Before Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast), there was Josh Ostrovsky (aka The Fat Jewish).
Long before I became the geriatric millennial journalist I am today, I interviewed him about his expanding brand.
It was 2017. Ostrovsky was following a model pioneered by creators Michelle Phan, Emily Weiss, and Cassey Ho who had already launched Ipsy, Glossier, and oGorgeous Bags, respectively.
“We’re all about fun,” he said, holding an extra-long straw next to a bottle of White Girl Rosé, his then 2-year-old wine brand.
And though our chat devolved into a tangle of crosstalk, that afternoon opened my eyes to what would become the creator economy.
Ostrovsky, of course, is not the ideal poster child for the industry given the many allegations of plagiarism he’s faced in the past. But even as a flawed messenger, he helped me realize the value that a personal brand could have — a lesson that’s shaped my reporting and career decisions since.
Over the next seven years, fueled in large part by COVID lockdown attention spans, I watched the creator economy grow from a buzzword into a real engine of growth for many industries.
- In 2021, I saw the scale. Applications to influencer agencies like Takumi had doubled, and brands poured billions into the space chasing authenticity.
- In 2022, I saw the balance of power shift. At the Cannes Lions advertising festival, CMOs of global brands Dove and Pernod Ricard acknowledged to me that creators had become basically part-time employees.
- In 2023, I saw the breaking point. Hollywood’s creators — its writers and actors — went on a historic dual strike and won better residuals from streaming platforms and protections against AI.
- In 2024, I saw the model flip. MrBeast became YouTube’s most-subscribed creator and built an empire spanning chocolate, burgers, and an Amazon reality series. Harley Finkelstein, president of e-commerce platform Shopify, summed up the shift for me like this: “Now for the first time ever, first you build an audience, then you build a product.”
With each story I reported, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own news industry, which was starting to look more and more outdated.
I’d spent a decade at CNN, Business Insider, Cheddar, and Axios — reporting, writing, hosting, anchoring, building audiences, and growing brands. But all of my work was considered each company’s IP, or intellectual property.
This of course is how most employment agreements are structured. But creators — over the same period of time that I’d been working in traditional newsrooms — proved the arrangement required reevaluation.
After all, technology was making it possible for individuals to create and distribute things that once required teams. Technology has also made it possible for individuals to keep the revenue that companies typically pool and distribute as salaries. But most importantly, technology has enabled creators to keep their IP — which is the difference between getting paid once to produce something and owning assets that earn forever.
“I was going to fight quite literally till the end for that IP,” podcast host Alex Cooper has said about her Call Her Daddy show and related products. “I understood what it would do to my career if I lost that.”
After years of sitting with the evidence and watching trends change, I realized I could and should go independent, so I did.
Earlier this summer I launched Macro Talk, a multi-platform news brand spanning video, live events, and newsletter — all the stuff I used to do for a newsroom.
But for the first time in my career, I’m building equity, not just producing content. And the economics work completely differently now because I own the brand and its assets.
- Every YouTube video I create can earn ad revenue each time someone watches it.
- My subscribers can pay me directly in any number of ways.
- Brand partnerships flow to me, not a media company’s balance sheet.
- And my audience belongs to me.
If you’ve been building a creator business outside of traditional media, you’re ahead of where I was.
You already have your own voice. You have an audience, and you understand you’re building a brand, not just a resume.
But if you’re looking for wider reach or greater credibility, protect yourself from media partnerships that could restrict future opportunities or jeopardize your ownership of your IP (like Alex Cooper did).
I’m only a few months into my solo journalism career, so I don’t have all the answers. I do know though that few of us will reach the scale of an Alex Cooper or MrBeast. The reality is that content is a hard business that’s getting harder for the vast majority in the industry.
But if each of us create enough work that people value, we gain greater options to build on our own terms — and businesses are likely to shift in response.