Disposable

What a crazy week it’s been for creator news...and it’s only Tuesday. Travis Scott partnered with A24 Films to make a movie and Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine sold for $900 million (yep, nine hundred!), plus Ariana Grande has partnered with Fortnite to host her next concert. Today Alice is breaking down all the creator news you can’t afford to miss.

→ A look at Dispo’s exclusive partnership with Cade Cunningham 

→ Breaking down Pinterest’s latest creator features 

→ Why you should care about Depop’s Gen Z takeover

The photo sharing app partners with Cade Cunningham in a platform first

The winners and losers of last Thursday’s NBA Draft have been hotly contested on social media over the weekend. It’s hard to argue anyone won more than Oklahoma State’s Cade Cunningham, the draft’s No.1 pick by the Detroit Pistons. Dispo, the photo sharing and social networking app, also came out winning after signing an exclusive deal with Cunningham to capture all the moments from draft night – exclusively on their platform. The behind-the-scenes snaps were captured by Cade’s sister/photographer Kaylyn. The intimate moments were notably absent from major platforms like Instagram, where Cade has 448,000 followers, instead being shared solely to Kaylyn’s draft day roll on Dispo.

Dispo relaunched in March of this year after its rebrand from “David’s Disposable”, named after former co-founder David Dobrik. In the same month, the future of the app was up in arms following disparaging allegations against David, resulting in the loss of major partners like Spark Capital, and Dobrik stepping down from the board.

Despite the difficult start, this latest partnership from Dispo illustrates the potential for future collaborations from an app lauded as the “anti-Instagram”. Off the back of the recent NCAA announcement allowing college athletes to monetize, consider the floodgates well and truly open for creators sharing (and selling) the inside scoop to their fans.

Creators can now make money through product tagging and new shopping features

It’s been a busy week for Pinterest. Creators now have the ability to monetize their story posts, through sponsored content, product tags, as well as earning commission with affiliate links. Pinterest’s head of content and creator partnerships, Aya Kanai said “With this latest update, we’re empowering creators to reach millions of shoppers on the platform and monetize their work. Creators deserve to be rewarded for the inspiration they deliver to their followers.”

Pinterest creators like Luiza Cordery, who has built an audience of 120,000 followers and 2 million monthly views for fashion and lifestyle content, will now be able to monetize directly from the content itself, as opposed to posting outfit details in the comments.

Gen Z creators have been leading the charge on Pinterest, with trends like Y2K experiencing a 230x increase in searches since 2020. Pair this with the ever-increasing appetite for video content plus features for creators to monetize and partner with brands, and Pinterest is onto a winner. The platform is shaping up to be a real investment for established creators, like Luiza, as well as encouraging new users to consider the platform as a destination to build community and generate income.

Teens are flocking to the resale app in record numbers 

2020 was a monumental year for Depop, Gen Z’s beloved fashion marketplace app, with 24-year-old Bella McFadden becoming its first-ever seller to make £1 million ($1.26 million). Their creator-centric approach has also seen success stories like Emma Rogue of the eponymous Rogue, who has turned a Depop store with 89,000 followers into a brick-and-mortar location on NYC’s Lower East Side. She even secured a Times Square billboard for the opening. 👀

Depop’s cultural impact on Gen Z cannot be understated, with 1.2 billion views for #depop on TikTok, and a subreddit with more than 42,000 members. The platform’s investment in sustainability has been a particular hit with Gen Z consumers, making Depop the inevitable choice for the resale market, as thrifting has continued to trend.