0:00

So I've talked to creators, especially

0:02

for marginalized communities, who are quite

0:04

fearful about something like, you know,

0:06

tagging their video, LGBTQ, or Black

0:09

Lives Matter, whatever it may be,

0:11

because they want their content to

0:13

resonate with their audience and be

0:16

seen by the audience, but you

0:18

don't know where your content is going

0:20

to end up. Hey Brooke, welcome to

0:22

the show. How are you? I'm great. Thanks so

0:24

much for inviting me to be here

0:26

today. Absolutely. Today I'm very curious

0:28

to talk about certain topics that are there,

0:31

right? But too many times I think that

0:33

we don't discuss about them, right? So I'm

0:35

very curious to see your point of view,

0:37

your research, your analysis, you know, behind that.

0:40

And before we get into that, I would

0:42

love to hear, you know, a bit more

0:44

about yourself. And we use this thing called

0:46

a map with our guest. Basically is dividing

0:48

three main sections to know a bit more

0:50

about... you know your career your personal life

0:52

is basically divided in the mission so

0:55

basically it is what do you aim

0:57

to achieve with your work achievements so

0:59

any notable milestone could be in your career

1:01

your life for both if you want and

1:03

the last one is the purpose so why

1:05

do you do what you do? I am

1:07

Brooke Aaron Duffy and I am an

1:10

associate professor in the Department of Communication

1:12

at Cornell University. So in terms of

1:14

the mission, what do I aim to

1:16

achieve? I mean, I'm an academic and

1:18

so I think a lot about the

1:20

creation of knowledge, but what does that

1:23

mean? Well, I'm interested in producing knowledge

1:25

on the role of social media in

1:27

work, employment, and society with particular attention

1:29

to labor. And of course, that brings

1:31

me to the creator economy. You know,

1:33

another part of my mission as an

1:36

academic is educating students. And so undergraduates,

1:38

of course, many in the communication

1:40

world interested in working in com,

1:42

in tech, in marketing, in the

1:44

social media economy. But I also

1:46

train graduate students who are very

1:48

much interested in thinking about what

1:50

social media means in the context

1:52

of culture and society and economy and

1:54

politics. It's always strange to talk about

1:57

your achievements. And so there's the, you

1:59

know, the. The milestones that matter

2:01

for tenure and promotion, so

2:03

I've published the three books,

2:05

most significantly a book called

2:08

Not Getting Paid to Do

2:10

What You Love, which was

2:12

drawing attention to the work

2:14

and labor of what we

2:16

now think of as creators,

2:18

as they think about the

2:21

difficulties of... the difficulties as well

2:23

as opportunities of career success. Currently working

2:25

on a new book which I think

2:27

we'll get into on the creator economy,

2:29

a huge milestone for me was was

2:31

getting my PhD. I'm a first-generation college

2:33

student. I went to a state school,

2:35

an excellent one, Penn State, but getting

2:37

a PhD was never on my radar

2:39

and so I always like to talk

2:41

to students about that. And finally in

2:43

terms of purpose, why I do what

2:45

I do. I mean part of it

2:47

is I think there's such a lack

2:49

of understanding about what it. work in the

2:52

social media and part of it

2:54

is just because it's changing all

2:56

the time, but there's also a

2:58

sense of dismissiveness or misunderstanding or

3:00

even a lack of value ascribed to

3:02

these careers. And so, you know, one

3:04

of my purposes is to draw attention

3:06

to what it actually means to work

3:08

in these fields. But I think, you

3:11

know, part of this is also because

3:13

so much of our lives are reconfigured

3:15

by social media. and labor. And so

3:17

how can we think and understand

3:19

the relationship between these two when

3:21

whether you're a creator or an

3:23

academic or working in the gig

3:25

economy or working in any field,

3:27

you're very much compelled to put

3:29

yourself out there. And so thinking

3:31

about what the benefits are, but also

3:33

the risks. And I think that what it

3:36

is very important because when I

3:38

was myself in college, too many times

3:40

I was starting things that I've been.

3:42

very outdated. And I understand that many

3:44

times you do have to study things

3:46

that like you know theory or sort of

3:49

things right when it comes to marketing and

3:51

business right but sometimes there is a lack

3:53

right when it comes to starting things that

3:55

are from the 80s and then understanding

3:57

what is happening these days right and

3:59

then I think it's very, but that's

4:01

also why sometimes I do also

4:03

myself lectures for students where we go

4:05

through, okay, this is what is

4:08

happening these days. This is how you

4:10

should approach it, right? From a

4:12

professional standpoint, together with also analytics, right?

4:14

An academic point of view. So

4:16

very important is what you do very

4:18

much needed these days, right? Because again,

4:20

there is sometimes this gap, right? Between

4:22

what you see in the real world, right?

4:24

And what happened sometimes in academia. And

4:26

there has always been this sort of

4:28

lack, right? A few years, right? Sometimes you

4:31

can arrive there. So thank you for

4:33

your work there, very, very important. And

4:35

let's get into that. So, you know, your

4:37

graduate seminar, it's called, you know, there

4:39

is this structure, right? That I find

4:41

also very interesting that it's called the platform's

4:43

power and precarity in the creative economy,

4:45

right? So I would like to know

4:47

a bit more about that. Is it something

4:49

that you come out with that? Like, tell

4:52

me a bit more, how did it

4:54

started? And why do you think that was

4:56

needed to discuss about this free piece?

4:58

Absolutely. And so I was

5:00

very excited to develop and teach

5:02

this course. And it started,

5:04

I taught a version of it

5:06

maybe six or seven years

5:08

ago, which was on media technology

5:10

and society. And so

5:12

when I went to revive the class

5:14

last semester, realized, as you can imagine, that

5:16

a lot of the, not just the

5:19

readings were out of date, but the topics,

5:21

the approaches, the research. And

5:23

so, you know, thought about

5:25

what is it that we're

5:27

talking about when we are

5:29

considering work as an influencer

5:31

or creator economy, and how

5:33

can we make a lot

5:35

of the debates and topics

5:37

connect with both my students,

5:39

but really, you know, the

5:41

wider world of social media and tech.

5:43

And so for me, a lot of

5:45

the debates about what it means to

5:47

be a creator today, what it means

5:49

to produce content, what it means to

5:51

be an entrepreneur, to have your career

5:53

dependent on a particular platform is to

5:55

think about the struggles of power. You

5:57

know, at what point do we have?

6:00

agency of our work compared to

6:02

moments when we're beholden to platforms

6:04

or were tied to the expectations

6:06

of audiences or advertisers. So there's

6:09

the power platforms, of course, you

6:11

know, we're seeing this in the

6:13

past two weeks as once again

6:15

that the Tiktok Band seems to

6:17

be looming. How do creators think

6:19

about longevity and sustaining their business

6:22

when the platform that they have...

6:24

built their audience could potentially vanish

6:26

with little notice. And finally, precarity,

6:28

and precarity is one of these

6:30

academic terms that gets thrown around a

6:32

lot, but we can think of it

6:34

as the insecurity of a job. And

6:37

so that means coming back to the

6:39

example of TikTok, maybe the platform that

6:41

you have your audience on may not

6:43

necessarily be there, or the content that

6:45

you expect to do well is suddenly

6:48

not garter an audience because of this.

6:50

unseen algorithm or the brandyels aren't coming

6:52

in because of some wider force. And

6:54

so the allure of creator careers is

6:57

the fact that you never know what

6:59

the next day is going to be

7:01

like, but that's also a form of

7:04

risk. And so if I don't think

7:06

I'll say about the class is as

7:08

much novelty as there is described to

7:10

this, I think it's really

7:12

important to draw continuities

7:15

between what Tic-tocters and

7:17

YouTubeers and Instagram influencers do

7:19

today, compared to the precursors.

7:22

And so thinking about working in

7:24

Hollywood or traditional advertising or a

7:26

film or as a novelist, there's

7:28

important continuities that I don't think

7:31

get enough attention when we are

7:33

considering the world of cultural work

7:35

today. And you know, in addition to

7:37

precarity, right, the risk, especially when it

7:40

comes to brandyas, right? One month you

7:42

can do fantastic, another month you can

7:44

go. you know, like zero, right? And that's why

7:46

also in other episodes we discussed about

7:49

different revenue streams maximizing your revenues and

7:51

the risk of putting all the eggs

7:53

in one basket, right? There is absolutely

7:55

some of that I think it becomes

7:57

more important instead of being all you

7:59

want. platform, trying to write, or owning

8:01

your audience. Another episode we talk about, you

8:03

know, newsletters, having an email address of the

8:06

people, so you can actually reach all of

8:08

them if needed, right, especially with algorithms changing

8:10

all the time. In addition to this, another

8:12

topic, I think it's quite interesting that you

8:15

also cover is this. thing call it the

8:17

visibility bind, right? So basically, is this concept,

8:19

right, that I would like to know, like,

8:21

with something that you come out also know

8:24

with a term that would be also interesting

8:26

to see. These things where we have this,

8:28

like, you know, double-edged sword of hacker visibility.

8:30

Someone that, you know, without, with just a

8:33

camera internet connection these days, we can get

8:35

in front of a million of people. And

8:37

we have pros and cons of that, right.

8:39

Have you mapped the top? pros and cons

8:42

of these, again, upper visibility that gives you,

8:44

I guess, you know, a lot of benefits,

8:46

pressing time, risk, problems, issues, burnout, and so

8:48

on. So I'm crucial here from you on

8:51

that. Yeah, thanks for that. I'm currently working

8:53

on a book on the topic that, going

8:55

back to your early point about the academic

8:57

lag, I'm trying to finish this project and

9:00

knowing that it'll be out a few years

9:02

down the road, but essentially the concept of

9:04

the visibility bine draws attention to some of

9:06

the precarity and risks that creators face, where

9:09

of course their careers are contingent on reputation

9:11

attention and these metrics of visibility, very indices

9:13

of visibility. So in thinking about what it

9:15

means to be visible today, to put yourself

9:18

out there today, I found that creators experience

9:20

these two quite contradictory experiences and anxieties. One

9:22

of course is the fear of being invisible.

9:24

So maybe the algorithm is going to throttle

9:27

your content today or you are going to

9:29

wake up and have a band or be

9:31

blocked out of your account or potentially the

9:33

shadow band and there's a lot of fuzziness

9:36

surrounding. that or you know invisibility also means

9:38

you're not getting compensated enough right your grants

9:40

are reaching out to you but they're paying

9:42

in this promise of exposure

9:45

rather than any sort

9:47

of compensation. And so

9:49

this to me felt

9:51

like the risks of

9:54

invisibility for creators, but

9:56

at the same time,

9:58

there's the fears of

10:00

being too visible. And

10:03

so you want to

10:05

get your content out

10:07

there, but what if

10:09

it could seem to

10:12

quote unquote, the wrong

10:14

audience? Or if you're

10:16

dealing with hate and harassment

10:18

or quite different kind

10:20

of fear of commercial

10:24

hypervisibility is appropriation. We're seeing

10:26

a lot of these risks

10:28

animated in by Gen AI

10:30

where how do you think

10:32

about ownership and permissions and

10:34

the fact that your content

10:36

may be taken exploited, utilized

10:38

by someone else without your

10:40

knowledge or consent. And so I

10:43

kind of started these projects separately. I

10:45

was studying influence or hate and

10:47

harassment at the same time that I

10:49

was doing this project on algorithms.

10:51

And I realized that this is all

10:53

about visibility and this visibility

10:55

trap that many creators

10:57

find themselves in. And so much of

10:59

the book talks about the trap, but

11:01

also importantly the ways that the creators

11:04

are contesting and resisting the visibility bind.

11:06

And I think that's a really important

11:08

part of it because creators know how

11:10

to work social media, their careers depend

11:12

upon it. And so I think it

11:14

is critical to consider the ways that

11:16

they are pushing back against surveillance and

11:18

platform powers and various inequities, but kind

11:20

of what ties this together is this

11:22

notion of the visibility bind. Is your

11:24

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12:00

or just searching the influencer marketing factory

12:02

on Google. And for reasons you

12:04

know I find all the time you

12:06

already kind of mentioned it about

12:08

getting in front of the wrong audience

12:11

sometimes they happen to be to

12:13

find the same video on TikTok and

12:15

then Instagram or also or YouTube shorts

12:17

and you will see I think it's very

12:19

interesting as a study when you

12:21

take the same video from the same

12:23

creator posted on free for different

12:25

different social media and then in

12:27

addition to that saying if that video

12:30

is seen by followers versus non -followers and

12:32

it's quite interesting to see the type of

12:34

comments like I noticed that sometimes making

12:36

an example maybe there is a creator that

12:38

is well known by their audience for

12:40

their acting like in a way of doing

12:42

things or you know a very niche

12:44

tone of voice or whatever right when he

12:47

gets in front of their followers these

12:49

people know right okay the is the style

12:51

of this person but then when he

12:53

gets like pushed on a social media

12:55

to non -followers then the type

12:57

of comments that they don't get

12:59

the reference right is totally different

13:01

so have you ever I'm curious have

13:03

you ever studied like or done

13:06

any any analytics for research on something

13:08

like that again same content from the

13:10

same creator to followers versus

13:12

non -followers and also like

13:14

how do how do they get like

13:16

on different social media I'm curious to

13:18

see if there is something that you ever

13:21

explored that would be a fantastic study

13:23

and I want to see it done

13:25

no I haven't but I've heard many

13:27

accounts from creators who talk exactly about

13:29

that where and you know the euphemism

13:31

of course is doing well and so

13:33

something they'll post on Instagram does you

13:35

know does well resonates well

13:38

with their audience gets a lot

13:40

of positive commentary and then TikTok

13:42

you know the algorithm the the

13:44

black boxed force lands in you

13:46

know discoverability ends up getting seen

13:48

by a different audience that has

13:50

very different views and so that's

13:53

where we get into discussions about

13:55

like rage baiting or engagement baiting

13:57

and so how do you create

13:59

content for your audience when there's the

14:01

reality that you don't necessarily know

14:04

where the content is going to

14:06

be seen. And so I've talked

14:09

to creators, especially from marginalized communities,

14:11

who are quite fearful about something

14:13

like, you know, tagging their video LGBTQ

14:15

or Black Lives Matter, whatever it may

14:18

be, because they want their content to

14:20

resonate with their audience and be seen

14:22

by the audience. but you don't know

14:24

where your content is going to end

14:26

up. And so that's where, you know,

14:28

even going back to my earlier example

14:30

of, to what extent can we map

14:33

social media creation onto earlier careers,

14:35

it doesn't quite work the same way,

14:37

right? Because if you're working in a

14:39

traditional TV or magazine environment, you

14:42

know, production distribution exhibition, we have

14:44

kind of a clear lineage where

14:46

now because of algorithms, because of

14:49

practices of sharing and even hate

14:51

sharing, because of the potential of...

14:54

audiences who can in a lot

14:56

of ways weaponize content. There are so

14:58

many ways where you can't really anticipate

15:00

where your content is going to be

15:03

seen and by whom. And when you

15:05

collect all this data, right, for instance,

15:07

for this new book that is coming,

15:09

is it a combination of one-on-one

15:12

conversation with creators? Is it like, you

15:14

know, with that... together with, let's say,

15:16

quantitative surveys. Tell me a bit more

15:18

about the methodology there to understand what

15:20

is your typical day slash week in

15:22

order to collect all these data and

15:25

then translate that into a book that can

15:27

be understandable, like, you know,

15:29

from also people are not necessarily in

15:31

the industry. Yeah, and your question about a

15:33

typical day or typical week, I feel

15:35

like that the response to that is

15:38

very much like a creator. Like everything

15:40

is different every day and the reality

15:42

is I'm spending like most of my

15:45

time managing email, but I tend to

15:47

rely upon qualitative interviews and so I've

15:49

done about a hundred interviews so far

15:52

mostly with creators, also with industry experts

15:54

and platform representatives. And you

15:56

know, I have hundreds and

15:58

hundreds of patients. of interview

16:00

transcripts that I go through,

16:02

I, you know, what researchers

16:04

call qualitatively code the data to

16:07

pull out themes and make connections.

16:09

You know, I consume the content

16:11

myself and think it's really important

16:14

when you're talking about creators to

16:16

draw attention to how much of

16:18

their lives and careers are reflected

16:21

through what they create. And I

16:23

also, like, I, as I keep

16:25

mentioning my interest in looking about

16:27

the precursors of this, like I

16:30

find myself going back to early

16:32

studies of the celebrity publicity machine

16:34

or studies of like TV audiences

16:37

to think about what's new here and

16:39

what's not necessarily new here and so

16:41

I was looking at this TV sociology

16:43

book from like the early 80s and

16:46

the author talks about how TV executives

16:48

were really centered on like predicting the

16:50

unpredictable and it's just like what we

16:52

were talking about right I mean that's

16:55

what creators do you're trying to manage

16:57

uncertainty and contain some of the

16:59

risk when you really can't because not

17:01

only is are we thinking about an

17:04

oversaturated attention economy and these unseen algorithms,

17:06

but you know, so much of this

17:08

content reflects what's going on in the

17:10

world around us and like those trends

17:13

can't be anticipated. And so yeah, it's

17:15

a lot of reading and trying to

17:17

make sense of the data and having,

17:19

having interview conversations and of course just

17:21

like sitting down and writing. So for

17:24

me, the best time to write is

17:26

first thing in the morning. I feel

17:28

like my brain starts to wane after like

17:30

9 a. So I get up very early

17:32

and get my writing done so I can

17:34

have a little. more space to continue to

17:36

have the conversation. And I'm pretty sure

17:38

that during this conversation, one of

17:41

the things that you also discuss

17:43

with influencers and conduct creators is

17:45

also all the monetary aspects of this,

17:47

right? If we take influencer McMe of

17:49

10 years ago, it was this hobby

17:51

thing where maybe I'm going to get a product

17:54

for free, I'm going to do 50 bucks, right?

17:56

And everyone was happy at the time. Because it

17:58

was so, it was too new. was regulated,

18:00

you know, it was the West. But

18:02

then in the years, right, we

18:04

start kind of have a sense

18:07

of how much to pay inferences

18:09

based on deliverables, relocation, industry, metrics,

18:11

right, and so on. If you're represented,

18:13

if you're like independent and so on,

18:15

so now we do have a better

18:18

sense. I still believe that we're kind of

18:20

far away from having red cards that

18:22

can work for everyone because it's so,

18:24

again, it's so unique, right, that the

18:26

infrastructure marketing world. So with that said

18:28

again, I'm pretty sure that you discuss

18:31

about that. And one of the things

18:33

that more and more is coming up

18:35

is about influencer NoPega, right? So first

18:37

of all, if it's something that you

18:39

discussed with creators, I would like to

18:41

see if this anything that they said

18:44

is a challenge, is a challenge, is

18:46

an issue. And if so, why? Like, you

18:48

know, trying to understand a bit, like, no,

18:50

the cause of that. And yeah, well, I

18:52

just understand me more. Again, it's such an

18:54

important topic. So I would like to see

18:56

you as a researcher, right? What did you

18:59

find out about that so far? Yes, and

19:01

so your point about how much

19:03

has changed over the past 10,

19:05

15 years. I mean, my last

19:07

major research project before this was

19:09

on the gendered inequity in the

19:11

emerging influencer space. And so I

19:13

found so many examples of influencers

19:16

expected to do what I call

19:18

aspirational labor where, you know, here,

19:20

do this work and we'll give

19:22

you free swag or we'll post

19:24

about you on our Instagram account,

19:26

but no material rewards. And so,

19:28

again, fast forward. a few years,

19:30

and in some ways, there's a

19:32

lot more money to go around,

19:34

but it's still incredibly lopsided. It

19:36

is a winter-take-all economy where, you

19:38

know, we hear the accounts of

19:40

the people making tens, hundreds

19:43

of thousands of dollars for a post,

19:45

and not about the so-called creator middle

19:47

class, where people are, you know, kind

19:49

of doing okay, or in some ways

19:52

scrambling a bit based on what's going

19:54

on in the larger economy. Survey data

19:56

suggests that, you know, and creators of

19:58

color of color are... facing.

20:01

structural inequities, where if you look

20:03

at the payment systems, there is

20:05

a staggering gap. And so I've

20:07

still even in this latest round

20:09

of interviews heard people that are

20:11

like, yeah, brands will reach out

20:13

to me. And when I when

20:16

I send them my rape card,

20:18

they're like, oh, we don't have

20:20

a budget for that. And so,

20:22

you know, there's a lot of

20:24

reasons we can think about larger

20:26

inequalities. We can think about the

20:28

devalued status of labor. and says,

20:30

oh, I want to be an influencer

20:33

and creator. And people are like, oh,

20:35

you just post all that. And it's

20:37

like, no, it is incredibly labor intensive.

20:39

And I mean, you know this very

20:41

well, how much time, energy, insight, and

20:43

money goes into this space. But I

20:45

think it's still not valued by brands

20:47

or. or a lot of platform companies

20:50

are courting high-profile creators, but not

20:52

necessarily the middle tier, despite how

20:54

much attention they bring to the

20:56

companies. And so, you know, that

20:58

goes back to this question of

21:00

like, why does this still persist?

21:02

Well, there's a lack of transparency.

21:05

It is a sprawling industry where,

21:07

you know, it's not like we

21:09

can trace the lineage into one

21:11

particular company. There are so many

21:13

players. It is so... complicated to

21:15

think about where power and accountability

21:17

lies. That said, I've been talking

21:20

to influencers and creators during these

21:22

interviews about what they're doing

21:24

within this space. And I think

21:27

the emergence of these. pay

21:29

transparency sites. I think you did

21:31

a show recently about, fuck you pay

21:33

me, the clarifer creators. I think

21:35

it's, you know, we're seeing these spaces

21:38

where creators are coming together and kind

21:40

of challenging this notion that it's incredibly

21:42

individualistic by saying, look, there are

21:44

forms of collective advocacy and support where

21:47

we are trying to push back against

21:49

the wider inequities. I've talked to a

21:51

lot of creators who say like, we

21:54

share just with those in our network

21:56

because otherwise you don't know. You

21:58

have no idea. how much the

22:00

person next you who on the surface has

22:02

the same number of followers and is doing

22:04

the same kind of work and creating the

22:07

same kind of content, but you know, it's

22:09

this race to the bottom in terms of

22:11

payment. So I think there's important spaces that

22:13

are emerging to kind of contest this, but

22:15

yeah, absolutely the inequities and the exploitation remain

22:17

rife. And again, I think also because

22:19

it's so 10 years ago was the

22:22

West and to me still it is

22:24

sometimes because I just feel there is

22:26

like a lot of confusion, there is

22:28

sometimes, you know, terminology is using, you

22:30

know, different ways, miscommunication, misunderstanding, so lost

22:32

in translation many times, right? So I

22:34

really do believe that we're going to

22:37

need absolutely a better structure and this,

22:39

and hopefully, right, this whole problem is going

22:41

to go away, or at least, you know,

22:43

try to decrease the most possible in the

22:45

next years. And just to, you know, also

22:47

know a bit more, because, you know, we

22:49

discussed about what was before, right, and about

22:51

the presence, but I'm pretty sure that when

22:53

you talk with all these influences and conduct

22:55

creators, you might also add a sort of

22:57

idea of what the future holes, maybe in

22:59

terms of what this is happening right now.

23:01

but you know creators would like to see

23:04

these together like you know maybe in

23:06

their relationship with their viewers right or

23:08

creators would like to see these happening.

23:10

So I'm curious if during your conversation

23:12

again in addition to what is happening

23:14

now everyone's like at a grasp of

23:17

okay creators viewers this is what

23:19

they expect to happen maybe I don't say

23:21

in the next five years because five years

23:23

in the great economy it's it's crazy just

23:25

like a bad but let's say in the next

23:28

12 months let's put it like that Okay,

23:30

so that's that's more manageable.

23:32

I have been struck by

23:34

the ways that creators are speaking out

23:36

against some of the less auspicious elements

23:39

of this career. And so I hope

23:41

we continue to see more of that

23:43

in terms of looking ahead. I do

23:45

think the relationships between creators and fans

23:48

is a really important space to pay

23:50

attention to and the emergence of fan

23:52

communities who are really ready to rally

23:54

on behalf of the creators and emulate

23:57

some of the practices we would think

23:59

of in. in the world of

24:01

traditional media, I think given the

24:03

precarity in the social media

24:05

environment, we're gonna continue to see

24:07

more diffusion in terms of

24:09

more merch, more platforms, more educational

24:11

offerings where creators push back

24:13

against that a legs in one

24:15

basket culture or embrace the

24:17

all legs in one basket culture.

24:20

And which of course makes

24:22

sense as a risk mitigation strategy

24:24

but that amounts to more

24:26

work at the same time. But

24:28

I think, you know, overall,

24:30

I having been studying this

24:32

for so long, I'm cautiously

24:34

more optimistic than I was

24:36

when I started this research

24:38

about, you know, the potential

24:40

for creators to rust back

24:42

some of the power and

24:44

economics within this space. Well,

24:47

that is good, right? Because usually the more data

24:49

that you have, many times like, oh, it's

24:51

gonna go, it's not looking well, right? Okay, guys.

24:54

But if you say like actually more optimistic,

24:56

that is great here on that. And is

24:58

there anything else that I didn't ask you

25:00

today that you would like to share with

25:02

us, either about something that you're studying

25:04

these days or anything else

25:06

that excites you in the

25:08

creative economy/influencers, /even celebrities or

25:10

like on more traditional media? The

25:13

only thing I'll say, and I am,

25:15

as anyone who's been working on

25:17

a project for a few years, you

25:20

can't wait to start the next

25:22

big thing. I'm like, I just

25:24

need to get this book out

25:26

and move on. And so I've

25:28

been thinking a lot about kind

25:30

of going back and thinking about

25:32

the role that celebrity paparazzi played

25:34

in perhaps being a precursor to

25:36

creators' representational practices. And

25:38

that's kind of as far as I've

25:40

thought about it, but there's a lot

25:42

of attention to what happens

25:45

when a career is usurped by

25:47

the newest thing. And we

25:49

think about journalism being killed and

25:51

magazines being killed, but thinking

25:53

about what happened to the celebrity

25:55

paparazzi industry and how that

25:57

might help us make sense of

25:59

social media. course, like anyone else, I'm

26:01

trying to make sense of how Gen

26:04

A.I. is reshaping this space, but also

26:06

if it is reshaping the space, because,

26:08

you know, there's a hype machine

26:10

there, and so how do we cut

26:12

through and think about both the promises,

26:15

but also the perils for

26:17

creators. Absolutely. And it's one of the

26:19

questions that we asked last year and we ask again

26:21

now for our new report about. Actually, the report is

26:23

a guide for creators that, you know, has a lot

26:26

of different sections inside. And, you know, it's curious to

26:28

see, but to be honest to see that is, as

26:30

of now, it's been a big helper more than, you

26:32

know, a substitution or a replacement. So, but I want

26:35

to see again, you know, in the next year, and

26:37

there are so many new AI tools every new AI

26:39

tools every single day. It's every single day. It's a

26:41

bit difficult to say. It's a bit difficult to say.

26:43

It's a bit difficult to say. In the loop of

26:46

days, there's trends every day, I open

26:48

the news, there is like a thousand

26:50

new things, and like, you know, sometimes

26:52

you are a bit hard to learn

26:54

new tricks all the time, right? So

26:56

yeah, I'm also very curious about the

26:58

future of that. But Brooke, thank you

27:00

so much for joining me today for

27:03

sharing all your knowledge, and yeah, I'm

27:05

very look forward to reading your book

27:07

as soon as it's life and out.

27:09

Thank you so much. It was great

27:11

to chat. Absolutely. Absolutely.

27:14

I'm