The “Creator” Economy Sure Is Creating Snake Oil Salesmen

Here’s a question: what has a better rate of return? Investing in cryptocurrency or writing about it? From the proliferation of crypto articles over the past several years, I’d say the latter. Mathematically speaking, assuming you don’t lay out any money to promote your article, the returns are infinite when compared to your cost of $0.

Elsewhere we have influencers, advert-icles, SEO-laden content dripping with keywords but barely readable, and the self-help gurus that dot the land of all social media platforms. People pop up on my feed every day to tell me about their hot new strategy for X. It’s like the big arm-waving air-filled tubes outside used-car lots have gained sentience and have some hot hot HOT deals to show me.

I have to say, I’m shocked at their sheer number. They’re everywhere. It’s like I’ve stumbled into a world (or, more accurately, circle of Hell) that I didn’t know existed.

The wave of “creators”

I kind of stumbled on to this supposed “economy” on the back end of a wave that seems to have swept through various platforms over the previous few years. I’ll be frank: I’m not sure when it started, only that I’m pretty sure I came in at the end.

This was largely by accident. A few people over the years had told me I should try my hand at writing. I’d done it successfully in business plans and other professional environments, so I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to go into the general expository territory. Plus, it’s fun. To me anyway.

To my surprise, I’ve had some mild success. I write on broad, societal issues and themes and have picked up a few followers. They’re not large in number, but they read what I write, and consistently. I’ve gained a lot recently, but prior to that surge, I knew most of the names from claps and comments. I like to pay attention to little things like that, as my amateur self greatly appreciates it.

I’m glad someone enjoys my writing. Even one person reading an article makes the thing worthwhile to me, since I’d be doing it for fun anyway. It says it right there in my “About Me” — “hobbyist”. I don’t call myself a capital-S-serious individual, list qualifications, or refer to myself as a “creator”. I like writing and thus do so. If you like my writing too, great. The earnings are secondary. I think those of us who think that way are increasingly unicorn-like.

Why do I care about this? Shouldn’t I just keep trodding along in my own little way? Well, largely I do and I will. But there’s a problem and it’s a simple one — when overall quality declines, readership declines. The proliferation of garbage harms everyone.

And I’m not talking about hobbyists like me. I’ll be fine because it’s for fun. But the honest-to-goodness, real-deal, skilled writers will suffer. The people who do this for a living. Because if all people hear when they try to read something meaningful or interesting is a bunch of white noise, they eventually tune out entirely.

Courses, get your writing courses here!

Lest we forget the writers writing about other writers category. At the top of this category is the course salesperson. With an artificially inflated audience that doesn’t actually read their work, this “author” uses that fictitious audience as evidence of their success to sell courses to other writers. Writers who, presumably, also want to write about writing for other writers.

By teaching other writers their “methods” (which are largely self-promotion and repetition), they create another class of writers who believe the key to success is writing self-help nonsense to other writers. One block at a time, we can build a beautiful pyramid (scheme) together. The pump-and-dump schemes used to pay on the “dump”, now they pay for the “pump” too.

I don’t care what platform you’re on, this does nothing to grow the pie. Zippo. There is a finite, narrow audience for this type of stuff. Each person that hops on board is one person closer to the end of the ride. Even if it’s a rather large audience that gobbles this stuff up (and based on the success of some, it is), you can only split that audience so many ways with copycats off freshly minted content creation “courses” before it becomes unprofitable for all.

I won’t even get started on the self-help stuff. Suffice it to say that for some people it works, and good for you if it does. But often it prays on insecurities and self-esteem and sells some generalizations that don’t add up to much of anything.

People in the general population who might have their interest piqued by a breakout article on Medium, Substack, Simily, or any other platform are going to quickly scurry away when everything else they see is nonsense. It might be common to make jokes about the intelligence of the “general” population, but I’ll guarantee this: they know a marketing ploy or advertisement when they see one. They’ve been so laden with advertising since, essentially, their birth, that they’ll see right through it.

We’ve got some great talent on here, plenty of writers much more skilled than I. We need to find some new way to allow the cream to reach the top because right now its path is being blocked by miles of sludge. The death of a platform or publisher isn’t often a loud bang. It’s the slow, sad decay from bleeding readership. The quicker we realize that the better.