The Casual Creator
Why some creators are transitioning from full-time to part-time
Good morning. Did you catch the trailer for the final season of Succession? These days, not many “event television” shows are capable of blowing up social media and group chats alike. HBO’s still got it, though—starting March 26, we know where we’ll be every Sunday night (on Twitter, watching the internet’s best Succession memes come to life).
The Rise of the Non-Career Creator
This week, lifestyle creator Jed Caluag moved out of the co-living (and sometimes working) space he shared with ex-Ur Mom’s House creators Kelly Wakasa and Ashley Alexander to live in a studio apartment and refocus his career.
What comes next: After a year and a half of vlogging full-time, Caluag aims to return to work as a software engineer.
Zoom out: Caluag is among a growing set of notable creators taking a more relaxed approach to publishing. Their content isn’t their sole focus or means for income—it’s a passion rather than a career.
See also: Alex French, who’s talked openly about not pursuing a career as a creator.
- The TikToker with 3.4 million followers said she doesn’t have a niche and credits her audience growth to her relatability—a college student applying to jobs.
- The income from her brand deals with the likes of Walmart and Target goes toward retirement, savings, or paying for gas and groceries, she said.
Big picture: Plenty of people want to become full-time creators—it’s still a top career choice among kids, and 54% of Americans ages 13–38 would become an influencer if given the chance, according to a 2021 Morning Consult poll. But what a successful creator looks like can take many forms.
Hobbyist creators like Caluag and French suggest that not everyone who creates successful and monetizable content has to be MrBeast-level obsessed with thumbnails, titles, or view duration. As the creator space expands, room increasingly opens up for all kinds of creatives, no matter their interest in making a career of their ideas.
Tell us: Do you work full-time or part-time as a content creator? Why was that the path for you? Hit respond and tell us more.
Drake, Ludwig Call out Twitch to Compensate Kai Cenat
On the last day of his month-long subathon, Kai Cenat became the first streamer to pass 300,000 subscribers on Twitch—and some are calling for the platform to pay up in order to keep Cenat there.
- Rapper Drake (who called into Cenat’s stream last November) commented on the feat via an Instagram post, writing “@twitch motivate the kids send him 50M.”
- Former Twitch subscriber record-holder Ludwig Ahgren (who left Twitch for YouTube Gaming in 2021) also shared his POV:
Congrats to @KaiCenat for breaking the all-time subscriber record 🎉 very deserved
@Twitch now pay the man before you lose another record breaker 😶
— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren)
Mar 1, 2023
What’s Cenat saying? After Twitch tweeted a video celebrating Cenat’s accomplishment Wednesday, Cenat replied within five minutes: “u heard what drake said…”
Context: Last September, Twitch announced it was phasing out a 70/30 revenue split for top creators, a strategy met with widespread creator disapproval.
Plus, the calls for further compensating Cenat post-record come as controversial streaming platform Kick stirs conversation among creators about having bigger stakes in the platforms where they publish content.
Zoom out: The question for the creator industry is increasingly becoming who needs whom more—massive distribution platforms like Twitch or the creators who build influence through them.
Ludwig's Reddit Finds His Missing Car
The pros of having nearly 6 million fans across YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter? When your car gets stolen in LA, you have plenty of help finding it.
We’ll explain: On Tuesday, Ludwig shared on Twitter and his daily stream that his 1997 Subaru Sambar was stolen.
Over 8 million people saw the tweet and video—and used Reddit to coordinate the effort to find Ludwig’s car within 24 hours. (In fact, they found it three times after the thief got smart to Ludwig fans’ efforts.)
Now that’s the power of a creator's community—and good thing Ludwig didn’t delete his subreddit last week.
🔥 Press Worthy
- Neal Mohan addresses YouTube’s priorities for 2023.
- Khaby Lame joins Italia’s Got Talent as a juror.
- TikTok introduces a 60-minute daily watch limit for under-18 users.
- Ninja Kidz is opening an action park in Dallas.
- You can now watch TikTok in both Volkswagen and Mercedes vehicles.
- Here's a free guide with easy strategies to start making money on TikTok—regardless of how many followers you have right now.*
*This is sponsored advertising content.
📚 Thank You For Pressing Publish
The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.
- For GQ, Joshua Hunt breaks down the rapid rise of New Balance, analyzing the brand’s collab-packed strategy to topple the $86 billion global sneaker market.
- This designer makes public flyers look 100x cooler.
- “The payoff for most worthwhile endeavors takes time,” Trung Phan writes. “But when it hits, it really hits.” On persistence, failure, and time as the great multiplier.
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