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What's your thoughts on the creator economy. A lot of people are saying that it's like a recession for creators and you have a few people at the top that's doing well and the vast majority of people that's making viral content never making any money. Yeah, so is it sustainable? Like where do we go from here? As far as what has been coined as the creator economy?
Yeah, I think you know, a lot of people flooded the zone, right, so there's a there's a dearth of creators out there. I think you know, the people that are doing super well.
There they are.
They've found a niche in a positive way and they're super serving that consumer and they're adding value. I think those people, you know, long term, will will flourish.
They just have to figure out how to monetize.
I don't think the platforms, at least in the current state, are going to be that path. Like that's just to get you the exposure so that brands like you know,
Samsung or whoever want to work with you. And then I think, you know, they just need people that can help them get brand deals and like explain to Samsung or you know, Meta or ray Band whoever it is, like, hey, this is why she or he is super important, this is their audience, and this is how you can activate them clearly at the top to your point, you know, like the mister beasts of the world Logan and Jake Paul, like, you know, they're you know, even Shannon Sharp, I think
he's you know, on, you know, on well on his way to really dominate in this new sort of like content paradigm. Those people can branch out and do all the other things, you know, launch CpG brands, launch candy bar brands, become professional fighters like they really figured it out. The middle, I think is the hardest part, right, Like it's like you're not niche enough and specific enough to be seen as like really courrent expert to whatever that
community is. And I think there's a lot of people in that segment of like you know, the boyfriend girlfriend videos. It's like like I don't know who wants to sponsor that. I don't can't figure out, like what's the value proposition?
Like how do you monetize that? Do you feel like it's too much content? Because I was just thinking about like even you know, previously you had sports and you had news, and then you had like movies and stuff. Right now now you have sports, you have news, you have movies, but you have twenty four hour content that's being produced on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. It's an unprecedented time in human history, if you think.
About it, right, very democratic.
It's like a hurricane of content daily. Right, is this oversaturating the media market to where it's devaluing real, actual valuable content doesn't even mean anything anymore.
You could make that argument.
I wouldn't make that argument because I think when you make really high quality content, it breaks through like we were talking about Speedy interviewing Gorilla last week. It broke through, right, Like he designed that episode brilliantly creatively to have those moments where people that know we're like they flirting. Was he like embarrassed? Was he cracking up? Could he not understand her?
Like?
He designed that whole thing to be a thing, right, and it broke through. And like, people that do that I think will be successful. Is there a barrage of like just nonsense and your friends posting eighteen hundred stories that you don't need to look at? Sure, but the high quality content I think will break through. I really like all these platforms I think are for the betterment, right, And it's giving more people out.
Of all of the more I think.
So it's giving people more access. I mean, like, I mean there's obviously there's obviously not nice people out there.
Let's just be honest, right, The vast majority of content, it's like the vast majority of music, The vast majority of music is bad and it's it's detrimental. And that's why specifically hip hop music is going down, right because previously, like the Golden era, you had to really be talented in order to be heard now anybody can be heard. Now what that breaking of the barrier, you lose any level of nostalgic moments. Quality of music is going down, and it's hurt the entire genre.
Yeah, I could see the point you're making. I think the point I'm making is, like.
You have in content, you have these seismic consumer changes happening where like you know, the average age of like news programming on linear television is in its seventies, right. That means there's someone like one hundred and four watching it if the average is.
Seventy, right, But I watch it the average seventy.
Average is seventy MSNBC is seventy years old, right, That means there's no one eighteen watching it, literally, no one, not one person, right, and all of these social tools, And I would agree some of it is not nice, and some of it is not good, and some of its low quality.
But there are a lot.
Of people that wouldn't get the opportunity to create content and break through with there's such a reduction in friction that they can have the opportunity to break through. And I do concur with your point that it is important that it is high quality. It's premium it's scheduled, that it's done in a methodical way. I do think that's
more valuable, it's more trustworthy. I think brands matter, Like you know, I don't agree in this, like you know, Jason Calacanis and Chamoth Polyopatia that like citizen journalism is like gonna be the thing, Like no, you guys are just all riding Elon's you know, like wave right, Like it's not true, like citizen journalism.
Yeah, maybe it's part of it.
But like I want journalists I can trust, right, I want people with ethics.
Can you trust any journalists?
Can you trust to anyone? But I think no.
But I think honestly, there are journalists and the journalists I've worked with that.
They have boundaries, like you know.
They they will quit at a principle, They will not do things out of principle. I think there are people that, like there's certainly people that the other way, right, that they will trade you access to a famous musician to give them a favorable whatever, right because they want that access. But then there's journalists that are hyper critical, right, and and you know they won't bend those things. So I think, you know, I do think the critical journalists are super important.
You know.
I don't want to just see like, you know, uh, flattery of people like you know, the podcast. I think it's called like founders or acquired one of them and they bring business people on, but there's no critique. It's just like they're just lathering them with how great they are. It's well, it's not journalism, that's just you know, just a hype piece. It's just a biopic in an audio format.
So and that theme, how do you stay youthful when it comes to content creation?
Right?
You have Speedy be at a certain point, and Speedy's great, He's going to be a demographic younger one.
Yeah, right, So like that, even Speedy pushes us, he does.
I think he's amazing, but.
Speedy is critical of us around like who's the next?
Yeah?
Or hey, guys, how come you're crushing it on reels but TikTok's not doing as well.
You got to you gotta go to get in there tinker with it.
And then they'll be like, hey, you're killing in TikTok, but why are you killing in shorts? Like he's honest about that, And I would say all the people that are you know, sort of on the content side. They tend to be of that you know, you know, mid to late twenties cohort. They're very aware of that, and they are pushing that agenda like they're you know, you know sometimes it's you know, makes this maybe be a little squirmish, you know, but like they are pushing that, and I think it's right.
You have to be obsessed with the youth or you're gonna lose it. Do they ever?
Does it get to a point where it's you seeing talent it and they're like, wait, that's the person, that's the person. Can we build around that person?
Sure?
Like, are you guys familiar with them? She's new a Gillian. She's a new on air anchor for us on Complex New. She's pretty new, like in the last couple of months, but you know, discovered her totally organically. She was a producer behind the camera Cornell who used to be our head of video. He now works with Kendrick at a pg lang. He's like the president of pg lang and he hit us up, Hey, we're doing the pop out.
We're doing this music video in Compton.
She happed to be home in Compton, got her friend to hold the camera right the never been on camera before? Does this content? It does like first day ten million views, second day twenty million views, whatever, Right, she did like a ton of content, and we're.
Like, oh, wow, you're a star.
We need to we need to get you in front of the camera instead of back of the camera, and we need to you know, help you hone and sharpen your skills. But we're constantly, you know, Aria and Know are constantly looking to find and develop new creators and on uh you know, on screen and talent and like you know, like you tell, who's another one of our on screen talent?
Like Cornell got him out of like flight club.
He went into flight club and the kid was like just pitching him hard on like whatever the shoes were, and he's like, huh do you want.
To do like a screen test?
And then like you know, he's been with us for the last you know, three four years now.
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