Hank Green has had some time to think about how social media has changed us. He started making YouTube videos in 2007 with his brother, novelist John Green, at a time when the first iPhone was in development, MySpace was still relevant, and Instagram didn’t exist. Seventeen years later, posting videos online is not just a hobby, it’s also a great way to connect with the world. $250 billion Yet, after all this time, the Green brothers remain two of the oldest and most respected creators in the game.
Now, in a time of addictive endless scrolling and increasing loneliness, Hank has become reflective of his role as a content creator. But Green is no ordinary content creator—he has started so many businesses and projects online that he Fans have created a website. Count the number of days since he started something new.
Green founded crowdfunding platform Subbable, which was acquired by Patreon in 2015, and co-founded DFTBA (an e-commerce company for creators) and Complexly (an educational media company). He was CEO of both companies until 2023, when he stepped down after being diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma. Fortunately, Green is now in remission. He’s even had knee surgery. comedy special About the cancer treatment experience, because he’s Hank Green, and even chemotherapy can’t stop him from making new things.
Green’s experience running startups, coupled with his work as a creator, gives him valuable perspective on where the creator economy is headed. As the downsides of social media become more apparent, Green has become more thoughtful about the power and attention that creators have.
On the other hand, the Green brothers have shown that social media can be used to change the world for the better. The brothers have grown their fan base to millions, and leverage their online community for good, by raising funds with health partners for Maternity Health Center In Sierra Leone, to convince the pharmaceutical company Danaher to Lower the price of life-saving TB tests. Apart from their main channel Flug BrothersAl-Khidr also founded Intensive seminara free educational YouTube channel with 15.7 million subscribers, has become a staple in American classrooms.
But for all the good the internet can do, it can still be isolating. If you’re feeling lonely, it’s much easier to keep scrolling through TikTok than to call a friend.
“I’m part of the problem — it’s not just about the algorithms, it’s about the content,” Green told TechCrunch. “I’ve been trained by the algorithms and by my peers to be extraordinarily good at getting people’s attention and holding it. I hope to use that skill to my advantage, but I also use it to distract people from whatever else they might be doing.”
Creators like Green have a lot of power—they can reach millions of people with the click of a button. But they make those connections on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram.
“I think I feel more powerful than [social media executives] “I do it because I have a more direct connection to the audience, so I see the impact in a way that they don’t,” Green said. “When I talk to people who are making really big, important decisions on these platforms, they desperately want to believe that they don’t matter, and I don’t have that luxury to believe that I don’t matter that much, because I deal with people who say, ‘You know, this video that I made really hurt me,’ or, ‘This video helped me.’”
Investing in creators
At this year’s VidCon — the online video conference the Green brothers founded in 2010 and later sold to Paramount — the creator economy is increasingly taking notice of the broader tech world. In the exhibit hall, teens still dress up as Hatsuna Miku and line up to meet and greet Minecraft YouTubers. But upstairs on the “Industry Track,” venture capitalists like Megan Lightcap of Slow Ventures explain the strategy behind investing in creators. Matt is dead He explains how he became one of the first creatives to successfully sell his company.
All creators are business owners, but Green goes beyond the norm. During the industry’s venture funding boom, Green considered investing in tools for creators, which makes sense given his background in founding Subbable.
“Honestly, at that point, I felt like I should have done this. I should have started a fund,” he said. “It’s not that I didn’t have other things to do… It turned out to be a good thing that I was so distracted, because I probably would have lost a bunch of people’s money, because it’s hard to build a business.”
This is especially true in the creative economy, where there are many different types of creatives whose needs are constantly changing.
“Creators’ needs are so diverse that if you create a product that’s scalable — and doesn’t cost a lot of money trying to customize itself for each individual creator — you end up creating a bad product,” Green said.
In some cases, venture capital firms have decided to invest in creators as if they were individual startups. Others, like Spotter, offer creators upfront capital in exchange for ad revenue from their YouTube back catalog. Green is interested in these funding models, though he describes investing in creators as “completely at odds with the Silicon Valley VC playbook.” That’s not because he doesn’t think creators are a good investment, but because creators don’t grow as quickly as the startups that typically attract venture capital.
“This is just a regular investment, not something that will multiply 10x,” Green said.
Although the term “creator economy” is no longer a popular term in Silicon Valley these days, the field is still growing—creative startups in the U.S. I have already raised more money. This year, expectations are that the US economy will grow faster than all of last year, largely due to the artificial intelligence boom, which Greene sees as a whim.
“My instinct is that people want to connect with people,” he said. “The relationship with the creator is actually a bit of an artificial one… But I don’t think AI is going to be good at building audiences.”
Creators grapple with the power of platforms
Creators face the same challenges as any small business owner, but they’re also vulnerable to the unpredictability of social media platforms and shifting consumer interests. These big tech companies are incentivized to generate as much engagement as possible, and if a small tweak to an algorithm could mean your videos stop appearing on TikTok’s For You page, creators feel helpless. And if a creator loses access to their account — sometimes through coordinated reporting campaigns by bad actors — they’re unlikely to be able to contact someone on the platform for help.
Green tried to form a trade organization called the Internet Creators Guild in 2016, but it only lasted three years — forming a unified body to advocate for creators has proven difficult, because the industry is so decentralized.
“[SAG-AFTRA members] “We do the same job for the same few companies, but we all do very different jobs for the same companies,” Green said, referring to creators’ reliance on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and others. “Someone who makes artwork on fabric and then sells it on Etsy has a very different set of needs than a musician.”
“There are some things that everyone agrees on — like there needs to be a means of redress when your account ceases to exist,” Green said. “If I live in a town and I start a business there, the town shouldn’t come and put a bike lock on my door and say, ‘You no longer own this business.’”
Even creators who watch their stars rise live with the fear that they may not always retain their audience. And that’s the power social media platforms have over the creators who make their apps worth our time.
“The bad side of TikTok — that you’re endlessly replaceable — is also the good side of TikTok,” he said. “It’s so easy to discover people. Talent discovery has never been this powerful.”
Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame has never been more true. Figures like Risa Tessa, Hook Toah Girl And the Child at Four Seasons Hotel Orlando These stars grab our attention, then rush to talent agencies and try to turn their moment into a full-fledged career. But the speed with which these people become household names—at least temporarily—is a testament to the growing anxiety among creatives that their fortunes are running out.
Then there are creators like Hank Green. He was there when I was a kid struggling with biology, he’s still there when he shows up on TikTok with a weird science fact, and hopefully he’ll be with us for a long time.