Taylor Lorenz [00:00:00]:

Vine taught people to post video. I mean, it's the reason we have Instagram video. Instagram video launched that in response to Vine. Like, this whole, like, video Internet that we have was very much, like, kicked off by Vine.

Jay Clouse [00:00:24]:

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. I hope you're having a great start to your week, and I'm excited to share today's episode. Today, I'm speaking with Taylor Lorenz, a technology columnist for The Washington Post Business Section Covering online culture in the content creator industry. She's previously a technology reporter for The New York Times Business Section, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast.

Taylor Lorenz [00:00:47]:

I kind of always have felt much more like a Internet person than a journalist, but now I'm both. But I Don't identify very much with the people that sort of, like, always knew they wanted to journalism and went to journalism school and, You know, did all that stuff because that just wasn't my

Jay Clouse [00:01:05]:

path. Even though journalism hasn't always been Taylor's path, she's very quickly built quite a name for herself. Her writing has appeared in New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Outside Magazine, and more. She frequently appears on NBC, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and the BBC. Lots of acronyms. She even appears in documentaries on Netflix, Hulu, and HBO, Including Netflix's Eat the Rich, the GameStop saga, HBO's Fake Famous, and HBO's Glitch, the rise and fall of HQ trivia. In 2020, Taylor helped adapt a feature she wrote for The New York Times into the documentary, Who Gets to Be an Influencer, which ran on FX and Hulu. But Taylor's success has come at a price.

Jay Clouse [00:01:45]:

She's often attacked in the media. She was banned from Twitter at one point, and even her own peers have discounted her unique path to journalism.

Taylor Lorenz [00:01:53]:

I mean, my whole, like, 1st 5 years of my job were people shitting on me and saying, like, she's not a real journalist. She's a blogger. She just writes for the Internet. When I've got my 1st byline at the in The Atlantic, I shared it. And I was like, oh my god. I can't believe I got a feature in The Atlantic. Like, I was so proud. And This other big journalist, you know, quote tweeted and said, oh, it's the online version.

Taylor Lorenz [00:02:14]:

It's not the real Atlantic.

Jay Clouse [00:02:16]:

But that hasn't slowed Taylor down. And this week, her 1st book is available for purchase. It's called Extremely Online, The Untold Story of fame, influence, and power on the Internet.

Taylor Lorenz [00:02:27]:

I mean, I decided to write this book at this time, actually, even just right before the pandemic because it was, like, I felt like the end of this era, and I wanted to write about the 1st 20 years of the social web, basically. I was like, okay. I think the content creator industry is pretty much gone mainstream. That was before everyone even started talking about creator economy and all that stuff. So I think the timing worked out pretty well.

Jay Clouse [00:02:48]:

I was able to read an advanced copy of the book, and I actually couldn't put it down. We've lived through the evolution of the Internet, but even I was pretty unaware of some of the roots of influencer culture. This book is a fantastic history of how the creator economy as we know it today came to be, and a lot of the early influences may surprise you.

Taylor Lorenz [00:03:05]:

It's almost all women, which is also something that surprised me. I definitely did not set out to write, like, a women's history, but it's, like, shocking just how much of my book is women. I noticed time and time again that those were that that women were like these early adopter communities, especially young women. So I think a lot of them felt very angry that they've been left out of the narrative, because, again, like so many of the books that we have and the stories that we have about And the rise of social media are corporate narratives. So it's like the YouTube story, and there's a bunch of YouTube books or the social network and Telling the rise of these companies and the executives within them, but there's, like, this whole other side, which is the users and the content creators And, like, the MCNs and all these other businesses that emerged around social media that propped up social media and gave it its power that no one had talked to.

Jay Clouse [00:03:54]:

So in this episode, Taylor and I talk about where influencers came from, the rise and fall of platforms like Vine, The single most important decision YouTube made in their history and where things may be headed. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode as you listen. Find me on Twitter or Instagram at jklaus. Just tag me, say hello, and now let's talk with Taylor.

Taylor Lorenz [00:04:21]:

I I mean, now I work for The Washington Post at the time I was at The New York Times. So If you're a journalist at a mainstream publication, like, you got to a certain point and people just start to be, like, okay, where's the book? Where's the book? Are you gonna write a book? You know, publishers reach out to you about your stories a lot. I've had a lot of, publishers reach out about specific features that I wrote saying, like, Have you thought about turning this into a book, or do you have an idea that you can expand on? And I didn't really. I initially wanted to write a book about Vine, And then no one was really interested in that. So, which I think is a shame because Vine is so interesting. There's a lot of Vine in my book. But at this point, I just thought, okay. I wanna write a book about the rise of social media, but from the user side, which is how I cover tech, rather than, like, a story like the social network or something, right, which tells very much, like, the corporate side of things.

Taylor Lorenz [00:05:09]:

I wanted to tell the user side and talk about this Content creator industry that emerged and no one else had really written that book. So, got a book agent, and then they Sent it to a bunch of publishers, and then I ended up with Simon and Schuster.

Jay Clouse [00:05:22]:

Well, for what it's worth, the Vine parts of the book are some of my favorite parts. So I think you did a really good job on that on that benefit. When a lot of people say I wrote this on nights and weekends on top of my job, They're also not writing an insane amount for their job. Yeah. How much do you have to publish on a daily or weekly basis as you're writing this?

Taylor Lorenz [00:05:44]:

A lot, I would say. The thing is, like, most of my time is spent reporting. So writing is, like, the last five Percent of the job of reporting. So and I write features, so they take a long time. So it's a lot of, like, calls. And then, of course, you spend so much time on stories that sometimes don't even get published or they're waiting. I actually have, like, 4 stories right now with my editor that are not up yet that I've spent all summer on. So like, you know, it's just kind of it depends.

Taylor Lorenz [00:06:11]:

At the time, when I was at the New York Times, I used to do have to do a lot more breaking news. Right now I'm a columnist. So like, It's been a lot better. But, my old job, I would have to do a lot more, like, breaking news, and so it was really hard. But I at the I mean, at the times, I was writing almost every day. And now I write less frequently because my stories are longer and more in-depth. Yeah. I mean, writing is incredibly draining.

Taylor Lorenz [00:06:33]:

There's this meme that I wish I was trying to find the other day. It's this girl that has, like, An IV of blood, and the blood is coming out and going into her pen, and she's writing. And it it it felt like that because Like, I'm so fried. So writing on top of that was exhausting. Well, this

Jay Clouse [00:06:57]:

is a nice segue into something that I thought I wanted to ask you, which is How much do you personally identify with the term

Taylor Lorenz [00:07:04]:

creator? Well, I mean, I started as an Internet person, and I started as an independent blogger. So and I always have had my online audience. I mean, I was a Tumblr person, content creator, and I didn't work in the legacy media for for years. So I kind of always have felt much more like a Internet person than a journalist, but now I'm both. But I don't identify very much with the people that sort of, like, always knew they want to journalism and went to journalism school and, you know, did all that stuff because that just wasn't my path. So I feel more of kind of, like, a mix, I

Jay Clouse [00:07:40]:

guess. Yeah. Is it do you think that's common amongst your peers? I because I I would imagine, Yeah. Every journalist is still active on social media, you know, that the tools that creators use. So I was curious if if that felt like Common amongst your

Taylor Lorenz [00:07:54]:

peers? Yeah. Most of them are not active on anything except Twitter, unfortunately, which the media industry is so heavily relying on Twitter. And Such a bummer because I think if journalists use platforms like YouTube or TikTok and Instagram, not just to post, like, family photos, but actually use them, like, they would Recognize that these are there's so many stories that to go unreported. I was actually and and also just this where people look for news. But I was another journalist friend last night who's also she makes YouTube videos, and she was like, oh my god. I have these 2 crazy stories, and I know the stories. One of them Stories that she told me, I I know as well, and I also don't have time for it. And we're like, who can we give this to? Like, there's no other journalists that's that spend Time in these places almost.

Taylor Lorenz [00:08:35]:

And, anyway, we were like, we need to give this to some drama channel to investigate because, like, there's just not that many journalists sort of covering the space very much. But, yeah, journalists love Twitter. I do think that Twitter kind of under Musk is, like, pushed a lot of them elsewhere, which is a good thing. Yeah. It's a mix. I would say younger journalists, like, Gen z journalists, they don't have as much of a barrier. I was talking to this girl, Claire, at NPR this morning who vlogs her life on TikTok all the time and it's great. But, but people of my generation I mean, my whole, like, 1st 5 years of my job were people shitting on me and saying, like, She's not a real journalist.

Taylor Lorenz [00:09:10]:

She's a blogger. She just writes for the Internet. And that doesn't when I first got my 1st byline at the in The Atlantic, I shared it, and I was like, oh my god. I can't believe I got a feature in The Atlantic. Like, I was so proud. And this other big journalist, you know, Quote tweeted and said, oh, it's the it's the online version. It's not the real Atlantic. And I actually didn't even know at the I I didn't even know that The Atlantic had a print magazine at the time.

Taylor Lorenz [00:09:34]:

So it just shows, like, how these older people are very biased, I think, against the Internet, when the Internet is the most important

Jay Clouse [00:09:41]:

thing. I mean, journalism is an old school industry. I spent a couple years studying it in in school and I went to Ohio State. So I got to cover the Ohio State football team as, like, a freshman and sophomore in college. And I would look around the room at, like, media day and see, like, oh, I'm not gonna get back here for, like, 30 years. There's no path for me to get back into this room post college other than putting in my dues For forever. That's just, like, kind of how it is. I think a lot of people, like, put in their dues, and they see like, oh, this person got to where I am.

Taylor Lorenz [00:10:14]:

Yeah. That's how it used to be. And I think that's why they're so resentful towards younger journalists that don't buy into that system because it's a lie. That whole system's a lie. It's so biased. I don't wanna have to wait for 30 years. Like, first of all, I'm not even gonna work at the same place for 30 year. You know? Like, who knows What the world will be like.

Taylor Lorenz [00:10:31]:

And so I think now more and more people are just building their own platform, and and that's the better way to go, I think.

Jay Clouse [00:10:37]:

It's it's that way in all industries. That's what the accreter economy is. You know, we say, like, there was a way, there were gatekeepers, now there are new ways around the gatekeepers and sometimes collaboratively with them. But I'd love to I'd love to look back now. If you began writing this in 2020 and you've been researching it and writing it for 3 years, I think it'd be interesting to hear what still sticks in your mind as something that was surprising during the process of researching Something that you might not have known at the time, but in doing the research you uncovered that might have been like, oh, I didn't realize there was this instigating event Or this

Taylor Lorenz [00:11:11]:

precursor. Yeah. I mean, one thing I I have a whole chapter in my book on is is the rise of the mommy blogger. You know, in the early 2000, I think there was this crop of women that sort of were turning to the Internet for community and and built massive audiences through blogging really candidly about motherhood. Prior to writing the book, I think I sort of associated the early creator economy with YouTube. Or I thought, like, oh, maybe there was some MySpace stars, and I talk about that as well as well as early YouTube in my book. But I didn't really realize how Pioneering the mommy bloggers were, and they really were the original content creators. Like, they the revenue streams and the way they went about monetization in the face of So much hate as well.

Taylor Lorenz [00:11:56]:

Like, that was another thing that surprised me was just, like, how hateful people were towards these women that were, like, you know, Breaking barriers and building their own sort of media businesses. Yeah. It was just really interesting because they they built this whole, like, ecosystem, and some of them ended up being actually huge Cross platform content creators are doing big deals. They're still brands today, and they have their own cookware and home lines and stuff. But they started just, Yeah. Blogging. It wasn't just the YouTubers that started

Jay Clouse [00:12:22]:

things. After a quick break, Taylor and I talk about some of the most important decisions YouTube made. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back to my conversation with Taylor Lorenz. Research is a skill that I think all creators can benefit from, and it's clear from this book that Taylor is great at doing research. So I asked her how she went about identifying some of the most important first movers in the space.

Taylor Lorenz [00:12:45]:

I just wanted to talk to people from that era. I talked to the guy who founded UTA's 1st digital. Like, they were the 1st agency to start a digital department in the early 2000. So I interviewed Brent Weinstein who founded that. I interviewed tons of people just, like, sort of early Internet people. I mean, Jonah Perretti, the founder of BuzzFeed, he actually invented the reblog feature. Ran that, like, totally wave years before BuzzFeed, which was this early social functionality on channelity on blogs. So, there was just, like, all these kind of entrepreneurs and kind of personalities and people Early at different companies as well that were really open about stuff.

Taylor Lorenz [00:13:21]:

I mean, the mommy bloggers stuff actually came from someone at YouTube because I was interviewing them about the early partner program. And they were like, yeah. Well, one thing that we really noticed online too is these, like, moms and sort of started to think about revenue on the Internet. And so he mentioned it to me, and then I It was like, oh, yeah. You're right. There were those. And so anyway so, it just was the process of reporting, which is always just Very tedious. It's like talking to 1 person that tells you something that tells you to talk to another person, and then you go back on the Internet archive and you dig things up.

Taylor Lorenz [00:13:51]:

And and And then I was able to speak to a lot of those women from that era themselves that told me and and they put me in touch with, like, people that they did brand deals with. So I talked to marketers and, like, you know, that we're doing Early sponsored content deals with bloggers in 2004, 2005, and stuff like that.

Jay Clouse [00:14:07]:

When you spoke to some of these people who played Very early seminal roles, but aren't always credited or you know, they're not always part of the narrative Of how we got to where we are today. How do they feel about that? Are they okay with that? Did they did they feel slighted by that?

Taylor Lorenz [00:14:26]:

They're very angry and slighted and frustrated, and they feel I I totally understand how they feel. It's it's almost all women, which is also something that surprised me. I definitely did not set out to write, like, a women's history, but it's, like, shocking just how much of my book is women. And actually in talking to Silicon Valley people, I was talking to a really big VC about this and he was like, well, actually with social technology, like, If you have young women, like teen girls or young moms using your product, like, you're guaranteed a hit. Like, that is gonna be a hit social product. So I I thought that was really interesting because I noticed time and time again that those were that that women were, like, these early adopter communities, especially young women. So I think a lot of them felt very angry that they've been left out of the narrative, because, again, like, so many of the books That we have and the stories that we have about technology and the rise of social media are corporate narratives. So it's like the YouTube story, and there's a bunch of YouTube books or The social network and, you know, the history we have so many books about the rise of Facebook or the you know, and it's just telling the rise of these companies and the executives within them.

Taylor Lorenz [00:15:30]:

But there's, like, this whole other side, which is the users and the content creators and, like, the MCNs and all these other businesses that emerged around Social media that propped up social media and gave it its power that no one had talked to. So they were all very excited to talk. I I had didn't have a hard time finding People that were willing to talk. They were, like, let me tell you what I did back in 2009 and what it was like, and it was really cool to hear those stories.

Jay Clouse [00:15:54]:

One of the takeaways I had as I was reading the book was it felt like, 1, I really like that it was chronological, which makes sense because you're kinda telling a history. As I'm reading this chronological retelling and a lot of stuff that I didn't know or wasn't really aware enough to experience firsthand. It was like YouTube just kept chugging along. You know, once it ended the scene, it just kind of kept chugging along and making Good moves. Like, really, it seemed like they made one really good move, which was the partner program and leaning into supporting their creators. And then all along the way, all these other things kept popping up. And, you know, I'm imagining one of those videos you see on social media sometimes where it shows, like, a history and all of a sudden, like, Something pops out of nowhere. It was like that, but everything just kept dying in my mind.

Jay Clouse [00:16:41]:

Yeah. Other than YouTube for the most part in Instagram and By proxy Facebook, I suppose. Am I reading your experience as well? Like, is is YouTube a through line in And your experience of writing and researching the book?

Taylor Lorenz [00:16:55]:

A 100%. It's kind of crazy, but YouTube has always persevered. I think Because they allowed content creators like, the lesson for tech companies in my mind is that, like, if you can facilitate the content creator ecosystem I mean, you can let people make money on your platform in a sustainable way. You people are gonna use that platform, you know, like, that's just the truth of it. And I think YouTube is still the gold standard for monetizing. That's why you see people sort of use TikTok for audience growth, but then they try to Convert you to YouTube because it's still that, like, stable player. You know, it's not going anywhere. It's very saturated, but, you know, it's it's there and they have an infrastructure.

Taylor Lorenz [00:17:32]:

And they built that infrastructure years before anybody else. So I think while these other platforms are struggling, like Facebook fumbling the bag, like, multiple times and Struggling, like, how do we deal with these people? And do we want them, you know, Twitter and Vine? Like, should we pay them? Should we not pay them? YouTube's like, we have our program. It's gone in different directions and different you know, it's like sort of scaled and grown. But, yeah, they really are the gold standard and I think pioneered so much.

Jay Clouse [00:17:59]:

I didn't remember. I had heard this before, but I didn't remember it, that YouTube literally started as a dating website. Yeah. That's bonkers to me.

Taylor Lorenz [00:18:07]:

Yeah. They wanted people to upload, like, videos of themselves, which is so funny. And, actually, I do have to recommend 1 book about YouTube, which is Mark Bergen's like, comment, and subscribe. It's it's a corporate history of YouTube, but it, he has a lot more details about sort of, like, the origins. And I think yeah. But, of course, as with all technology, people end up using it how they want. And certainly in 2005, people didn't wanna upload Video, you know, it wasn't dating, video dating. Like, nobody wanted to do that.

Taylor Lorenz [00:18:35]:

So they started to upload home videos and A lot of recorded clips of late night shows and stuff like that. And that's yeah. Then it ended up taking off in a different

Jay Clouse [00:18:43]:

way. In your mind, what are some of the big Moments in the YouTube story that stand out to you as these were seminal important moments or changes For folks who may not know, how we got here?

Taylor Lorenz [00:18:58]:

Well, I mean, partner program launching in 2007, huge moment. I think YouTube acquiring next new networks, which was their original MCN, a sort of multichannel network, which was sort of sign a bunch of talent. YouTube acquired them, and, actually, the word creator was in its modern usage pioneered by next new networks. It was Tim Hsieh's team that was in charge of sort of creator partnerships and everything that ended up being the YouTube NextLab, which ended up being the YouTube creators program. And that's that whole creators team was born out of Next New Networks. And we wouldn't have be using the word creator today if Next New you know, if YouTube didn't acquire them, I don't know what language we'd be using, but it came from them. And you know who else was on that team was Vanessa Pappas or who goes by v Pappas now, actually, who was COO of TikTok and was running TikTok, until recently. So it's just very interesting, like, how these characters kind of End up, like, you know, where they end up going.

Taylor Lorenz [00:19:51]:

But, yeah. And then I would say another big moment with YouTube is the Adpocalypse. For people who aren't familiar, the Adpocalypse was around I think it was 2017, kinda early 2018. And that's when a bunch of big advertisers pulled their money out of YouTube and Sort of decimated a bunch of smaller channels. Like, it kind of the bottom fell out of a lot of the advertising industry, and that's that's also when you start to see a lot of critical coverage of YouTube in the press for first time, and tech generally. That was around Cambridge Analytica. It was, like, suddenly, like, the first half of the twenty tens, it was, like, yeah. YouTube's a site for cat videos.

Taylor Lorenz [00:20:23]:

It's So fun. We love YouTube. Like, it's great. And then 2017 happened, and they were, like, wait. What did Logan Paul do? Like, what did PewDiePie do? Also, like, Alex Jones is on there. Like, what's what's going on? And so, you know, it's hard to get a lot of negative press. And I think, actually, the company has handled But pretty well, I to give YouTube some credit, they they put out a a a or independent sort of research body put out a report recently showing that they had basically sort of Fixed a lot of the problems with their algorithm. Their algorithm used to sort of lead you down this path hole sort of increasingly extreme content, and they've been able to Fix a lot of those algorithmic problems that I think got them into that bad

Jay Clouse [00:21:02]:

place. I hear you say the year 2018. I'm like, man, that was just like a couple years ago. And I realize Almost 6 years ago at this point. Time is a difficult thing post COVID. Yeah. I wanna I wanna talk a little bit about MCNs. Because that's something that I hear come up from, like, elder creators that kinda just gets mentioned offhand and then swept away.

Jay Clouse [00:21:21]:

By the time, it was a big deal. And you just mentioned that One of the major MCNs was acquired by YouTube themselves. So can you explain the MCN thing?

Taylor Lorenz [00:21:31]:

Yes. So MCN stands for multichannel network. And the idea behind them is very good. It was just sort of the execution that fell apart. So the notion is basically like, hey. All of these individual creators, it's hard for them to sort of individually negotiate brand deals, You know, get the right equipment, collab. Like, it's hard to be on your own as a creator. So let's have this umbrella company.

Taylor Lorenz [00:21:56]:

We'll sign, you know, Twenty creators, and then we will sort of collectively negotiate brand deals and opportunities, and we'll sort of help boost their channel, and we'll give them, like, a dashboard so that sort of lets them you know, we'll give them some tech tools maybe to help with their channel. So it sounds great in theory. And then, of course, the MCN would take a cut of all the revenue that they generate for those channel that the channels generate. The way it ended up working out is that these MCNs just Really, because they got a lot of venture capital money, were pressured to scale faster than they really could. So they started signing hundreds of channels And just basically not really doing anything for these channels and then taking up, you know, 30% of their ad revenue, which is a really bad deal for creators because it's Like, hey, I thought you were gonna help me out. Suddenly, I just basically, you're just this, like, middle band that's now taking a huge cut of my ad revenue. What the hell? So, you know, that kind of that that initial excitement, I think, went bust. I think early MCNs, like next networks, they were actually doing a lot.

Taylor Lorenz [00:22:56]:

They were basically doing the job of a manager. I think nowadays, YouTubers just generally have, like, a manager or, like, a brand manager that that does that stuff kind of directly. They don't have to go through MCN. But, yeah, the early MCNs provided a lot of services. But by, like, 2013, 2014, they were just all about scale.

Jay Clouse [00:23:11]:

This is another character that came up that I That I read and thought, oh, I know that guy. Ezra Cooperstein Yes. Who's involved in the history of MCNs and is now, you know, the president of Knight, which is a management company that represents some of the biggest creators on the platforms today. Mr. Beast, Ryan Trahan. So, yeah, it was interesting to see some of these recurring names that That I know today. And, of course, it makes a ton of sense. The people who have been there seeing the stuff, working on it for the longest, have the best Insight and foresight to do important things today.

Taylor Lorenz [00:23:43]:

But it's so funny because, you know, when all the VCs started pouring money into the creator economy in 2021, and Silicon Valley sort of notoriously shunned the creator economy largely until 2021. They didn't realize there's already people like Ezra that are really smart business people, like, operating in this space. And I think a lot of them thought, oh, well, he just did this overnight or whatever. And it's like, no. No. No. No. No.

Taylor Lorenz [00:24:05]:

This This guy has been in the game for 15 years. He did, like, the original Carl's junior, like, you know, ad deal on YouTube. Like and so there's just a lot of I think, like, a lot of Silicon Valley VC is, like, Underestimated a lot of these entrepreneurs actually in the space that have done a lot.

Jay Clouse [00:24:20]:

And they underestimated the creators too, if I if I may step in and say this, which is, You know, I also have a little bit of a background in startups and investing. I looked at the money coming in, and I was just thinking you guys are funding platforms that are looking for problems. Like, a lot of these platforms that are getting money don't aren't solving real problems that the creators have. If you're imagining these problems exist because you don't know the creators, you don't know how Resourceful and creative. These people are solving their own problems. So I'll end that rant there. But Yeah. Even now we're seeing the blowback of that poor investing into the space and, like, our creator economy, that was nothing.

Jay Clouse [00:24:58]:

Creators themselves are doing better than ever. It's it's a mismanagement and misdirection of funding and attention, I think.

Taylor Lorenz [00:25:06]:

I thought, there's a girl, Kaya Ureth, who writes a newsletter for the information. She wrote a great piece actually sort of outlining that, and she crunched some numbers and was like, okay. Yes. These investments were very bad and stupid, but the content creators themselves are like, mister Beast is only growing. You know, like, these other people are only growing. So,

Jay Clouse [00:25:24]:

Yeah. I think we'll see some interesting new financial vehicles for creators like revenue based financing. I think there's more interesting ways venture capital as a whole is a dated financial instrument, and I think it's even More dated feeling in this in this space. After 1 more break, Taylor and I talk about Vine and the key reason why it imploded. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Hey. Welcome back.

Jay Clouse [00:25:54]:

One of my favorite parts of Taylor's book was the look at Vine and why they imploded Despite incredible creators on the platform and users who absolutely loved it. So I asked Taylor to explain what happened.

Taylor Lorenz [00:26:06]:

Yeah. It's so funny to look back at Vine because it was such an example of what can go wrong and why plat what happens when platforms Sort of alienate all their biggest creators. Vine was founded by, you know, this group of entrepreneurs. It was bought actually prelaunch by Twitter. It took off among this sort of group of young content creators, and those content creators were not people that the founders of Vine liked. The founders of Vine Had these big sort of intentions to make the app this, like, home for sort of, like, stop motion animation and, like, creativity and just kinda, like, Not how people ended up using it, which is this, like, really weird, like, Internet way for sort of, like, funny videos and pranks and stuff. And so They sort of had this really hostile relationship to their own talent. It was also hard because they were owned by Twitter, and Twitter has also always struggled with how to handle content creators.

Taylor Lorenz [00:26:54]:

Early on in Twitter, a big concern like, celebrities all wanted to be paid to set up their Twitter accounts and tweet. And Twitter was like, no. We will never pay celebrities. We don't wanna start paying users ever. So when these Vine stars started to generate content and views and stuff and then they wanted money, the company's stance was like, One, we don't have that much money. We're barely profitable. I don't even think they were profitable at the time. And 2, if we start paying you, Viners, celebrities are gonna wanna get paid to tweet, and we can't afford that.

Taylor Lorenz [00:27:24]:

So, like, we're not gonna do it. And, of course, this was handled in Sort of a really messy way. And it ended up basically, all the Viners were like, okay. Well, then why are we even on here? Because we could just go to YouTube and make a ton more money. Actually, they went to Facebook first and then YouTube. And so they all left the platform. And now some of them are the biggest YouTubers

Jay Clouse [00:27:40]:

today. I wanna fill in a couple of details there that stuck out to me. Yeah. But this this issue of Viner's wanting money, that was close to a decade into them being on the platform. Like, it felt like the real issue was Vine ignored them for so long that they felt so unseen, so unappreciated. They had literally formed A physical community to basically monopolize how the platform fed attention to different accounts. And in a at a point of, like, final frustration many years down the line, they basically Yeah. Tried to exploit Vine.

Jay Clouse [00:28:18]:

Yeah. And and Vine said we can't do that. So, like, it felt like if they would have taken the YouTube approach of let's Bring our creators in as partners early. It probably never would have gotten

Taylor Lorenz [00:28:28]:

there. Totally. And, also, so much of it wasn't even about money. It was about The fact that, like, the founders of Vine were just openly hostile to these creators. I mean, I use this example of Nash Grier. Like, You know, when Vine rolled out vanity URLs, like, you know, at signs, basically, like, you know, vine.co/taylor lorenz or whatever, They didn't give it to the creators. And so people snatched up the creator. So none of the biggest creators, including Nash Grier, had their names as their handles, which caused all this confusion and Just like silly things like that.

Taylor Lorenz [00:28:59]:

It's like, yeah, give the creators early access to features. Like, that's so basic now, but it's like they didn't want them on the platform. And so and they would kick them off the popular page for no reason. And, form. And so and they would kick them off the popular page for no reason, and they were just very hostile to them. And it just backfired spectacularly, unfortunately.

Jay Clouse [00:29:16]:

I didn't realize until reading the book that Vine was acquired pre acquisition. Like, I knew it was acquired by Twitter. I didn't realize it was literally before they even made the The app public. I didn't realize the Vine that we knew and loved and used was always owned by

Taylor Lorenz [00:29:32]:

Twitter. Yes. Which is part of the dysfunction, I think, too. Because Twitter I think, like, it I think Twitter I think it was, like, the Vine founders had a hostile relationship to talent, But then Twitter at that time also was getting very nervous because Twitter had this weird relationship with celebrities, like, actual Hollywood celebrities. And so I think that that tainted a lot of the, like, energy towards creators because they didn't there was I think the Vine itself, like, had it not almost been Twitter, maybe it would have been a little bit more responsive. But because it was part of this sort of mismanaged bigger company that remains mismanaged to this day, although it has a new owner, it's like Twitter's never really broken through. It's always been sort of, like, number 3 or 4, you know.

Jay Clouse [00:30:12]:

It's kind of insane just how ahead of the curve Vine was because So much of it felt then like TikTok kind of feels now, you know? Yeah. And, like, we're still using it, like, more than ever. So it's it's really interesting how early it was. And it really kicked off a lot of the people that we still know and Watch and see doing big things

Taylor Lorenz [00:30:38]:

today. A 100%. I think we we wouldn't have TikTok today if it wasn't for Vine. And also, you know, Vine's death led to the birth of Muscial. Ly, which is obviously what became TikTok. And part of the reason, like, part of what fed Muscial. Ly was this desire for mobile video editing. A lot of Viners that left Vine went to Muscial.

Taylor Lorenz [00:30:57]:

Ly, actually. And so, Yeah. It Vine taught people to post video. I mean, it's the reason we have Instagram video. Instagram video launched that in response to Vine. Like, this whole, like, video Internet that we have was very much, like, kicked Off like, mobile Internet kicked off by

Jay Clouse [00:31:11]:

Vine. It's also interesting to look and see just how much Instagram strategy has always been I kinda wait and see what's working and then just do that feature, arguably do it better, but with a larger user base and It's it's wild. It's, it's impressive to see. I don't know how I feel about it, like, ethically, morally, Creatively, but it's undeniable, like, how good they've been at just seeing, like, okay, stories are a thing on Snapchat. Let's do that. Video is a thing on Vine. Let's do that. Really really smart, and they do it very quickly, and they do it at a high level.

Jay Clouse [00:31:47]:

And Honestly, I think that's for the creators, the most part, they're probably happy about it because they weren't getting appreciated on Vine. They weren't getting appreciated On Snapchat. You talk about Snapchat in the book as well, which I think is definitely an untold story in the space. It feels it feels so young still to me that it recently

Taylor Lorenz [00:32:09]:

with Discover, I will say, has been making creators a lot of money because they've Chat recently with Discover, I will say has been making creators a lot of money because they've pivoted into sort of, like, doing deals. You know? David Dobrik, I don't know. He posts a 100 times a day now and makes Interstitial ad revenue. But Snapchat had a whole generation of content creators in the mid 20 tens that they could have fostered and nurtured, and they They also were really hostile to these people. They wanted it to be this place that was only friends. And and then they did a bunch of deals with media companies, But they didn't, yeah, they didn't want the creators on until, again, the pandemic, creator economy starts to become a thing, and then they're like, oh, hey. Wait a minute, guys. We've got Spotlight now.

Taylor Lorenz [00:32:45]:

Like, We we we actually want creators on here. We'll pay you. So they're playing catch up again when they shouldn't have had to because had they just Embrace creators from the beginning, they would be actually quite ahead. They'd be really able to compete with TikTok and stuff.

Jay Clouse [00:33:00]:

So, you know, there's that old saying that history repeats Or you may say, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. What do you what do you look forward to that you see As definitely happening or you think is going to happen or you will even just wanna warn people about who are creators today. What what should we Be watching

Taylor Lorenz [00:33:20]:

for. I think it's so competitive for creators today. And so I think it's like the Internet is just, like, reach this level of scale on virality that it's so difficult to compete. I don't know how anybody's able to, like, sustain it. Burnout is still a huge issue. But I would say we're also moving away from these, like, big broadcast based social platforms where a lot more people are spending time in private spaces, kind of more Group chats, Discord, things like that, and that can make it harder for creators. Initially, you think, uh-oh, are people gonna be turning away from Instagram or YouTube or whatever? I think it actually gives creators a chance to build their own communities and kind of, like, foster community. And I wrote a piece about a year ago just about how, like, Like, views culture versus, like, community culture and how, like, I think the 20 tens were defined by this, like, views culture and just getting views and scale and then monetizing those views.

Taylor Lorenz [00:34:07]:

And I do think that, like, Now we're in this era of more of, like, a community and just, like, having your people. You know? Even if it's not millions, it's like a Solid base. You know, you can kinda go buy your merch. They'll see your shows,

Jay Clouse [00:34:20]:

whatever. What platforms feel Safe to be building on right now in your mind? And what platforms feel a little bit risky?

Taylor Lorenz [00:34:28]:

Well, YouTube's always a safe bet, you know, but it's also the hardest. I've you know, I have so much empathy for the people that can grow on there because it takes a long time. So I think TikTok is still also pretty reliable for growth. I don't think it's getting banned, you know, anytime soon. And I think it's still even though everyone else says, oh, it's so saturated, like, you can still pop on there. It's a good engine for discovery. Instagram is a little bit harder because you never know what they're gonna do. I think Instagram, it's like, if they're being friendly to you and you can leverage reels in a good way, go for it, but certainly don't build your creator ecosystem on the back of Instagram.

Taylor Lorenz [00:35:04]:

And then I'm really excited by things like Patreon, you know, rolling out, like, the ability to post sort of, like, Free. Just post for free, and you can follow people on Patreon now without having to pay to subscribe. And these platforms that are, like, substat kind of too is, like, It's building this more direct relationship with your follower base. That's always a safe bet because you've got those people's emails now. That's just really you want that direct relationship

Jay Clouse [00:35:26]:

ideally. Something that wasn't spoken about much in the book, and I also don't think that much about, Is Twitch and streaming platforms? Where do you think that lives as we move forward?

Taylor Lorenz [00:35:38]:

Yeah. I had a lot more about Twitch in the original, and then it kind of was, like, getting too confusing, with some of the other stuff. It is. I mean, I talk about live streaming, especially the live streaming boom of the mid 20 fifteens when you had, like, Periscope and Meer Kat and You now and all that stuff. And I do think that that, like, ushered in like, Twitch was the winner of that, like, crop of companies. Although it had was founded before them, like, it kind of emerged as the big one. And I think it's, like, so intertwined with gaming. It's interesting, but They've kind of been giving their creators a bad deal lately.

Jay Clouse [00:36:12]:

Yeah. That's that's why it was interesting to me because that was a recent topic of conversation. Like, it seemed like they Had had this facade of this is a good deal. And then people were like, just kidding. It's it's actually not that great for most of

Taylor Lorenz [00:36:24]:

us. Yeah. It's really hard. And, You know, Twitch creators, that's always I always said said, like, it's like just the 1 creator I could never you have to sit for so long. You have to really It's crazy. It takes a you just gotta grind on Twitch, and it's hard and it requires hours. And so I think it's I can understand people wanting to flee to other platforms like Kik or whatever that are offering them better rewards. I don't think live streaming is going away at all, but I do think people are more sit in sort of interactive live streaming, mobile live streaming.

Taylor Lorenz [00:36:52]:

So, like, TikTok live and things like that seem to be growing. I don't know that the, like, desktop live streaming of Twitch will be around forever, but it's not like it's not gonna go out of business anytime soon. It's just like, I was choosing what to be in 2023. I don't know that I would try to get into Twitch just knowing the company and how hard it is.

Jay Clouse [00:37:12]:

What do you think about what it means to be a celebrity in the Internet age, especially as things get more and more fragmented? You know, you say we're moving to this world of More of a community than views. And so what does it mean to be a celebrity today? And how is that going to change in the world of the Internet?

Taylor Lorenz [00:37:32]:

Yeah. It's so interesting. I mean, I think so much of my book and so much about the rise of this ecosystem is also about the changing nature of fame and kind of what fame means and and who is a celebrity. I don't think I think it's almost impossible to get famous today without the Internet. Even if you yourself aren't like a Lil Nas X or Olivia Rodrigo or, like, you know, Sydney Sweeney or some, like, person Selena Gomez. Like, you know, that's like there's these celebrities that are very good at using the Internet for their own gain. But even if you're not that person, you need the Internet to make you a star. Like, I mean, the Barbie movie is a good example.

Taylor Lorenz [00:38:05]:

That's like a traditional movie. They did so much with the marketing, But the Internet is what gave that movie the box office success, and you see that over and over again now in Hollywood. It's like you still rely on virality, whether it's traditional Not Hollywood or you're a YouTuber, you're relying on viral viral attention. So I think it's changed the nature of celebrity a lot, and I think now there's just not that Stinction between who's famous and not famous. It's like we're all famous to, like, niche groups of people. Like, you might be really famous in, like, The bike YouTube community, you know, and maybe a celebrity in that area. But it doesn't there's not that, like, celebrity, celebrity and then everyone else.

Jay Clouse [00:38:44]:

Another point that stuck out in the book was all of these small groups of creators who sprung up usually around specific platforms. Right? Like, hey, we're all Viners or we're all On Snap or on on Instagram. And it seems like there's a lot of power in creators with a following getting together, Really promoting each other, self promoting each other, or cross promoting each other almost seems like that's more of a needle mover than the platform itself. You know, do you see that continuing?

Taylor Lorenz [00:39:13]:

Yes. I think human beings are social creatures, and it's every creative like, to Seed creatively, you need collaboration. It's really hard to do on your own, and that's true in in every industry. I wrote a couple pieces about content houses, back in 2020 when there was, like, The Hype House and the Sway House, whatever. And I talk about content houses in the book. I mean, even the station was in 2009, the 1st YouTuber content house, which was, you know, hard to believe that was almost 15 years ago. Like, people want to help each other and, like, play off each other and also grow together. It's much easier to grow when you can kind of swap promotion on each other's channels and stuff.

Taylor Lorenz [00:39:51]:

So I I still think it's a really good strategy. And if you get it in in the right group, sort of, like, collaborative group or even if it's loose or not, like, it's just an instant boost for everyone because you Assuming it's like a positive collaborative relationship, you can share knowledge, you can share expertise, you can trade brand deals, like, it's helpful. I think what's a little bit harder, what people learned in 2020, especially these Gen z's that tried to make the, like, TikToker houses is like That doesn't mean you need to, like, formalize it or, like, all live together. You know? That can sometimes be a recipe for disaster, especially if it's a bunch of, like, teenagers. But, Yeah. I mean, I I'm in group chats with other writers, and I couldn't do my job without sort of, like, brainstorming with them sometimes or being like, hey, guys. Like, what do you think of this headline? Like, this is what I'm thinking. What do you think? You know? Like, how does it sound? And I think YouTubers do that too.

Jay Clouse [00:40:47]:

There is so much more to this book than we could possibly cover in this Interview. So I hope you consider picking up your own copy. Just go to extremely online book.com or visit the link in the show notes. Thank you to Taylor for being on the show. Thank you to Nathan Townhuter for mixing this episode. Thank you to Emily Klouse for making our artwork, and thank you to you for giving this If you enjoyed this episode, please tweet at me at jklaus and let me know. And if you really wanna say thank you, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're getting close to 400.

Jay Clouse [00:41:16]:

It would be a big milestone. It would mean a lot. So if you haven't already, leave a review. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.