Can the creator’s economy survive the flood of AI slop?

Internet creators and their businesses were on our minds this week after the very popular YouTuber MrBeast made this announcement. His company is buying fintech startupsfollowed by Hollywood studios are sending lots of cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance for the launch of its new video format Seedance 2.0.

Headlines that appear to be unrelated show the media’s appearance in the midst of a dynamic change, such as YouTube celebrities look to diversify their business modelsand the threat and promise of powerful artificial intelligence tools on the horizon.

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcastKirsten Korosec, Rebecca Bellan, and I discussed the future of the creative economy, and whether there will be room for the next generation of creatives to emerge.

“What’s the next place?” Kirsten was shocked. “Not all of these people are going to be able to go shopping. So is the group of successful creators just shrinking? Or is something going to happen, technologically, or some other way that will allow them to find an audience to make money?”

You can read a preview of our interview, edited for clarity, below.

Anthony: (This article) led our friend Lauren to do it This great piece talks about the creator of the business model in generaland that means they no longer rely on advertising money. I think it’s still a big part of their business, but they’ve broken down a lot of popular YouTubers and seen each of them grow – usually in e-commerce, but also in other ways to make money.

Mr. Beast, for example, has a line of food products, including chocolates, that are generating millions of dollars and have made him profitable in 2024, while his media business has lost money. All of which was surprising to me.

Kirsten: If Mr. Beast can’t be profitable with his media company, who will? To me, that was an amazing number.

I’m not surprised that the whole marketing biz game isn’t working for creators and promoters because they’ve just reached their peak. I guess my biggest question is, what is the next place? Not all people can go shopping. So is the pool of successful designers shrinking? Or is something going to happen, technologically, or some other way that will allow them to find an audience to make money?

Rebecca: It’s interesting, there are so many ways you can imagine what could happen, right? Maybe they will create a digital twin for themselves and put their digital twin in a group of different products that will make them (some kind of) money.

But again, going back to this is not surprising, these people are now famous, right? Someone told me on the phone recently that many (a) young people, they don’t know our celebrities, they know TikTok celebrities. And we’ve seen celebrities over the years sell stuff and make money, right? I used to watch Rachel (Ray), she was a famous chef and she sold her EVOO or olive oil.

We Slow Ventures on (Equity) sometime last year. They have a creator fund and really what they are doing is they raised a VC fund that really backs creators and their businesses, if they have maybe a niche to follow, maybe they are really in the woods and here is a collection of their chisels, I don’t know.

I think it’s an interesting way forward and it’s something that we see as journalists: How do we try to be creative and build our brand so that we can differentiate our money. It sounds bad to say it out loud like that.

Anthony: I’m smiling, but it’s the smile of someone whose soul is turning to ashes inside.

So we took a break from talking about AI, but I feel compelled to bring AI back into the conversation. Of course one of the things that’s happened in the last week or so is that ByteDance, which is the Chinese company that founded TikTok and is still a business — we’re not going to join. all that – launched their new version, Seedance 2.0, which was previously only available to Chinese users.

But then you started seeing people posting videos made by Seedance, including a viral video of Brad Pitt fighting Tom Cruise. This led to this whole discussion: Is Hollywood doomed? And clearly, a bunch of Hollywood studios, including Netflix, sending ByteDance labels being like, “You can’t do this, you’re allowing all of your users to make videos using all of our IP, all of our video artists.” And for several days, there was no response from ByteDance, but then they said, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, for some reason we started this without real security guards, but we will do better in the future.”

Kirsten: So the timing of this is perfect because I’m editing an article Rebecca wrote. It has nothing to do with Seedance, but it has to do with it AI and filmmaking. So I will give the future) to Rebecca to be in time. Rebecca, I know you have a lot to say about this, except that Hollywood is upset. Is it more complicated than that?

Rebecca: Yes, of course. I mean, tying this to the makers, I think a lot of people will use these tools to make all kinds of things and we’ll just be flooded. And that will be a lot.

But when we talk, whether I’m making videos or ads or just using AI video tools, I think there’s a trade-off between one, it’s going to make it a little bit lower than the two, it’s also going to democratize the opportunity for a lot of people who don’t have money or budgets or groups to share a lot of what they want to say.

Also, if you’re a small business and you want to do a little shampoo ad – stay on top of that, because there are shampoo ads that are going well – or you sell coffee and you want to do a little ad, (this) can give you the tools to do that. Is that a bad thing? Isn’t that a bad thing? Do we need more in the world? There are several ways to go down.

Kirsten: Is that a bad thing, Anthony?

Anthony: In terms of the producer’s side, my whole opinion is (that) this type of response is – honestly, a lot. and slop, and I think this will continue – it will be to prove this certainty. And so there is an opportunity for the creators of this great and to be less of an idea like, “I have a digital twin myself,” but (instead,) “No, I am the real Mr. Beast, not a digital simulacra wandering around.”

And I think it also says that – yes, every social network has its ups and downs, but that OpenAI’s Sora, from what I understand, went up in the beginning and then settled down. struggle with user experience recently, because there is nothing to the experience when you just feel like there is no real person on the other side.

But I think it will also make the space more difficult, for established producers to get money (…) and then I think it will be difficult especially for new producers because there will be more. Trying to explode is very difficult.