally at the center of this movement, with countless founders launching platforms to serve this new generation of entrepreneurs.
"That creator mindset gave us a strong foundation in storytelling," said Ireland. "We felt like there was this bigger story to be told around beauty and self care and infusing this joy into what would normally be a really mundane part of your routine."
In April, QVC Group started streaming 24/7 on the social-media platform, broadcasting its products to millions of users. Today, it has a total of five different TikTok channels, including QVC Beauty, QVC Fashion and, as of this month, QVC Home. In addition to running its own TikTok livestreams and offering goods via TikTok Shop, QVC Group works with 400,000 creators, who show off everything from cleaning products to pajamas. In the second quarter of 2025, the company traced more than 100,000 new customers back to TikTok Shop alone.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri said AI will change who can be creative, as the new tools and technology will give people who couldn't be creators before the ability to produce content at a certain quality and scale. However, he also admitted that bad actors will use the technology for "nefarious purposes" and that kids growing up today will have to be taught that you can't believe something just because you saw a video of it.
Jack Conte hates the word "influencers." As the CEO of Patreon, he would rather people call artists "creators" if what they do is build loyal fanbases willing to pay for what they do online. While platforms like TikTok encourage their power users to sell doodads on the TikTok Shop, Patreon wants people to buy into the platform's stars. To pay a few bucks a month to read what they write or listen to what they have to say.
"We always like to be at the cutting edge of everything, especially digitally focused. We'd already seen success on TikTok Shop, and knowing that live selling was the evolution of the platform, it was something we wanted to test into," said CMO Erica Dunivan.
Gaming is one of the clearest examples. Fortnite, with its global player base, has created an entire culture where digital progress now carries real-world value. Marketplaces that handle trades, such as platforms offering GG Chest Fortnite accounts, show just how quickly hobbies can turn into entrepreneurial ventures. In the past, this might have sounded far-fetched. But in today's world, it has definitely become part of a booming digital economy.
For the better part of two decades, the digital marketing ecosystem has operated on a simple, unspoken contract: content creators make the web interesting, and search engines send them traffic. In exchange, publishers run ads, brands get reach, and users are rewarded with access to "free" content. This intricate dance, orchestrated by Google and Meta's algorithms and monetised through clicks and impressions, has defined countless marketing playbooks. But the mood music is changing faster than ever.
"We have seen this in recent studies. The younger social media users are looking at older people as authorities on things that they like," Xie said. A 40-something finding success is Dallas influencer Chris Kahle. "It was kind of weird how it happened," Kahle said. "It wasn't even something I was thinking about. I literally posted about my neighbors back in 2024, and the post went viral. That put me over 10,000 followers, and it's been growing fast ever since."
Luxury today? It's less about showing off, more about showing who you are It's emotional, personal, and tied to identity. Heritage still counts, but real impact comes from brands that make people something. This trend resonates strongly with numerous TikTok-born movements, from #mecore to #Iprobablyneedahug all focused on helping people express their emotions first and foremost. It's all about feeling, before flaunting.
