Creative Control

Next week, we’ll be back with a special series of episodes about fandom—covering fanfic, fan art, cosplay, and all the passion that goes into building these communities. We’ll also be unpacking the hurdles fan creators face, from harassment to legal issues, and how these challenges affect the wider creator economy.

Since the last time we discussed the efforts to ban Tiktok, we’ve been hearing more about future legal challenges to these restrictions and the international impact they would have. So to get some different perspectives on Tiktok’s actual security risks and the courtroom sagas already shaping up, we talked with Timothy Edgar and Anupam Chander. Timothy is a professor at both Harvard and Brown, spe...

This year marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, a genre that’s gone from a niche art form to a cultural and financial powerhouse across the world. But with that huge burst of growth, are the true hip-hop creators getting their due? And what role will AI play in hip-hop in the next 50 years? To help us unpack hip-hop’s history and future, we talked with Sacha Jenkins. Sacha is a filmmaker, musicia...

As Montana becomes the first state to pass a bill banning TikTok on all personal devices, discussions about why and how to restrict the Chinese-owned platform are circulating everywhere. TikTok creator V Spehar, @underthedesknews, has amassed 3 million followers with their clear, brief explanations of current events, and they believe that the communities and conversations on TikTok play a vital ro...

To jumpstart season 3 with an overview of the creator economy, we’re featuring a roundtable conversation with some experts, recorded a few weeks ago at SXSW. Our panel of experts—Julie Haleluk, global head of video creator program at Amazon Live Shoppable Videos; Adrienne Lahens, global head of operations at TikTok Creator Marketing Solutions; Julian Reis, founder and CEO of SuperOrdinary; and Bre...

Next week, Creative Control is back with Season 3! Some of the topics we’re unpacking this season include the push to ban TikTok, how hip-hop has undeniably shaped social media, and why it’s so difficult for adult content creators to monetize their work. Also, we’re diving into how the creator economy is challenging our norms around copyright, ownership, and originality.

While we’re on break, working on the next season of Creative Control, we’re revisiting this live episode from Fast Company’s Innovation Festival last fall. Content creator and comedian Brittany Broski gave her candid take on the creator economy and how she’s building a career beyond that kombucha meme that made her famous.

In between seasons, we’re taking another listen to this interview with Emma Chamberlain, one of YouTube’s undisputed royalty. Since starting her channel in 2017, Emma has amassed more than 11 million YouTube subscribers, in large part because of her wry comedic tone and signature lo-fi editing style. Her vlogs aren’t overproduced or too slick, instead she’s candid with her fans—which means being h...

We’re working on the next season of Creative Control. In the meantime, we’re revisiting this still-relevant topic: doctors on platforms like TikTok and Twitter making medicine less of a mystery for people—and becoming celebrities along the way. But the ethics of being a medical influencer are a bit hazy. We’ve seen how misinformation can run rampant on social media, and it doesn’t take much for an...

While we’re on break, working on the next season of Creative Control, we wanted to revisit this throwback episode about copyright law and dance, and how some choreographers are fighting to get their work protected as intellectual property. It’s part of the wider issue of how popular trends can spread online without proper credit or compensation—something creators of color, in particular, have been...

We’re taking a little break right now while we work on the next season. We’ll be back soon with new conversations and stories about what’s changing in the creator economy. In the meantime, in honor of March Madness, we wanted to revisit this throwback episode about the NCAA changing their rules to finally allow college athletes to make money from their own name, image, and likeness.

Over the past few years, it seems that celebrities and influencers are increasingly choosing to have their own brand instead of simply endorsing a product. Take Emma Chamberlain, for example. When she was on the podcast, she explained why, as an avid coffee lover, she started her own brand instead of doing a regular endorsement. To dig into this a little more, we spoke to Marian Leitner-Waldman, f...

We’re taking a little break while we work on the next season. In the meantime, we’re sharing an improv workshop from Fast Company’s Innovation Festival last year, led by actor, singer, and improvisor extraordinaire Wayne Brady. He gets into the importance of active listening in improv, and focusing on inclusion in his growing media empire.

We’re taking a little break right now while we work on the next season. But we’ll be back soon with new conversations and stories about what’s changing in the creator economy. In the meantime, we wanted to share a conversation from Fast Company’s Innovation Festival last fall. Associate editor Yaz Gagne moderated the panel, Monetizing Your Brand in the Creator Economy, featuring Tracy Chan from So...

Last week we talked to some creators about how they’re approaching Black History Month this year. If you haven’t already listened to that episode, please check it out. And for this episode, I’m keeping the conversation going with Tiffany Hardin, founder and CEO of Gild Creative Group. Tiffany shared her perspective as an influencer marketing agent who has all the do’s and, most importantly, don’ts...

Black History Month is almost upon us. It’s a time meant to celebrate Black culture, but as we’ve seen year after year, it’s also a time for racist trolls, tone-deaf brand campaigns, and corporate platitudes that amount to little change if any at all. It’s a lot to deal with, so I wanted to explore how Black creators are handling it all. Hear how Tyra Blizzard (@tblizzy), Garrison Hayes (@garrison...

Back in the fall of 2021, a whistleblower named Frances Haugen dropped a bombshell. She released what would become known as the Facebook Papers, a massive set of internal documents that essentially showed the harmful impact Facebook and Instagram can have on society and politics. Deeper still, the documents showed that Facebook knew of those dangers but seemed to put profits over everything. It’s...

We’ve discussed where the creator economy is headed this year. And there are general trends that I do think will be important to keep in mind in the short term. But what about the long term? The creator economy is still relatively young. So what will it look like once the dust and hype really settle down? Dmitry Shapiro, cofounder and CEO of app platform Koji, has some thoughts that are pretty sur...

If you haven’t heard of Samara Joy, I’m about to put you on. Samara is a jazz singer whose buttery vocals have earned her some of the top accolades jazz has to offer, including two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Jazz Vocal album. And I think it’s worth mentioning here that Samara is only 23. She’s being touted as the “first Gen Z jazz singing star.” So it’s no surprise that her ca...

Kate Davis, KC Ifeanyi, and Amelia Hemphill discuss the biggest stories at Fast Company this past year and share their favorite moments from Fast Company podcasts. Kate highlights The New Way We Work's 4-part miniseries "Ambition Diaries," which examined the effects of the pandemic on women's progress in the workplace. KC reviews some of the biggest trends in the creator economy. Amelia explains s...

It’s been another destabilizing year across the board. But the creator economy has surprisingly held strong—despite a looming recession, increasing pressure from lawmakers to ban TikTok in the U.S., and Elon Musk being Elon Musk at Twitter. The creator economy is currently valued at $16.4 billion, a 19% increase from 2021. So will that energy carry over into 2023? To get a better understanding of...

This interview has been a long time coming because Shavone Charles is someone I’ve known for quite a few years now. When I met her, she was the head of global music and youth culture communications at Instagram. Prior to that, she held a similar position at Twitter. And last year, she became TikTok’s first head of global diversity and inclusion communications. Shavone is one of those people who ha...

You might have noticed that more and more social media platforms are offering paid versions of their services, like Twitter Blue, Snapchat Plus, and Discord Nitro. But what you may not have noticed is that this is nothing new. Social media platforms in China have had a huge head start in getting users to not only pay for features, but in creating features that truly are innovative. In this episode...

Back in 2018, Tumblr banned all nudity, which, unsurprisingly, led to a massive dip in page views as well as adult creators being forced off the platform. But earlier this month, Tumblr, under new management, announced it would be relaxing its “no porn” rule to allow some adult content back onto the site. In this episode, Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg breaks down the fine print of what this means for...

We're taking a break this week and wishing everyone a warm holiday! When we come back, we'll be talking about what's changing in content policies at Tumblr and the effect of the Facebook Papers one year later.