The myth of the "independent creator"

The 21st-century version of “rags to riches” goes like this: A random kid makes videos in his parents’ basement; goes viral after years of toil; amasses millions of followers on YouTube; and now controls an empire of content earning billions.

That’s basically the story of Mr. Beast, who started posting gaming videos at age 13 in 2012, back when YouTube was still nascent. In 2017, he went viral for “I Counted to 100,000!” and built a following with outlandish stunts (“Last to Leave Grocery Store Wins $250,000”). Today, his channel boasts nearly 500 million followers, and his annual earnings reportedly top $700 million.

Mr. Beast’s success has spurred countless aspirants to dream of online fame and fortune; an estimated 127 million people worldwide say they work as content creators. Yet the overwhelming majority don’t earn a living wage from their labor. A 2025 poll by the influencer marketing agency NeoReach found that about half of the creators it surveyed earned less than $15,000 a year, and only about 6 percent earned more than $200,000. Mr. Beast, in fact, is a unicorn.

As veteran podcaster Matt Robison points out in a preview version of this week’s Monthly podcast, which you can watch above, media has become a “superstar economy” where a small number of players dominate the market. Their incumbency is secured by the platforms, who have every incentive to promote their superstars as they compete against each other. In 2021, Substack caught flak for supporting favored writers with huge advances while the rest of us fought it out in the trenches. Meta is reportedly paying top TikTok and YouTube creators to post on Facebook and has guaranteed a boost “in perpetuity.” Algorithms that favor popularity make things worse for smaller creators trying to break in.

The result is that no one who isn’t already big can make it big because the big guys are insulated from competition. Nevertheless, as Matt and I discuss, platforms aren’t above selling dreams of stardom to the little guys. They’re not at all transparent about the real economics of creatordom, but happy to hype the big successes. They’re also delighted to sell you ads to market your content—despite the limited effectiveness of that strategy. The bottom line: Creators don’t win, but the platforms certainly do.

There are, of course, innumerable parallels in the modern economy. “Superstars” abound in every industry, whether it’s Delta and United in the airline industry, the New York Times in journalism, or McDonald’s in fast food burgers. And let’s not forget the superstar billionaires (and one trillionaire) helping to perpetuate this model and their status within it. Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has created superstars, but none as big as himself.

Independent creators (like the Monthly, for instance!) would argue there’s value in market diversity. Media has experienced an extreme period of consolidation where just six major companies control the vast majority of American media, according to a Roosevelt Institute report. These companies also tend to skew right-wing, or have shown themselves too willing to engage in self-censorship, as recent events at CBS News attest. Independent voices can provide a much-needed counterweight—but only if they survive.

Congrats to the Kukula Award Finalists!

Earlier this week, we were proud to announce the finalists for the Kukula Award, journalism’s only prize for non-fiction book reviews. Now in its seventh year, the award honors the memory of Kukula Kapoor Glastris, the magazine’s longtime and beloved books editor. See the list of finalists here, and watch for the announcement of our winners tomorrow.

Don’t miss from the Monthly….

Science censored. The Trump administration’s attacks on science are having a measurable—and damaging—impact on the research being published. Health policy journalist Merrill Goozner surveyed the articles catalogued on the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed website and here’s what he found: “Over the first five months of 2026, when compared to the similar period a year ago, there was a 24 percent drop in articles and research studies published about abortion and LBGTQ health; a 23 percent reduction in articles published in the medical literature that include the terms “race” or “racial” and “health disparities”; and a 15 percent decline in articles mentioning the “social determinants of health” and “health disparities.” Read here.

Supreme travesty. Fans of Heather Cox Richardson’s How the South Won the Civil War will especially appreciate Jack Rakove’s analysis of how the Supreme Court has gutted the Voting Rights Act. With its recent rulings in Louisiana v. Callais and Allen v. Milligan, allowing the elimination of majority-minority congressional districts, the Court has repudiated the founding principles of our republic, Rakove argues. “This is the brave new political world we welcome on the 250^th anniversary of American independence. It is a world that John C. Calhoun, the avowed defender of slavery ‘as a positive good’ and the leading theorist of nullification, would happily cherish.” Read here.

On being Jewish in America. Executive Editor-Digital Matt Cooper reviews contributing editor Nicholas Lemann’s new memoir, Returning, and finds it both revelatory and relevant, regardless of who you are. “Don’t think of this as a Jewish book, but as an American story with relevance beyond the 2 percent who call themselves Jewish,” Matt writes. “It is a case study in how, in a free country, Americans choose to wear their religious and ethnic identities, and how the majority culture also influences, even bludgeons, those decisions.” Read here. ICYMI related:

Plus…

• Spencer Pratt’s failed campaign for the mayoralty of Los Angeles shows that pumping out AI slop isn’t a winning strategy, writes Politics Editor Bill Scher. In another column, Bill remembers when we used to take the prospect of World War III seriously. But now, he writes, “the road to world war currently looks less like The Day After and more like a mashup of Groundhog Day and Idiocracy.”

• The Progressive Policy Institute’s Richard Kahlenberg remembers the celebrated child psychiatrist Robert Coles, whose groundbreaking work profoundly shaped modern understandings of child development.

• Noah Berlatsky critiques Samuel Moyn’s new book, Gerontocracy in America, and concludes “it will not age well.”

Coda (Editors’ picks edition)…

“The enrollment cliff is here. Which schools will survive it?,” New Yorker. “There will almost certainly be fewer small private colleges, and some number of public institutions will have merged. Student enrollment will drop across the board, and certain areas of the country such as New England—which is home to a whole host of small private colleges and will be suffering from some of the harshest demographic decline—may start to be dotted by campus ghost towns.” (h/t Editor Nate Weisberg)

“Vermont’s most bizarre real estate listing is a free college campus,” Wall Street Journal. Raj Bhakta, a former contestant on ‘The Apprentice,’ an unsuccessful congressional candidate and an embattled whiskey entrepreneur,” bought what used to be Green Mountain College in 2019. Having failed to refurbish the property as a college-cum-resort, he’s now giving away the campus for free. Applicants must, however, “‘an alignment with the vision of the revival of the United States, Western civilization and Christendom through faith-based education.’” (h/t Editor Kainoa Lowman).

“Why can’t Maine towns and cities hold on to their managers?,” Portland Press Herald. Vitriolic national politics has damaging local impacts too. Some counties in Maine have churned through as many as three managers in two years, with people quitting over frustrations with hostile social media and rampant misinformation. Bonus: It’s a story about Maine that’s not about Graham Platner! (h/t Politics Editor Bill Scher)

Thanks for reading! Don’t forget that the Monthly is an independent creator, and we depend on readers like you to support and share our work. And we are immensely grateful.

Have a great week!

Anne Kim, Senior Editor