It’s the beginning of 2024, and if you’ve been thinking about starting to create content this year, some doubts have probably crept into your mind: Is it too late to become a content creator? Is the content market already saturated? Is there really room for one more YouTuber/newsletter/podcast/Instagrammer? Is there really room for me to create content?
I won’t bury the lede: yes, there is. But I want to take it a step further. Right now might be one of the better times to start creating content.
Here’s why.
The Death of the Monoculture
Cultural critic Ted Gioia recently wrote on his Substack about the death of the monoculture and the rise of microcultures. He argues, “Legacy media is collapsing at the very moment alternative platforms are booming.” While he goes in-depth about it, and his article is very much worth the read, take a look at this chart he provides for just a single example of what this burgeoning war between the macroculture and microcultures looks like.
YouTube’s ad revenue is roughly equal to—and seems to be overtaking—Netflix’s revenue. For many small to mid-sized creators, YouTube has become a viable career, as they reach an audience that consumes enough of their content for them to generate a livable wage off of the ad revenue their videos generate. Not only does that mean content creation is more and more financially viable, but it's that way because macroculture is losing the war against microcultures.
The Rise of Microcultures
Microcultures are blossoming right now. The more niche your content is, the more likely it is to find an audience.
As an example, I’ve recently fallen down the YouTube rabbit hole of journaling, reading, and philosophy. It started when the algorithm recommended a creator to me I had never heard of before, but the content looked interesting. When I looked into him more, I realized he was just out of college, yet he had over 300,000 YouTube subscribers, over 13,000 Substack subscribers, and over 80,000 Instagram followers. He’s been able to grow a platform that size in just a few years by making content about reading and journaling. His niche is extremely small, but when a site like YouTube has 2.7 billion monthly active users, a tiny niche is all you need to find a sizeable audience for the content you want to produce. What’s even more interesting is that since I found this creator, the algorithm has recommended many other similar creators with similarly large platforms that I have never heard of before. He is certainly not a one-off success story.
This is one small example of many like it. I’m noticing more and more Christian content creators pop up as well. The most noticeable success story of the past few years has been Gavin Ortlund. Gavin is another interesting example in his own right because of how much he focuses on conversations and debates between Protestantism, Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. I’m not sure he started his YouTube channel to address those particular issues, but he realized there was a sizeable niche audience searching YouTube for these kinds of questions and began meeting the need by making niche content for them. Tapping into a microculture didn’t slow his growth down; it accelerated it. Again, I could go on and on with examples just like this.
The point is that microcultures are quickly becoming more important than legacy macroculture media. People are looking for the content that you want to make. So whether it’s a newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel, or just making content on Instagram and TikTok, this is a great time to get started.
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