\n<\/p>\n
Erin McGoff has<\/span> 3 million followers on social media, but with the money she gets from Instagram and TikTok, she wouldn\u2019t be able to pay for the plate of mozzarella sticks we\u2019re sharing in a Baltimore bar.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Instagram, I\u2019ll have a video hit 900,000 views and make six dollars,\u201d McGoff<\/a> said. \u201cIt\u2019s insulting.\u201d<\/p>\n Like most content creators, McGoff makes her living from brand deals, sponsorships and subscription products, rather than from the platforms themselves. But that reality is emblematic of the conundrum creators find themselves in: they\u2019re propelling social platforms to new heights, but those same platforms can betray them at any second with one small algorithm change or unfounded suspension.<\/p>\n Creators deal with the same stresses of any self-employed business owner, but at the same time, they\u2019re wholly dependent on the whims of massive social platforms, which don\u2019t pay them enough, or at all, for creating enormous value. And when it comes to brand deals and partnerships, there\u2019s no standard to make sure creators are being compensated fairly.<\/p>\n \u201cTikTok and Instagram are making so much money off of ads, and they\u2019re not sharing that with creators,\u201d McGoff told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n The creator economy has a sustainability problem. According to Matt Koval, an early creator who then worked for a decade as YouTube\u2019s first creator liaison, a creator\u2019s career span usually lasts between five and seven years.<\/p>\n \u201cIf creators don\u2019t capitalize on their flash of fame and turn it into some kind of sustainable business, they can find themselves in a really hard place of, \u2018Well, what do I do now?\u2019\u201d he said in a YouTube video<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since starting her social media accounts in 2021, McGoff has made more and more money each year, but she\u2019s still worried that her job could disappear at any moment. What if her TikTok account gets taken down? What if her followers get bored of her? With the exception of a small elite group, there\u2019s really no blueprint for what a career as a content creator looks like ten, twenty or thirty years down the road.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to act like your influencer money could go away tomorrow,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of creators just think, \u2018I\u2019m gonna make videos online and make a bunch of money,\u2019 and that\u2019s unfortunately not sustainable. You have to have a business mindset and understand how to make money work for you.\u201d<\/p>\n These anxieties aren\u2019t unique, nor are they\u2019re not unfounded. While creators try to build their multifaceted businesses, they\u2019re also beginning to wonder if they can work together to advocate for more transparency with platforms and brands, which might help make their careers more tenable.<\/p>\n Last year, creators watched as Hollywood\u2019s writers and actors unions picketed incessantly under the unforgiving Los Angeles sun, eventually winning contractual changes with studios that will help them secure better treatment and pay. Some creators even pledged not to cross picket lines <\/a>during the strikes. Gen Z has come of age in an era when workers at Amazon, Starbucks, REI, Trader Joe\u2019s, Home Depot, UPS and so many more are waging high-profile strikes and union drives to fight for better working conditions. And this generation \u2013 which spends a whole lot of time<\/a> on social media \u2013 is the most pro-union generation alive<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is now the time for content creators to get their due?<\/p>\n As a creator making videos and resources around career advice, it makes sense that McGoff is thinking so intently about her career trajectory. The same goes for Hannah Williams, the founder of Salary Transparent Street<\/a> (STS), which has amassed over 2 million followers across platforms.<\/p>\n In her videos, Williams asks people on the street to share their salary as a means of promoting pay transparency \u2013 since she started her TikTok account in 2022, STS has grown into a broader resource hub to help people get paid fairly.<\/p>\n \u201cI created a personal TikTok in 2022, and I just talked about how much money I made at every single job I had, because I was like, this is my only way to fight back,\u201d Williams told TechCrunch. At the time, she had recently discovered she was being underpaid as a data analyst in Washington, D.C. \u201cI had a video go viral on TikTok with all my salaries, and so I realized salary transparency is really a thing, and people are interested in this. So I just had this idea to go out on the street and ask random people their salaries.\u201d<\/p>\n Williams is living a content creator\u2019s dream. Her business earned over $1 million in gross revenue in 2023, more than double what it made in 2022, and she pays herself a salary of $125,000. But as Williams helps people in other industries achieve greater salary transparency, she\u2019s been reflecting on the issues in her own professional world.<\/p>\n \u201cWe definitely need a union, because we need standardized rates,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWe need something that all the companies abide by. We need help. We need advocacy. We need people that stick up for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Since the film and TV industries in the United States are unionized, workers on all sides of a production are insured a number of workplace protections and pay minimums.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we look at it from the perspective of SAG and studios, studios for creators are social media platforms. They\u2019re the people that host our content. We make them money,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n And without any industry oversight, brands can pay creators anything \u2013 or nothing \u2013 for their work.<\/p>\n Some advocates are trying to change that. After being burned many times by underpaid brand deals, Lindsey Lee Lurgin founded Fuck You Pay Me<\/a> (FYPM), a database where creators can share what brands they work with, and how much those brands have paid them for certain deliverables.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had people say, \u2018Thanks to your website, I made rent this month, and it\u2019s because I was going to take a free t-shirt from this brand, but I joined FYPM and saw that I could charge them two grand,\u2019\u201d Lurgin told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Creators also want more transparency from social platforms themselves. Since so much of a creator\u2019s business is mediated through these platforms, any arbitrary algorithm change, disciplinary action or update can mean a loss of income.<\/p>\n \u201cOne time on TikTok, I reported somebody\u2019s comment for being homophobic, and I responded to him and said \u2018ew,\u2019\u201d Williams said. \u201cMy account got restricted for 48 hours, and I appealed it and nothing happened\u2026 That hurt me as a creator because I couldn\u2019t interact or engage with my audience.\u201d<\/p>\n In the worst cases, a suspension or account hack can have tangible impacts on a creator\u2019s business. Let\u2019s say a creator is getting paid $5,000 from a brand for a promotional Instagram post; if the creator can\u2019t access their account to make that post, they\u2019re not going to get paid. These concerns are so prevalent that startups have sprung up<\/a> offering creators insurance in case their accounts get hacked.<\/p>\n \u201cInstagram has no customer service at all, so if there\u2019s an issue with your account, you have no one to help, unless you know somebody,\u201d McGoff said.<\/p>\n According to Williams, these platforms aren\u2019t doing enough to stop reposts, either.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s not enough regulation of people that copy your content \u2014 they\u2019ll full on download your video and repost it and make money on that,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way I can report it and get them to take it down. Instagram\u2019s happy because they\u2019re making money, but I\u2019m not happy as a creator, because what am I going to do, not post on Instagram? My hands are tied.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the years, several leaders in the creator economy have floated the idea of a creators\u2019 union. In 2016, longtime YouTuber Hank Green tried building the Internet Creators Guild, but the idea came perhaps too early; the project lacked the funding and momentum to keep it running, so it shut down in 2019. Since then, with the rise of TikTok and the boom in social media usage during the pandemic, more and more people are making a living on the internet.<\/p>\n Now, Ezra Cooperstein, a veteran in the industry, is working on a project called creators.org, which is a non-profit aiming to act as a unified voice for creators. A similar group, the Creators Guild of America<\/a>, launched in August. And in 2021, SAG-AFTRA opened up membership to creators<\/a>, but the union won\u2019t negotiate with brands; rather, this special agreement allows creators to qualify for benefits from the union, like health insurance. But none of these organizations has become popular enough to attract a big enough community of creators \u2013 at least not yet.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to find common ground with everyone because everyone wants different things,\u201d Williams said. \u201cDepending on the type of creator you are, you might have different priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n In the meantime, platforms can still make changes to better support their creators.<\/p>\n \u201cI think what we could be doing is giving creators a voice on the platforms, like having a say in how the algorithm changes, and more legal protections to recognize this work as legit work,\u201d Lurgin said. \u201cThe people who are making the rules at the top, they\u2019re so disconnected from it. It\u2019s like deleting someone\u2019s job if your page gets stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nA lack of transparency<\/h2>\n
Could content creators unionize?<\/h2>\n