Jim Louderback

Inside the Creator Economy

Terrible TikTok Revealed

In Commentary, NEWSLETTER

Everything we feared about TikTok was true – and then some.

What did TikTok know and when did it know it? Apparently, everything and forever. Plus lies, damn lies and statistics, a treasure trove of new research, and Hollywood’s view of the top 50 creators. And read to the end for a fandom so strong that a new book pushed a 12 year-old TV series into streaming’s top 10.

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TIKTOK KNEW IT WAS HARMING USERS AND DIDN’T CARE

Due to a redacting error, more than 30 pages of court sealed documents leaked last week. They show a cavalier and uncaring TikTok, focused on addicting, not protecting kids and indeed all users. Double Ts own research found that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.” Yet they kept on releasing features designed to addict users young and old. We also now know just how many videos it takes to addict you: 260. It takes as few as 35 minutes to turn a normal person into a TikTok addict. TikTok also found that “compulsive usage also interferes with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.” Yet they kept on developing new and more powerful features to mint addicts and compel unhealthy behavior. They even tweaked their algorithm to promote attractive creators and demote those deemed less than ideal. There’s so much more awful in the docs. Just 97 days until a reckoning, according to my TikTok Countdown Clock.

50 MOST INFLUENTIAL CREATORS?

Imagine for a moment your editor comes to you and says, “Here’s your next project – come up with the 50 most influential creators for next week”. After throwing up in your mouth, you produce this. It’s not a bad list, but more than half of the short profiles focus on traditional media crossovers. It’s a sad commentary on how Hollywood still thinks you don’t matter unless you’ve “graduated” to old media. Aside, I’m really looking forward to interviewing #38 Prajakta Koli and seeing some of the others at the One Billion Follower Summit in Dubai in January!

IS THE INFLUENCER MIDDLE CLASS IN TROUBLE?

We talked about Linqia’s new research last week, but it has sparked a debate over whether brands are moving from smaller and midsize creators back to the biggest creators. Don’t miss the comment tree in that post for more context. That certainly wasn’t the message at CreatorIQ Connect last week, but it’s a worrying trend. My take? Different types of creators operate at different parts of the marketing funnel. Top creators are great for awareness, but smaller creators focused on valuable niches can deliver better conversion. Would be nice to see more research here though beyond just talking to 200 top marketers.

  • Related: It’s harder to be a creator in 2024 – diversification is key.
  • Related: New research from CreatorIQ finds that Mid-tier and Established Creators Offer the Most ROI (see research section below for details, links and more.)

BEWARE DATA OUT OF CONTEXT

This fascinating chart from EMARKETER seems to show that Snapchat leads when it comes to GenZ usage. But it’s really just their share of users, not a share of total GenZ (or any other demographic) reached. And because it’s “Select Platforms”, there are likely other platforms as or more valuable than Snap from a user share POV if you are trying to reach GenZ. For example, if I launched Jim-A-Gram, and had just one user – my 25-year-old son – I would top the charts at 100% share of GenZ. Even if my wife joined up, I’d come in number two at 50%. It’s also unclear whether the data is more than a year old, or just a few months old. The data is interesting when you analyze the relative age of users but raises other questions. For example, it seems like lots of GenA and oldsters watch Disney+ and YouTube, but how did they track that? Plus, we know from PreciseTV research that a lot of pre-teens watch TikTok, but they aren’t represented at all. Consider this a warning – charts out of context with select cuts can be misleading. Or insightful. But it’s often unclear which is which.

SPONSOR: iHeartMedia announced a unique partnership with @Whalar Group, opening up fresh opportunities for Creators and marketers to connect with their audiences across iHeart’s unparalleled broadcast, podcast, digital, live events, and social platforms. This collaboration redefines how advertisers and brands can engage with consumers, offering innovative ways to seamlessly integrate content Creators into campaigns that leverage iHeart’s extensive reach and trusted talent—both nationally and locally—on a massive scale. This partnership sets the stage for brands to unlock new growth and elevate their storytelling through impactful Creator collaborations. Learn more here.

QUIBIS

YOUTUBE

META

TIKTOK

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

RESEARCH

INSIDE THE GRAVITY FALLS FANDOM

        – Morgan Ward

How do you revive a fandom 8 years after the last episode aired? Some simply reintroduce old IP to new audiences, but for Alex Hirsh, the creator of the tv show Gravity Falls (2012-2016) the answer looked a little different. In September, Hirsh published The Book of Bill, an in-universe story featuring the show’s main antagonist, Bill Cipher. Eight years after Gravity Falls ended, the fandom is back and bigger than ever. The TV show relied heavily on ciphers and clues, creating a game for its audiences to solve alongside the characters. The Book of Bill did the same – with Hirsh paying for extra marketing for the book, and a website leading to more mysteries. This is how you keep a fandom engaged – more content, and more community activation schemes. The book release boosted Gravity Falls reruns into Disney+’s top ten list for most of the past year. The fandom and the “ships” have also topped Tumblr’s weekly statistics since July. In addition to unravelling mysteries, nostalgia and new plot-lines have led to an explosion of edits, theories, fan comics and more.

Go Deeper

  • Read Alex Hirsch’s interview with Polygon, where he talks about the book and why he decided to return to Bill Cipher.
  • Andy Ottone’s piece in The Observer about what it means to return to Gravity Falls after almost a decade.
  • Explore the Gravity Falls Tumblr, TikTok, and Reddit pages where fans continue to theorize, make art, and more.
  • Follow creator Alex Hirsh on X where he continues to post information about the book, the show, and the animation industry in general.

100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

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I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including Discovery and Paramount. Subscribe here on LinkedIn to get this newsletter every Monday.

Let me know what you think – email me at jim@louderback.com. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.

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