The online world, we are increasingly told, is as harmful as cigarette smoking. It undermines trust in institutions like the government and the news media, poisons our discourse, amplifies disinformation, shortens our attention spans, narrows our thinking, and makes kids anxious, depressed, and antisocial. The U.S. Surgeon General has urged that it be required to carry the same warning labels as tobacco products. And Australia recently banned social media use for teens.
Much of that is true, but it’s far from the whole story. While the popular media tends to focus on online celebrities and influencers like Kylie Jenner, Mr. Beast, or Alex Cooper, who boast tens or even hundreds of millions of followers and earn eight-figure salaries, the bigger story is that millions upon millions of dedicated creators across the globe are using social media to follow their passions and work on ideas, activities, and causes that give them a sense of purpose.
That’s the big takeaway from a multiyear study I just completed with a team of researchers that surveyed roughly 10,000 online creators across 20 nations. This is the first such survey to collect reliable data on the social and economic characteristics of creators, their motivations, work styles, employment status, and earnings. “The creator economy has a data problem” is how a 2022 article bluntly put it. In fact, “digital creator” is such a new occupational category that the U.S. government does not collect data on it.
There are more than 360 million creators across those nations—more than the population of the United States.
- 39 million live in the U.S.
- 137 million in India
- 47 million in Indonesia
- 40 million in Brazil
- 18 million in Mexico
- 14 million in Nigeria
- 8 million in Saudi Arabia
They generate a cumulative economic impact of $368 billion, a figure comparable to the GDP of Hong Kong and more than the entire economic output of Finland, New Zealand, or Greece.
While our survey generated many unique and important findings, the big story it tells is of two different types of creators. On the one hand, is the rarefied world of online celebrities who suck up the lion’s share of attention and revenues. On the other is the much, much larger world of creators who are looking to share their ideas and work products with others, find personal fulfillment and an antidote to social isolation, and generate a source of supplemental income.
The overwhelming majority of creators are not only or even primarily driven by the pursuit of wealth and fame. The top five motivations survey respondents reported for creating and sharing content are:
- Showcasing their talent
- Having fun
- Entertaining others
- Connecting with people
- Sharing content with others
Earning money ranked sixth, about the same as making a positive impact and educating others.
“Before I did social media,” Dr. Kojo Sarfo told me, “I was a doctorally-prepared mental health nurse practitioner.” With more than two million followers, he uses social media to help troubled young people at scale. “Suicide is an impulsive behavior. If somebody is at home and they’re having those impulsive thoughts, they might scroll on their Facebook or YouTube and see a video that could buy them time to think about what they’re doing.”
For all of the ways social media diminishes and divides us, it can also allow us to achieve much more of our potential while creating strong communities of practice and shared values. “Social media pushed me from a sort of very hyperlocal level into a global and national space almost overnight,” the political activist and model Deja Foxx said when I interviewed her. “I think for too long, there have been gatekeepers of whose story gets to be told,” she added. “Social media has changed that.”
Yet, our survey data reveals the stark economic gulf that divides the two worlds of creators. On one side, just 2% of global creators make $100,000 or more, and even fewer have more than a million followers.
On the flip side, roughly three-quarters have less than 10,000 followers, and 60% have less than 5,000. More than three quarters earn less than $10,000 per year; half earn less than $1,000; and almost 40% report no revenue at all.
That divide is not unique to the online world. It’s a defining feature of our “winner-take-all” economy where a small number of superstars in music, entertainment, sports, business, and finance capture a disproportionate share of economic rewards.
In fact, the vast majority of creators work other jobs, with half holding down another full-time job and 14% working another part-time job. Overall, about half of American creators work in creative, professional, and knowledge jobs spanning science and engineering; management and business; education; the legal and medical professions, as well as arts and culture.
Not surprisingly, American creators are much more likely to work in arts, design, and entertainment than the workforce as a whole (14% versus 2%). That said, the universe of digital creators is made up of much more than the creative class. Fourteen percent are employed in blue-collar working-class jobs and 36% work in routine service occupations like office and administrative support, food service, and personal care.
And creators span all levels of education. Just 12% of American creators have advanced or graduate degrees, compared to 14% of all Americans over 25 years old. And while 43% of U.S. creators are college graduates (compared to 36% of all Americans), roughly a fifth are high school graduates, another fifth have some college, 13% have two-year degrees, and 4% did not graduate from high school. If the popular image of a creator is a teenager or young adult, creators span all ages. Almost 10ths the % are 55 and older; a little more than a fifth are between 35 and 44; and about double that are between 20 and 34 years old. Just 16% are teenagers.
Though digital technologies enable creators to produce and share content from virtually anywhere, they are geographically concentrated. Roughly two-thirds of creators in the United States live and work in cities and metropolitan areas that have more than one million people, and a third are located in metros that are home to more than five million people. Economically successful creators (those with more than 100,000 followers) are even more geographically clustered. More than 40% of them live in large metro areas, compared to 25% of Americans overall. But while America’s largest metros, New York and Los Angeles, are home to the largest numbers of creators, smaller metros like Orlando, Cleveland, Atlanta, Seattle, San Antonio, Pittsburgh, Tampa, and Las Vegas have greater concentrations of creators than Los Angeles.
For most of history, civilizations were organized around the mobilization of physical labor and the extraction and exploitation of natural resources. But as I documented in my 2002 book The Rise of the Creative Class, occupations that turn on knowledge, intelligence, and creativity have become essential engines of economic growth. The creative class, as I dubbed these workers, grew from less than 10% of the workforce a century or so ago to more than 40% today, and accounts for approximately 50% of U.S. wages and as much as 70% of discretionary spending.
Until the rise of the internet, most creatives worked for big corporations, universities, and research centers, or were at the mercy of the gatekeepers at publishing houses, galleries, and record labels. Thanks to digital technologies and platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, and Substack, now anyone with access to a computer and a modem can generate original content, share it widely, and monetize it through subscriptions, tips, advertising, brand partnerships, endorsements, and more.
I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna. There is much to deplore about the current online world. But it doesn’t make sense to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. In a time that is increasingly filled with loneliness, isolation, and alienation, the digital creator economy provides hundreds of millions of people with a source of meaning, purpose, community, and much-needed income.
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