Content creators? Full time job?

You also have to take into account that, like any self-employed job, the money they make is their gross income, not the net, and they aren't getting any of the benefits that come from being an employee.

As in, it's easy to think "they're getting £3000 a month, that's more than my salary," but they (should!) be paying tax on their profit every year, and declaring all their "gifts" (again, who know whether they do), not to mention paying into a pension etc, which will have to be fully self-funded, without any contributions from an employer. They'll need good equipment - cameras, mics, a decent laptop and editing software.

They won't be getting paid if they're ill, or want to go on holiday. If they take two weeks off, that's not just 2 weeks they might not be earning much, but it could also have the knock on effect of causing a long-term drop off in viewers - there's a pressure to be constantly posting, every day. Yes you can line up things to automatically post, but if you think how long it takes to plan, film and edit one video, that's a huge amount of time spent in order to accrue enough content to take a fortnight completely off. Plus there's the expectation they'll be monitoring engagement, replying to commenters, checking that one of their videos hasn't been flagged/deleted for copyright infringement/ hugely offending someone and need to delete a vid (and post a cringey apology), cross referencing multiple different platforms, engaging with brands and other content creators to amplify their platform and get them to do the same back, etc. etc. Basically it would be really hard to take any more than a day or two off at a time.

All I can tell you is my experience. I'm on tiktok and have over 11k followers and am in the creator rewards program and honestly I got one month 20p thats right 20p for a post that got over 6k views. So these ones that are making enough to give up day to day employment and don't full time must be getting hundreds of millions of views, unfortunately I am nowhere near that but equally I don't do tiktok full time and its just a hobby for me.

I’m on the other side of this, I do this part time and earn a decent living out of it. I’d love to go full time one day. I don’t take the free stuff, because it isn’t free, it’s classed as income and therefore I have to pay tax on it - it’s not worth it! But someone in my category (100k plus followers) will easily earn £2k+ per reel

My friends daughter does it. She’s now producing content for high end fashion brands and makes a very good living from it. She’s very driven and set her sights high right from the start.
It’s basically just a form of marketing.

I don’t think it sounds easy at all.

Constant pressure to come up with new, different content.

Keeping yourself relevant when there are hundreds of other people out there doing the same.

Knowing you have a short shelf life. Example - I used to love watching content created by a young American guy who travelled around the UK visiting places to eat. It was genuinely interesting to hear his take on the UK. Now, six months later, I barely pay him any attention because the content has got a bit repetitive and other things have caught my attention.

It’s not a long term career and I suspect most people earn buttons compared to the hours it takes to create this stuff.

I am not a fan of the type of content creators mention in this thread. I don’t agree with using or including kids in create content and I really can’t stand the rage bait style posts. I fell into it by accident posting photos and videos of projects I was working on and now it has become a nice sideline. I definitely do not make a full time wage from it but it’s nice to have a little extra coming in. I have boundaries about the type of content I will create and I will only accept gifted products that I would happily spend my own money on. It can be lucrative for some but I guess a lot is down to what you are willing to do and I still like having privacy in my family life

No, I do know what you mean, but they are doing this because it's "relatable" content (and the taxpayer stuff/tags are rage bait to get their view count up). So it'll be clean with me as a messy single mum of 3 with ADHD for example. There's one called Amanduuh (I think) who used to do voiceovers answering the negative comments on her cleaning videos. It's like a new wave of people posting the antithesis of the perfect Instagram life.

@JustWonderingggg isn't it a sad reflection of the world we live in that these 'content creators' can attract hundreds of thousands of followers and income just by posting multiple times a day about trivia?
One I'm thinking of started off quite legitimately sharing her slimming journey and recipes. It went viral presumably because of so many people following the same slimming plan.
It then became a dozen or more posts a day about her frankly boring life and shopping obsession. She sees herself as a media star 🙄
I do wonder whether this trend impacts on young worklessness and the expectation of money for basically nothing.

I think a lot of ‘real’ jobs pay appallingly these days due to wage stagnation, particularly in the UK. There are also fewer real jobs around, and that’s before we see the true impact of AI.

My friend quit a successful career in Law to become an influencer and 7 years on she still has to supplement her income from content creation with a very part-time job in retail. However she’s MUCH happier.

I wish I had the balls to do something similar.

None of this is new. The first ones I recall getting brand deals were Elle and Blair Fowler back in about 2008 when they used to push certain makeup and fashion brands. Some of the ones who were teenagers doing makeup in their bedrooms are now mums of 1/2/3 kids.
Most of them have a management team. One of the easiest things to get into is cleaning videos because Flash/Method and the like will ask for say 10 cleaning influencers who are all signed with the same agency. This is why you see the same thing pushed multiple times (at one point everyone signed with Gleam Futures was pushing a Sky Glass telly or a Tony box). It's just an ad disguised as"regular old me and my life".

As for the rage bait - they get views. Sometimes companies just look at views and not the content.

Edit - here we go. This is one which has influencers listed on their roster alongside comedy acts/sportspeople and so on.

https://www.outreachtalentgroup.com/our-talent-uk/

My teen DS makes £1000 a month and barely does anything. I’m kinda jealous

It's cringe. And the amount of people using their children for "content" is shocking.. the amount of saves on the videos is worrying and they still continue.

Some of the people I follow are definitely making a lot and are pretty smart with brand deals etc. You can make a good living out of it if yours is something people like, and follow.

https://socialblade.com/

Is worth a play - check your favourite creators.

Quite possibly. There are entire industries built up around selling fake followers to content creators so they can boost their audience numbers. With the rise in AI this is only going to get cheaper, easier and worse.

So she posts crap online about her housing to drive engagement. Isn't the most obvious conclusion then that what she's claiming about those gifts is also crap that she's just posting to, well, drive engagement too?

Or to put it another way, why do you believe anything she says?

The dubai millionaires wife is hilarious but she makes more money and gets mor hits than anyone because 90% of her followers are there to tell the rest of the world on every post that shes a fraud.

The ones that order a takeaway and post themselves putting food onto a plate and then diving in for a taste are marvellous in the fact that why on earth does anyone watch them? I include myself in this. I can order a chinese myself anytime and plate it up but its the rigmarole involved that is entertainment for when you are in the loo or on hold to a company or something. Cant imagine most make too much money and their kids will hate them in the future but thats their issues I guess.

Well, they say they are being sent packages.

Same way MLMers say they only have X spaces left on their team.

Anyone can say anything. Just like you can send your own gift note.

If people think they are popular enough to be sent stuff then they are being influenced, even if it isn't an immediate behaviour change.