Erin McGoff has He has 3 million followers on social media, but with the money he makes from Instagram and TikTok he couldn't afford the plate of mozzarella sticks we shared at a bar in Baltimore.
“On Instagram, a video will reach 900,000 views and I will earn six dollars.” McGoff saying. “It's insulting.”
Like most content creators, McGoff makes his living from brand deals, sponsorships and subscription products, rather than the platforms themselves. But that reality is emblematic of the conundrum creators find themselves in: They're pushing social platforms to new heights, but those same platforms can betray them at any second with a small algorithm change or an unfounded suspension.
Creators face the same stresses as any freelance business owner, but at the same time, they are completely dependent on the whims of massive social platforms, which don't pay them enough, or at all, to create enormous value. And when it comes to deals and partnerships with brands, there is no standard to ensure creators are fairly compensated.
“TikTok and Instagram are making a lot of money from ads and not sharing it with creators,” McGoff told TechCrunch.
The creative economy has a sustainability problem. According to Matt Koval, an early creator who later worked for a decade as YouTube's first creator liaison, a creator's career typically lasts between five and seven years.
“If creators don't capitalize on their flash of fame and turn it into some kind of sustainable business, they can find themselves in a really difficult situation of, 'Well, what do I do now?'” he said in a youtube video.
Since opening her social media accounts in 2021, McGoff has made more and more money each year, but she is still worried that her job could disappear at any moment. What happens if your TikTok account is deleted? What if his followers get bored of her? With the exception of a small elite group, there really is no blueprint for what a career as a content creator will look like ten, twenty, or thirty years from now.
“You have to act as if your money as an influencer could disappear tomorrow,” he said. “A lot of creators just think, 'I'm going to make videos online and make a ton of money,' and unfortunately, that's not sustainable. “You have to have a business mindset and understand how to make money work for you.”
These anxieties are neither unique nor unfounded. As creators try to build their multifaceted businesses, they are also beginning to wonder if they can work together to advocate for greater transparency with platforms and brands, which could help make their careers more sustainable.
Last year, creators watched as Hollywood's writers' and actors' unions protested incessantly under the unforgiving Los Angeles sun, and finally won contract changes with the studios that will help them get better treatment and pay. Some creators even pledged not to cross picket lines during strikes. Generation Z has come of age in an era when workers at Amazon, Starbucks, REI, Trader Joe's, Home Depot, UPS, and many more are waging high-profile strikes and union initiatives to fight for better working conditions. And this generation – which passes a a long time on social networks – it is the The most pro-union generation alive.
Is now the time for content creators to get what's coming to them?
A lack of transparency
As a creator who creates career advice videos and resources, it makes sense that McGoff is thinking so hard about her career path. The same goes for Hannah Williams, the founder of Transparent Street Salary (STS), who has amassed over 2 million followers across all platforms.
In his videos, Williams asks people on the street to share their salary as a way to promote salary transparency; Since opening its TikTok account in 2022, STS has become a broader resource center to help people get paid fairly.
“I created a personal TikTok in 2022 and talked about how much money I made at every job I had, because I thought, this is my only way to fight back,” Williams told TechCrunch. At the time, he had recently discovered that he was underpaid as a data analyst in Washington, DC. “I had a video go viral on TikTok with all my salaries, and then I realized that salary transparency is really a thing, and people are interested in it. So I came up with the idea of going out on the street and asking random people their salaries.”
Williams is living a content creator's dream. His company earned more than $1 million in gross revenue in 2023, more than double what he earned in 2022, and pays itself a salary of $125,000. But while Williams helps people in other industries achieve greater pay transparency, he's been reflecting on issues in his own professional world.
“We definitely need a union, because we need standardized rates,” Williams said. “We need something that all companies respect. We need help. We need promotion. “We need people to defend us.”
Since the film and television industries in the United States are unionized, workers on all sides of a production are assured with a range of workplace protections and minimum wages.
“If we look at it from the perspective of SAG and the studios, studios for creators are social media platforms. They are the people who host our content. We make them money,” Williams said.
And without any industry oversight, brands can pay creators anything (or nothing) for their work.
Some advocates are trying to change that. After being burned many times by underpaid brand deals, Lindsey Lee Lurgin founded Damn, you pay me (FYPM), a database where creators can share which brands they work with and how much those brands have paid them for certain deliverables.
“I've had people tell me: 'Thanks to your website I managed to rent this month, and it's because I was going to get a free T-shirt from this brand, but I joined FYPM and I saw that I could charge them two grand.' '” Lurgin told TechCrunch.
Creators also want more transparency from the social platforms themselves. Since much of a creator's business is done through these platforms, any arbitrary algorithm change, disciplinary action, or update can mean a loss of revenue.
“One time on TikTok, I reported someone's comment for being homophobic, and I responded and said 'ew,'” Williams said. “My account was restricted for 48 hours, I appealed it and nothing happened… That hurt me as a creator because I couldn't interact with my audience.”
In the worst case, an account suspension or hack can have tangible impacts on a creator's business. Let's say a creator gets paid $5,000 from a brand for a promotional post on Instagram; If the creator can't access his account to make that post, he won't get paid. These concerns are so prevalent that new companies have emerged that offer creators insurance in case their accounts are hacked.
“Instagram doesn't have any customer service, so if there's a problem with your account, you don't have anyone to help you unless you know someone,” McGoff said.
According to Williams, these platforms are also not doing enough to stop reposts.
“There is not enough regulation for people who copy your content: they will download your video, repost it and make money from it,” he said. “There is no way I can report it and get it removed. Instagram is happy because it's making money, but I'm not happy as a creator, because what am I going to do, not post on Instagram? My hands are tied.”
Could content creators unionize?
Over the years, several creator economy leaders have floated the idea of a creators union. In 2016, veteran YouTuber Hank Green attempted to create the Internet Creators Guild, but the idea perhaps emerged too soon; The project lacked funding and momentum to keep it running, so it closed in 2019. Since then, with the rise of TikTok and the rise of social media use during the pandemic, more and more people are making a living online .
Now, Ezra Cooperstein, an industry veteran, is working on a project called creators.org, a nonprofit that aims to act as a unified voice for creators. A similar group, the Creators Guild of America, launched in August. And in 2021, SAG-AFTRA opened creator membership, but the union will not negotiate with the brands; Rather, this special agreement allows creators to qualify for union benefits, such as health insurance. But none of these organizations have become popular enough to attract a large enough community of creators (at least not yet).
“It's hard to find common ground with everyone because everyone wants different things,” Williams said. “Depending on the type of creator you are, you may have different priorities.”
In the meantime, platforms can still make changes to better support their creators.
“I think what we could do is give creators a voice on the platforms, like having a say in how the algorithm changes and more legal protections to recognize this work as legitimate work,” Lurgin said. “The people who set the rules at the top are very out of touch with it. It's like deleting someone's work if their page is stolen.”
