Decoding GenZ

This Week: New research on GenZ globally, Spotify rolls out its own creator awards, and the return of the son of the bride of creator funds.

THE COMPLEXITIES OF GENZ

They really aren’t monolithic – according to a new study from USC and Day One Agency of US GenZ. Their research paints a more nuanced approach, with three distinct clusters but lots of variability even within those groupings: Neo-Traditionalists, Fluid Pragmatists and Internet-Age Explorers. The study analyzes each group and provides recommendations on how to reach them. Although they interviewed over a thousand GenZers, there’s no methodology and no indication of statistical validity. So, consider it more directional than predictive. But they do make the raw data available, and I easily turned it into a spreadsheet and did my own analysis (Thanks ChatGPT!).

• Related: @Ollie Forsyth and New Economies roll out A global perspective on trends shaping GenZ in 2025, including health, relationships and economic optimism.

BILLION STREAMS!

Spotify rolls out its own version of the YouTube Creator Awards for podcasters, but focused on streams instead of subscribers. The “Creator Milestone Awards” uses Bronze, Silver and Gold based on cumulative all-time streams. I like that Spotify is recognizing top podcasters and releasing viewership data. As podcasting metrics move from downloads and sign-ups, which are easily manipulated and a poor proxy for actual views/listens, this makes a lot of sense. As far as I can tell, a stream occurs on Spotify after 60 seconds of listening, which is useful, but I wonder if a percent-completion metric would be better? Or time spent listening. But with Spotify rolling out a revenue sharing “Partner Program”, and now recognizing top podcasters, they have quickly become a top-tier creator platform. With all the usual caveats, of course, about building on rented land.

FOOL ME ONCE

New research on teens, trust and AI finds that once fooled by fake content generated by AI, teens are much more likely to lose trust in all online content. And most teens don’t trust tech companies to get it right. My Take: this trend isn’t going away. Creators need to develop tell-tale signs that a real human is behind the content they create, which means live, glitches, mistakes and other imperfections will grow. Until AI learns to ape them as well.

THE RETURN OF THE SON OF THE BRIDE OF CREATOR FUNDS

Yes, they are back! Just in the past week Flip, Meta and Substack announced new funds – and Meta is paying up to $300k for some creators to post on Instagram. At first glance the numbers are welcoming – here at ICE we’re big fans of creators getting paid. But there’s nothing new here. Sure, the numbers are big, but only a few creators will earn anything, and the money will run out very soon. We’ve seen this story before, and it didn’t end well. My advice? Apply for sure – but be very careful about what you agree to. Remember, YouTube has been the only legitimate source of ongoing revenue for creators – followed by Twitch. And that’s about it. Build on YouTube, build your own platforms and use most others for awareness. Only the Substack fund is mildly interesting because you’re building on your own land – but only if the numbers work.

DEEPSEEK IS GREAT FOR CREATORS

I put out a special edition of the newsletter Sunday, distilling (pun intended) a bunch of my thoughts on why DeepSeek will be a net positive for creators. TLDR – it brings the cost of integrating AI into creator tools – like Spotter, VidIQ, Auggie, etc. – down by a factor of 10 or more. Even if you don’t use DeepSeek (and I won’t, for privacy and security reasons), pandora’s box has been breached. Generative AI is no longer controlled by a small priesthood of AI overlords. The democratization of AI is underway – and this is great news for creators because tool prices will drop, more amazing capabilities will be developed, and you won’t have to be a massive creator to take advantage of it all. It’s another step on the path towards democratizing creation – and company formation – just as YouTube democratized distribution 20 years ago. We’ll see many more low-cost LLM models developed in the US and elsewhere globally in the months to come, and new ways to string them all together.

• RELATED: Texas, Taiwan, NASA, the US Navy and others ban DeepSeek from government devices. Italy kicks it out of the country.

   

SPONSOR: The NFL and YouTube have launched Access Pass for Legends, giving NFL greats access to official league footage for their YouTube content. Kicking off the initiative, Brandon Marshall breaks down his career highlights, with Cam Newton and J.T. O’Sullivan joining soon. This program opens new doors for athlete-driven media. Read more in Fast Company: https://www.fastcompany.com/91267698/theres-about-to-be-a-whole-new-generation-of-nfl-creators

• Note from Jim – I love this move. Athletes are some of the best creators in the world, and I love that the NFL is enabling its retired players to continue to build their communities. This is part of a trend that includes what @Soheil Var is doing with soccer/non-American football – in the UAE.

QUIBIS

YOUTUBE

• Update on Shorts: YouTube reveals Shorts secrets in new blog post from a month-old video (in case you missed it).

• Flag Football Update: YouTube and the NFL will stream a flag football game between teams managed by Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed the night before the Super Bowl. Neal Mohan is so excited.

META

• Better Analytics: Instagram rolls out new metrics for creators, including View Rate (how long people watch after 3 minutes) and relative views over time. Good stuff!

• Size Matters: Insta also updated its carousel, reels and stories dimensions.

• Back to the Future: Zuckerberg hinted at an OG Facebook revamp in last week’s earnings call.

• Leaky Ship: Oops, Zuck bemoans the fact that everything he says gets leaked. His comment got leaked.

• You Tease! Meta reveals more features coming in its upcoming video editor EDIT.

• That’s a Lot of $$$: Meta reflects on the $8B it’s spent on privacy over the last 6 years.

TIKTOK

• TikTok Traffic: It’s down 10% in the US since it went offline two weeks ago – and H.R.7521 became the law of the land.

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

• Creators Ascend: The White House will invite creators to its press briefings alongside MSM. You can apply here if you’d like to be considered. Some concern over whether only sycophants would be selected, but until we know, I’m focusing on the positive.

• State of Newsletters: Longish post from Beehiiv with tips, insight and predictions for newsletters in 2025.

• Robots Can’t Find Jobs on LinkedIn: If you are “#OpenToWork”, you’d better be human! Maybe I’m in the minority, but robots shouldn’t be writing posts on LinkedIn either.

• Welcome All: Video seems to be working on LinkedIn. No idea if robots are allowed.

• Attention Vs. Addiction: Good essay from @Scott Galloway on how the “attention economy” is far different from the addictive algorithms and enterprises we seem stuck with (HT Brad Berens).

• Back Office Boring Stuff: Congrats to @Zach Honarvar for launching Boring Stuff to manage bookkeeping, accounting, HR, Payroll and more for creator businesses. Sounds like Workday for Creators to me, which will be fine as long as they remain under the radar.

• From Camp to Fest: Congrats to the Creator Camp crew for launching Camp Film + Festival! In partnership with Patreon, they hope to show that the next great storytellers will come from the ranks of creators, not Hollywood. Perhaps this is what Patreon’s Creator Fest has morphed into.

• Hire A Creator: Publicis agency Razorfish did just that – and here’s what happened.

• MR Beast Goes Back to Vegas: Or does he? Resorts World Vegas will host a 3-day MR Beast Experience, with goodie bags, activations and more – but will Jimmy Donaldson actually show up? Unclear. Sounds like a Beast-flavored Museum of Ice Cream, or the modern equivalent of Star Trek: The Experience that anchored The Las Vegas Hilton for so many years.

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

• Can you Copyright AI? The answer from the US copyright office is that it depends on the amount of human involvement. Using it as a creative tool or in your workflow is a yes. This just opened the door to a LOT of lawsuits. Read the full report here. And top lawyer @franklin Graves explains what it really means.

100% written by me – no human or AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

Like this free newsletter? Buy me a coffee and say thanks! Or let’s do a meetup in your town.

I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including Discovery and Paramount.

Let me know what you think – email me at [email protected]. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.