# Is The Influencer Economy DEAD?

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** Gary Vaynerchuk
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0UBIv-ZmiI
- **Дата:** 03.11.2023
- **Длительность:** 28:32
- **Просмотры:** 16,950
- **Источник:** https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/17042

## Описание

Balance is so important in personal life but it also plays a MASSIVE ROLE in business and entrepreneurship. Everything finds equilibrium after some time and it's the same with the creator economy. On today's episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down with author and The Washington Post columnist Taylor Lorenz. We discuss her new book "Extremely Online", the realities of being a social media influencer, and the evolving world of social media and the internet.

Timestamps:
0:00 - 0:41 Intro
0:41 - 4:35 What most people misunderstand about creators/influencers
4:35 - 6:51 Why do people keep dismissing new platforms
6:51 - 9:58 What Extremely Online is about?
9:58 - 14:13 Vine & Snapchat
14:13 - 18:54 Platforms and features that have the potential to become the next big thing
18:54 - 25:04 Cashing in on your passion
25:04 - 28:32 Taylor's goals with the book
—
Thanks for watching!

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Gary Vayne

## Транскрипт

### 0:41 Intro []

when people say Gary do you think the Creator economy is that I'm like brother newspapers are being sold today newspapers I work for one and by the way I don't say that as a Raz I say that nothing becomes dead it finds its new equilibrium we don't sell as many newspapers as we did in 1950 because a lot more attention is put into the phone and the television and the radio and all these other things that came along but the newspaper used to be 5 cents you know I looked the other day I was kind of in the airport like damn newspaper's gotten pretty exp and I get it comes you got to find your equilibrium to run a viable business against the cost and demand and but like this concept of debt is silly attention is the number one asset bner Nation how are you super

### 4:35 What most people misunderstand about creators/influencers [0:41]

excited about talking about the history of the internet and social media uh always think that the lessons of the past give us previews to the Future uh so I'm excited to introduce author Taylor to uh to the show so Taylor why don't you tell everybody who you are the name of the book and why you wrote it and then let's jam into it yeah um my name is Taylor Loren I'm a technology columnist at the Washington Post um and I wrote this book extremely online uh because I wanted to sort of talk about the first 20 years of the Social Web so it's really about the Rise um of social media and the content creator industry um it sort of tells the rise of social media through the lens of you know these big content creators that really shaped the internet and these platforms what do you think is the biggest so actually let me take to the audience as a lot of you know like this has become a real thing and obviously I also wrote a book there it is if you're watching visually crush it which talked a lot about this YouTube Twitter thing might lead to people being able to make a living online and I remember reading the early reviews on Amazon and people like this is crazy nobody's gonna make $50,000 a year being themselves online and to think where we are all these years later you know what do you think most people misunderstand about creators and influencers from a general public standpoint yeah I mean I think people just that like it has the worst reputation you know I think people just think oh it's really easy you're just taking selfies all day you know how hard is it to generate content I could you know YouTube My Life or whatever it's actually incredibly hard you've got to be a great Storyteller it's an enormous amount of work you know even if you're just editing stuff um and so I yeah I just think it gets a little bit maligned I think people don't realize that these content creators are actually sort of real entrepreneurs yeah I mean I think you know Donnie Osmond or manuto or New Kids on the Block right or Samantha from who's the boss like there was there's an acceptance that there's been teen stars in our culture prior to the mature internet but the size and scale and what is not deemed as a skill to your point I don't think people understand at vayer media we call it sock strategic organic content there is like deep analytics to what time you post what is the best feature that you can use right now like a two image or video carousel right now on Instagram is outperforming a regular reals video you know uh being first on a Tik Tok or a musically five years ago is going to have more opportunity and upside of growth than today so the strategy of understanding consumer Behavior the thumbnail the headline the copy the business development of doing collabs with the right people at the right time negotiating with big Brands to do brand deals I mean there it is truly a high level of Entrepreneurship but because the numbers are lucrative and often not always the people are young there's this subconscious disrespect for the craft yes yes 100% yes and I talk also in the book too about sort of like the industry itself it was sort of pioneered with people outside of the sort of mainstream media system um I actually talked about the rise of mommy bloggers and kind of how they you know advertise and commodify themselves and then early YouTubers and so I think just a lot of people have written it off H it reminds me when I first started writing about the internet how people used to say you know oh why you cover YouTube it's just a site for cat videos you know um and of course that's just not true anymore and I think most people wouldn't say that today but it's reminiscent of how they talk about Tik Tok right like oh the teen dance app and it's like well these platforms there so much more than that you know um but I think people just still haven't there yeah there's just not that level of sort of like what you know it made sense to

### 6:51 Why do people keep dismissing new platforms [4:35]

me because I obviously grew up in the game it made sense to me when people said that about Facebook and Twitter because they didn't have a comp right Myspace sold very early Friendster couldn't stay up you know why do you think today that not everyone and it's evolving and you see that it's evolving but that many in the general public even though they've seen YouTube Twitter Facebook you know snap you know have longevity be meaningful businesses go public run you know real businesses have real Revenue why do you think people you know inevitably you know this Taylor like in the next 24 to 72 months a new app will pop up and it will be destined to be one of those things and I kind of believe and I sense that that's where you were going that again people will be dismissive and say oh that's just for people wanting to play games or like that's only for people who can write or you know like that's only for radio personalities if it's an audio thing like why with seven to 10 meaningful examples now um that rise from youth to full mainstream do you think people continue to be dismissed I mean when I was yelling about Tik Tok it was on the back of Instagram and snap and I just thought that people would understand and yet even the people that were on Instagram and winning as influencers probably spent a year or two too late to jump into Tik Tok to get all the good attention why do you what is that inuman behavior that continues to allow them to be dismissive of obvious results yeah I mean I think a lot of people are just overwhelmed by technology and they don't want to feel like they have to learn a new app you know they want to just sort of dismiss it a lot of times as you mentioned these things are adopted by young people which people are inherently dismissive of especially young girls you know like teen girls they can make an app hugely viral but you know a lot of people are just like ah it's just a silly little you know kids app so I think it's sort of a combination of those two things it's just a lot of it's just Tech fatigue of like oh I don't want to have to learn oh now I've got to learn Tik Tok you know and it's like well maybe you know if you want to take advantage of it yeah for there's so many content

### 9:58 What Extremely Online is about? [6:51]

creators there's so many entrepreneurs there's so many Fortune 500 Executives listening to this interview right now what do you think is the biggest value from the book like what do you think they get out of it and what do you if you want to double click into any part of the book like when I set it up that way and you recognize the size and scale and the and who is in the audience listening to this right now it you know what is the value prop for them yeah well I think there's so many business lessons in this book I mean one thing that my book talks about is sort of these mistakes that these Silicon Valley um platforms made actually in sort of misunderstanding their user base misjudging their creator there's a ton of unreported information about the end of Vine actually and sort of the implications that it has even for Twitter today I think musk is learning a lot of the same lessons that the founders of Vine learned the hard way um so I think it's a great book for any kind of anyone that wants to be entrepreneurial um because it also talks about the rise of this sort of um simultaneous industry right the content creator industry and how people sort of worked outside the Realms of Silicon Valley and elsewhere to kind of start their own businesses build their own Brands and in really interesting unique ways um I think this whole the way that social media emerged and the stories that have been told um it sort of hasn't told that other side of it of the user side so I think you just I think you can learn so much about kind of even just where things are going in Tech and media because that's also what the book is all about and how many people have you spoken to that have read the book like I'm talking like friends and family and just like random like what would you say roughly at this point probably about a hundred people at this point so that's perfect I was hoping it was that kind of number what do you think stands out like what have you been because given that you know I've written six or seven books now and I'm always it's always so fun to be like oh man I wasn't even like you know you talk to like 20 people and like seven of them like man I really like the thing about the canoe and I'm like what you don't even remember because you know this it's a forever process and I'm like the canoe yeah on page 19 and you go back and you're like wow that's the thing have you had that moment is there any anything that you'd be surprised by or what has stood out to those hundred people I continually I'm surprised by this actually because what you described is exactly what's been happening um a lot of people are really surprised at how these companies were founded like they assumed that YouTube always was going to be what it was they didn't realize it started as a dating site for instance or you know they didn't realize that like the way that Twitter Evol I think a lot of people have this mythology in their head around these businesses and this is why I think it's such a good read because it really gets into lots of businesses in one book you know there's the YouTube book there's the Instagram book there's a Facebook book I'm like okay those are great books but you can just read this book that sort of has like the sort of the key takeaways of all these platforms including Snapchat as I mentioned the live streaming boom what made you now successful at that you know time in the mid-2010s how did they lose market share so yeah and people have gravitated to those little their little things like you now is another one they're like oh yeah I forgot about that I didn't know people made it living and what that did to sort of twitch and so yeah it's more just like a lot of like random unexpected little yeah makes sense given

### 14:13 Vine & Snapchat [9:58]

that you're a journalist given that you've been in this obviously I've watched your career blossoming as someone who kind of like tries to really pay attention to [ __ ] like I've always thought you've done a good job and so I'm really curious about this question then this is one woman subjective point of view this isn't fact for you as you go through the history of this last 25 years or so whatever it is 15 20 25 which app or platform are you personally like disappointed didn't make it or isn't in the top five today good or or you could take another track you're most surprised that it didn't make it you understand why because you've done the research but you're most still surprised or tell people a story of like why it should be here and what the one bad move was that changed the course of it yeah um well you know it's that's such a great question there's a few obviously Vine I I'm a millennial I grew up on Vine it makes me so sad that the way that app was sort of mismanaged that was sold incredibly quickly right that was within launch pre-launch to Twitter yeah and then Twitter mismanaged it I mean I think Vine could have really rivaled Tik Tok like Vine was the preview to Tik Tok exactly you couldn't have Vine without Tik Tok I also have to say Gary Snapchat like Snapchat's been a surprising one where you know it had so much hype and it was ascendant and then they really also kind of shot themselves in the foot they to creaters Let's double click into that yeah Snapchat today as you know because you covered a space continues to dominate messaging between the youth right yeah yet so many of these 17y olds will literally talk to all their friends it is their core it is like hey Elders without kids or even 20 even 30 year olds without kids like this is where they text not on WhatsApp and on you know iMessage you know Spotlight is sitting right down there one click away yeah which for everybody at home that doesn't use it which is most by the way which is the point I'm getting at that is basically in essence their feed their Tik Tok their Instagram and you and I know because we do this for a living the content in there is very similar to the content that is in Tik Tok and Instagram what do you think snap is missing or why isn't it have more I continue to believe that they could take 20% Market sh of the feed economy in a snap pun intended if they tweaked it a little bit what's your take on why the majority of people that consume Instagram and Tik Tok do not also consume I mean more of them consume YouTube shorts for the most into it then snap highlight when it's sitting right there they're already there they're in the room they're in the [ __ ] house they're just not to the other living room why yeah I mean I my book actually sort of talks about evans's mismanagement of kind of or not I would say mismanagement he made a series of decisions that I think sort of set them up to be in this difficult spot one he insisted on separating that social experience and the media consumption experience I don't know if you remember I think it was 2017 or 2018 when he split the two and he sort of talked about that I think that was a mistake um and you know even today I it's just they haven't he's they're sort of very antisocial in a way like they don't lean into things that think you're right like I am I watch it and I'm like my God you know you're shooting yourself in the foot they also alienated their whole first class of content creators and yes I know a lot of content creators are making big money on you know discover still you know sometime some of them but I mean that is because it's all supply and demand and the ones that are going hard in it there's still plenty of attention it's just the majority of creators don't even think to go hard in it exactly yeah and I think that's because of the company's history with the creators where they alienated and sort of they didn't they had a very hostile relationship with creators for a while I mean that whole first generation of Snapchat creators they didn't want those people on the platform they wanted it to be about one to one IRL friends close friends I think that was a mistake makes sense what are you here's a fun one I

### 18:54 Platforms and features that have the potential to become the next big thing [14:13]

I'm sure this crosses your mind what do you think the next snap because kudos to them they built a great company but to your point I think both of us kind of in our stomachs feel like there's more upside there um what do you think the next snap Tik Tok Instagram is like what do you and this is like I mean if you really knew you'd be [ __ ] doing it right d you know what do you and I so I'm not asking you directly I'm actually talking more genre I brought up earlier is it voice is it this like where do you have any thoughts on the kind of thing that is kind of missing in the marketplace or what kind of aspects of the entrepreneur Andor the app will be needed to be the next breakout app yeah or finally I apologize because I really want to get this from you or the common thread of these 15 to 20 over the last 15 years that won it do with so much of the journalistic research you've done is there any common theme or is it too contextual moments in time blah blah yeah um there's a few sort of answers um number one I think just in terms of where things are going one thing that seems interesting to me is a lot of there keeps being these sort of like I think desire for sort of simultaneous ephemeral experiences like whether it's voice like a clubhouse room or rip or like Twitter spaces and stuff or even just something like be real where it's sort of about this like simultaneous online experience um I think a lot of people even like a Tik Tok live right it sort of fulfills that need um so I don't know if we'll see like a separate app or like feature sets building into that but that definitely seems to be like a desire from users I think for anyone looking to make the next big social app you're going to have a lot of competition uh because you know look Tik Tok had to spend a billion in marketing alone in 2019 on you know app downloads just to really kind of compete against Facebook and Google um but I think there's a lot more room for small Niche apps and people want to spend more time with like sort of restricted communities that's why you see more people moving into like Discord and these group chat platforms um so that's yeah that's interesting I would also just say like another lesson from my book like the one like a big lesson that I learned from sort of like watching these companies rise and fall is to be flexible like be flexible because these Founders they never understood sort of like or predicted how their um products would end up being used and it's really the founders that could kind of like roll with it instead of be like well no but I built the business for this or I want people to be sharing this way why aren't they doing that instead of being by the way I'm sorry to jump in rolling with it everyone is adjusting to the reality yes it's called being consumer Centric you know I think Taylor's point is well taken uh we've talked a little bit about you know and by the way ev's conviction uh Evan Spiegel's conviction is also how he got there in the first place right like it's like your gift is your curse at times right and so having that conviction up front tends to get you there really taking a step back and adjusting to the reality of consumer Behavior becomes a whole new uh skill set it's C it's counter punching you know it's it's like Floyd Mayweather more than Mike Tyson potentially gets you there it's like you have conviction of what you're doing and then as you get into the later rounds aka the app is a little more mature you're seeing what consumers are doing with it now you're kind of rolling with the punches early Twitter uh anecdote for that is early Twitter um the retweet concept was RT colon and you would control copy what somebody would say Twitter's team and those early days saw that created the retweet button you know it's trying to eliminate friction from your consumer or be okay with who's using your product right back to consumer goods Christal the champagne you know really hurt its business by saying their champagne was for a certain demo and they had to feel the ramifications of that you know when you're an app you know Creator adjusting to what's actually happening to your point Nobody Knows the YouTube dating part and then the next year because I was there in 2006 was pirated content yeah I mean it was all family it was all the Simpsons and you know and late night television so these things evolve yeah 100% And I think it's as you mentioned it's really hard especially if you are an entrepreneur where you built this product because you want it you know like to fulfill your need or something right and like you're like whoa here's this whole other user base that I never even expected so yeah that was a big lesson because the companies that didn't evolve that way failed very quickly yeah that makes sense what um

### 25:04 Cashing in on your passion [18:54]

what's most interest what are you most curious about like what's of the second because I you know obviously look everybody who's listening I think you know what why I like having authors on is like it's just hard to get indepth I mean right now one of the biggest issues in America is headline reading and jumping to conclusions so you know I'm famously not a great reader and I don't tend to read a lot of books and I'm and I don't really what I do is I'm more audio I listen I look for social cues the way I publicly speak is reacting to the audience but for so many of you listening book form is a monster and to me I still think books I'm almost blown away by this it seems funny because it's so normalized but like the depth of content you get in book form for what ends up being normally under 20 bucks on Amazon is like pretty profound so people that want to do the homework I think a lot of you know I believe the best way to predict the future is to know the past and so I think you know Taylor putting this all together in one place and grounding it is something worth um exploring uh I think will be valuable for you but knowing that that's a history context play while you're on the podcast what about right now what's kind of like what's intriguing to you like what are you like uhoh there's some smoke over there I need to do more homework like what are you excited to do homework on as we close out this year whether it's an app or a genre of apps or creators or anything really in technology yeah I mean I'm just really interested in kind of seeing Tik Tok mature obviously and kind of the business the revenue models I think now there's this understanding of like okay creators need to get paid and these platforms have sort of acknowledged it and so they're all rolling out these different Revenue options and I think it's maturing in a really interesting way as you mention YouTube shorts is really T you know taken off in certain ways and so I think certain people are monetizing just through that so I'm just looking more at the revenue streams and seeing like okay how are people building these businesses of the future and how much of it are they relying on the platforms I think increasingly people are not relying on the platforms right they're doing the merch lines and the product lines and things that are not necessarily tied to advertising um but it'll see also I think the strike the strike right now happening in Hollywood is gonna have a big effect on the entertainment industry I think it's a huge opportunity for people that make content on the internet to be honest um especially next year when there's not going to be a lot of programming so um yeah those are things I I'll also just say one other thing Gary I'm also not a good like I like Fast reads I try to make the biggest compliment and that's the one thing that I would say all the people everyone I've talked to they say it's a fast read and it's a quick I tried to make the chapters kind of bite-sized I do have an audiobook version um because I'm the same way I'm like just give me the info like I don't need all this sort of like fluff around it let's talk about author life for actually I have two questions one actually let me get to my I'll end with author life because there's a lot of aspiring authors that I wanted um I apologize till is this your first book yes it is great so that will make it even more fun I'll get to that in a second Taylor what is the practicality of the dream that I dreamed and it was really not a dream it was the observation I made in 200 um uh when did I write this book 20 7 2008 when I wrote crushit 2007 I wrote it came out an '08 what is the realistic nature of the practicality of somebody making $50,000 a year being a Creator around their favorite thing in the world Texas Longhorn football uh raspberry jam Checkers um The Smurfs you know how you know we talk about the Charlie demillies the Logan these are Mr be these are Big Enterprises that is cool and amazing and I'm here for that life I'm incredibly intrigued by the 11 year olds at home today who are destined to live a life where they were going to just do something they didn't fully love to pay the mortgage you know there's stuff that I'm passionate about with my content which is like [ __ ] the money like can you find like to be happy and that comes in so many shapes and sizes how practical is it in today and going forward as this continues to grow the longtail of creators for people to find you know a salary that is manageable to live within 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110,000 a year income but joy for days because it's about coin collecting and that's their like in essence the hobby becoming the profession because of this infrastructure how real is it today in the future from someone who's done a lot of work to research it yeah I mean look it's more competitive today uh I would say than 2007 or8 but we also have a lot more tools you don't need as big of an audience um you know there's a lot more Revenue options today so I think it is practical I mean look you you're you have to build a media business so you have to ask yourself can I build a media business around this thing that I love and a lot of people can and there there just continues to be opportunity on the internet I have to laugh because there's this cycle every two years when people say oh the influencer industry is dead the Creator economy is dead media is not getting less newspapers are still being printed yeah that's true when people say G do you think the Creator economy is that I'm like brother newspapers are being sold today newspap I work for one yeah like and by the way I don't say that as a Raz I say that nothing becomes dead it finds its new equilibrium we don't sell as many newspapers as we did in 1950 because a lot more attention is put into the phone and the television and the radio and all these other things that came along but the newspaper used to be 5 cents newspapers are you know I looked the other day I was kind of in the airport like damn newspapers gotten pretty exp and I get it becomes a you got to find your equilibrium to run a viable business against the cost and demand and but like this concept of debt is silly it's so silly and again we are getting more and more online every year media is digital every year so I you know I think yes I do I definitely think there's a lot of opportunity and um on the internet in terms of building content around what you love let's

### 28:32 Taylor's goals with the book [25:04]

finish with this to the other side more people always say Gary why do you write books you're all digital like because people read them you know like yes I like the opportunity in digital but I also like the S I hate TV commercials as a medium but I love the Super Bowl because that one I think actually gets consumed so like it all just comes down to actual consumption and there's an awful lot of books being read so to that point no [ __ ] be vulnerable like how much do you want the book to be commercially successful out of just being competitive and wanting it to do well or what other goals or what have you been surprised about going through this journey as a first-time author obviously being a journalist you know it's probably been in the back of your mind forever will I ever do it will I do it how talk to me about first the vulnerability of it which is like if it does well if it doesn't do well getting on lists commercially successful like that part and then number two given that I'm assuming but correct me if I'm wrong if you're someone who becomes a journalist writing a book is always in the back of your mind and what was the biggest surprise going through the first one yeah well I you know I care about the setting sort of like getting the history out of the internet I think every journalist we write about the things we write about because we're incredibly passionate about them so everything I wrote in my book these are things that I'm really passionate about this was an internet that I lived through I did so much reporting so I just want people to I'm like guys as you mentioned before there's actually crazy amount of information in this book and as a journalist I want that information out there I want as many people to read it as possible I do not care about credentialism I very anti- credentials and getting on oh I made the list or whatever I already wrote for the New York Times I work there for years I don't care about you know Silly lists at all and no one should these are all silly everyone can be a bestseller today look go look at Amazon you can be the best seller in every category that's silly I just want people to read the book love it and talk about it because I really love to talk about these things and I want more people to kind of engage with these things and take it Ser at a deeper level instead of saying yes or no yeah because again because there's this rich and crazy and truly untold history behind a lot of this stuff and people see the success and they say oh yeah well it probably took off because of this no there was like there was this whole other you know like talk a lot about these like debates and the founders and just it's there's so much more to the story than a lot of people know so I yeah I mean I wrote the whole book so I want people to read it and what about the biggest surprise even though surprise well it was it um you know honestly it was trying to whittle it down there was so much information just trying to like get you know get it through keep it moving even though you were accustomed to do that for an article this was at such a different scale such different scale but um but no I mean I've yeah as a journalist you like to you sort of think about it in the back of your head but I didn't want to waste do what a lot of people do in journalism which is just sort of do like essentially what could have been an article as a book you know because they want to expand out I was like if I'm going to do a book like I want it to pack so much in such a short time so that people you know really kind of get it because that's what I want out of books myself like I'm like just get it in as much as possible because we don't have a lot of time you know these days no I've heard Taylor thank you so much congrats good luck thanks for having me yeah