"Creators Want Gatekeepers"
This sounds counterintuitive. But hear me out.
When I worked at Famous Birthdays in the late 2010’s, I was always fascinated at how quickly some of these creators were growing online yet mainstream media refused to acknowledge them and the attention they were quickly grabbing. The teenagers on Musical.ly, like Loren Gray and Jacob Sartorius, were incessantly bullied by men on YouTube 10 years older than them (I am looking at you, RiceGum). It was shameful that we allowed these middle school kids to be harassed and bullied the way they were. But props to them for still going.
The smartest thing TikTok did was change it’s name from “Musical.ly” to “TikTok”. The rebrand and boredom of millions during the shutdowns of 2020 made for the perfect storm for this app to take off. It was no longer a lip-sync app only for 12-year-olds but had now become a launching pad for household name creators like Charli D’Amelio, Addison Rae and Brittany Broski.
But what differentiates the thousands of viral creators from the select handful that become household names? The gatekeepers.
Working on the social media side, I am always shocked when I speak to people that work in legacy media; such as magazines, movies and music. They talk about how they feel like they are losing power and steam compared to the creator space. But I disagree. I think that more than ever, creators are desperate for the gatekeepers of legacy media.
When TikTok came around, it made it easy and possible for anyone to become a creator. That was the magic of the platform and how they scaled. They were no longer a platform with thousands of viewers. They became a platform with thousands of creators, who occasionally viewed TikToks. Everyone saw themselves as a creator.
While YouTube democratized the internet, it still took a level of privilege, free time and access to technology to become a successful YouTuber. To grow on an app like Instagram you had to have access to nice cameras, cool events and tons of time and knowledge to learn how to perfectly edit your photos.
But TikTok got rid of the hoops you had to jump through to be seen by millions for the first time ever on the internet. This meant more people were going viral and becoming “famous” overnight than ever before.
But if everyone is famous, is anyone famous?
This is why I loved TikTok when it first began. It is why I make marketing content. I truly want everyone who has something interesting to say or a good story to tell to have the right advice and knowledge to be seen and heard. TikTok made it possible and they even the playing field for the first time ever.
But behind the scenes, creators are more hungry than ever for traditional gatekeepers. The more accessible an app becomes the more that creators crave a way to differentiate themselves from the growing pack.
Creators spent decades shunned by traditional and legacy media. Even by the “newer age” media, they were still sometimes shunned. Famously, Tana Mongeau was shunned from stepping foot into VidCon in 2018 yet she was featured on the posters all around the Anaheim Convention Center since she was a part of the “Escape The Night” series airing on YouTube later that year (read the Forbes article here).
In response, she launched the first and only (failed) TanaCon convention a few blocks away from VidCon, the same weekend. It quickly devolved into chaos and was cancelled only a few hours in to the first day, with thousands of angry fans left in a parking lot with no answers or sunscreen.
TanaCon was a great metaphor for the creator paradox. These new age creators were able to bring out a crowd of thousands and yet they didn’t have the support or knowledge to wrangle it into a safe, in-person experience that traditional media could.
“If everyone is famous, no one is famous”
Creators love the accessibility and democratization of the internet when they are starting out. The instant gratification of posting a video and by the end of the day, it is shown to millions with a similar interest as you. Creators ride the wave of the ease of posting to apps like TikTok.
But the moment they start to see similar creators in the genre sprout up left and right, creating similar content to them and with just as much ease, they feel a sense of betrayal from the platforms and their audience. They desperately begin to claw at anything they can to prove themselves as more established than the other creators climbing the same ladder, quickly catching up to them.
If you ever look at the creators who “make it” versus the ones who can have up to 10-million followers and still be unrecognizable to the average person, it often comes down to the gatekeepers.
In the late 2010’s, YouTube hired Derek Blasberg, an American writer and socialite, to head their Fashion Partnerships division. One of the first things he did was identify and build up the budding, teenage creator, Emma Chamberlain, as the face of high fashion on YouTube. She had a unique charm to her and a timeless look. She didn’t have “Instagram face” or become a carbon copy of the trends and fads that the internet is rampant with. She was the perfect fit.
Shortly after Emma Chamberlain began working with Derek Blasberg, she was announced as the first-ever creator to be the face of Louis Vuitton and was featured on a cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. A highly-coveted cover that no YouTuber had gotten before. She then replaced Liza Koshy as the host of the Met Gala red carpet and has been hosting it ever since.
Emma Chamberlain famously shunned TikTok and said it was “not good for mental health”. She made a quick cameo back on the app earlier this year, a few weeks before the Met Gala, which for the first time ever would be in partnership with TikTok instead of YouTube. After hosting the Met Gala red carpet alongside TikTok, she once again deleted her videos off the platform.
In a podcast episode that got tons of backlash, Emma Chamberlain said that she feels like anyone can be famous now because of TikTok and that was off-putting to her (I am paraphrasing). While I don’t think she was wrong, I believe the push back came because she was saying the quiet part out loud. It was also a moment of a big creator “making it” and then moving the goal post once again for the smaller creators inspired by them, trying to climb the ladder they once did.
But why might big creators want to pull away the ladder once they make it? Don’t they know how hard it is to make it an industry that shunned creators for decades?
Maybe they do it because they fear there isn’t enough attention to go around online.
Every year, Forbes puts out a “Top Earning Creators” list and we are seeing similar tentpole measurements of the creator sphere by legacy media with publications like “The Hollywood Reporter” putting out a “Creator A-List” this year.
Creators might act nonchalant about these lists, and even shun them when they aren’t featured as “bogus”, but behind-the-scenes most creators are clawing at any chance of being recognized by legacy media.
Big creators are desperate at the chance to separate themselves from the growing competition in their niche, who are having an easier time than ever climbing the ladder, now that platforms like TikTok have made it so easy to go viral.
Walking a red carpet at a movie premiere, flying to Cannes Lions in the south-of-France with a brand, being featured in an editorial spread of a magazine, or sitting front row at a fashion show are all becoming subtle ways for creators to separate themselves from the ever-growing pack.
(Pictured above is Nara and Lucky-Blue Smith at a Fashion Show)
I know creators that will pay $5,000+/month (sometimes more than their rent) to a publicist to get fluff-piece articles written about them by legacy media. They will share screenshots of these articles out to their social media. More than anything it is a subtle flair gun to the growing competition in their niche that they have achieved something no algorithm or viral video can give you: an acknowledgement from the gatekeepers.
The more that the internet democratizes and platforms like TikTok even the playing field for anyone to become famous, the more that the creator industry is going to be desperate for legacy and traditional media.
The platforms and legacy media that can position themselves as the gatekeepers will survive the ever-changing attention economy.
A great comparison of what I am describing is the annual “XXL Freshman List”. Arguably, one of the only times the rap publication is relevant is when they put out their annual list. They get a group of budding rappers together in a room to perform a freestyle and do a cover shoot. The list becomes a topic of conversation every year and has featured artists like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole and Mac Miller.
The first platform or publication that can create their version of the “XXL Freshman List” but for creators is the one that will come out on top. But most importantly, they must get all the creators in a room together every year since the freestyle with the multiple rappers is often where the magic happens. Audiences love seeing dynamics between famous people that might not otherwise be in the same room. It is viral and timeless gold.
It could be similar to what The Hollywood Reporter does with the actor “round tables”. There is a magic sauce in seeing public figures interact that normally don’t.
But on top of that, they must be selective. That doesn’t mean “not inclusive”. Just selective.
I would even recommend the publication or platform that leans into becoming a gatekeeper must not use a word like “creator” or “influencer” in their annual list. Those words have become synonymous with “accessible”. There must be a mystery to it. Creators, inherently, are the opposite of mysterious (i.e. “relatable”).
If you are a creator, how can you grow without worrying about the competition or the room becoming to full? My biggest advice is to create something so unique that no one else is in your lane. Do something that hasn’t been done before.
If you are simply following the trends and looking to the other creators in your niche for inspiration, then you are going to constantly have benchmarks and comparisons to similar creators.
I make it a point to not watch any videos from creators that are in a similar niche to me. In fact, if I think my niche is becoming to over-crowded, I will go out of my way to try and carve a new niche for myself that isn’t comparable to what anyone else is doing. Even if that means I don’t go viral right away.
If you have the chance to be acknowledged by legacy media, take it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. And make sure you are constantly evolving if you don’t want to left behind by the gatekeepers as they embrace the next wave of creators every year.
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Who is Coco Mocoe?
Hi there! I am Coco Mocoe. I am a marketing and digital trend expert who spent years working behind-the-scenes on content and strategy at companies like BuzzFeed and Famous Birthdays. At Famous Birthdays, I produced videos with rising internet personalities that got over 40 million views on YouTube and helped build out BuzzFeed’s vertical video team.
After posting trend predictions to TikTok in 2022, my social media presence took off. My TikTok has over 1,000,000 followers and I have the most engaged and thoughtful audience! I am now a full-time creator and consultant for celebrities and brands that are launching their own projects and want to create their own trends. I have traveled the world speaking on media & marketing panels; such as, Cannes Lions, AdWeek, Possible in Miami.
Thank you all for reading this article! Let me know your thoughts below ⬇️
“Imitation” of life is social media at its core. That’s why so many are abandoning it. The creators of yesterday are only mad because like the wizard of oz, the curtain has been opened and the sham of the influencer has been revealed. YouTube is a great example of how things have pivoted to small authentic creators and not shenanigans. It’s not on easy mode like many say, but it’s more accessible and relatable than ever before.