The Creator Economy Is Changing: Gary & Valeria Debate AI, Substack and the Future of Content

0:00Gary Lipovetsky: Is AI making humans more or less valuable? More valuable. Taste is becoming scarce. Trust is becoming scarce because of AI. Right now, it's really time to like show up and actually be artists because now you're competing with artificial intelligence. There are creators out there who are getting lazy. There are actually accounts that I've seen teaching other creators take a couple of selfies. Yeah, have AI write a script, right? Like 20 videos a day that you can just blast out. I don't believe there's a future in that. 20 ,000 followers on Substack equivalent to 3 million on Instagram. Well, I don't know, but that's a bold statement.

0:39Gary Lipovetsky: How do you know that? I mean, I just pulled it out of my... But listen, you own the emails, you own the relationships. I do kind of disagree with the statement that you own the relationship with email lists. I don't believe that to be true because... I feel like we spend so much time talking about creator economy and news privately, but we don't do it like this, where we sit down and actually break it down. And it's not really about the headlines. I feel like we are talking a lot about what's going on in the creator economy because of the signals, right? When we are inside the industry, it's like you can see based on what's happening what is the next iteration going to be of the economy right so today this is exactly what i want us to do i want us to sit down i want us to have our kind of monthly editorial meeting we're starting now to do monthly editorial this is our yeah this is the state of creator economy all right okay by valeria and gary lupovetsky i feel that this was missing from everything that we do like in terms of all of the different interests that we have within this industry this was missing so if we're doing this once a month to talk about what's going on in the industry I think it's great yeah and you know I'm picking up so much information on what should be our next steps you know like not even if things that are already happening but based on different events that are going on the different headlines the new Instagram updates like I can see what is coming up and how we should help our community kind of looking at things so I feel like we should just get right into it the first one is this Instagram is entering it's anti slop era anti slop do we agree yeah generally I do agree I think that from what I see going on first of all I see a massive decrease so anytime a new technology or a new trend gets onto social media we see an immediate influx and you'll see that your your feed whether it's on Instagram or TikTok is just it's almost exclusively this type of content and I definitely saw that with the AI slop I definitely saw it on TikTok I definitely saw it on Instagram and it's it's come down a lot so my understanding and my belief is what's happened is that the decision makers at Meta have seen that and they've decided that it's just simply not valuable content and so then they've they've now pulled it back and they've decreased it but they've also made it so that you have to disclose if you're using AI to create content because they want that level of disclosure to the audiences.

3:16Gary Lipovetsky: So yeah, I do believe it's decreasing and I don't believe it's decreasing because content creators want to use it less. I simply believe that meta specifically with Instagram is demoting it in feed. Well, Well, on the content side, on the content creator side, I think that it is important for creators to see it as a signal that originality doesn't equal production. I think with AI, what's been happening is that people have been using it a lot to create this really immersed world. And listen, some creators out there, that's what their account is about, which I follow some of them. Chloe versus history is a great example.

3:54Right, exactly. We love Chloe versus history.

3:56Gary Lipovetsky: But the difference between the AI slop that you're referring to and Chloe versus history is that the AI slop exclusively uses AI to create content and does not add meaningful value. Chloe versus history, they're using AI as a tool to convey value. And to me, that's a huge difference. Because if you look at the scripting in Chloe versus history and you look at the quality of the content, to me, AI is simply a tool. And in general, that's what I'm a much bigger believer in is even in my own content that I create, I am using AI as a tool to magnify the quality of the content that I'm putting out, not the source of the quality.

4:40So when I'm talking about the AI slop, as it refers to the kind of content that we create and the kind of content that most content creators create, it's using like the chat GPT, you know, the scripts, all these things. People are heavily leaning on them in a way that creates that AI slop. Right. And you see it in captions, in certain like video ideas. It's kind of like doesn't hit. You just you see the intention, but it misses the mark.

5:07Gary Lipovetsky: So I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. Are we talking about the stuff that show up that it's clearly fake, like Donald Trump and Putin? No, that to me. No, no. It's the things that people are like how people are using AI and where it misses the mark. Right. Right. It's not those like really extravagant accounts, because, again, there are some AI creators that I think are doing an amazing job. And to your point, like Chloe versus History is a great example of really taking it and creating something amazing and original. but what I see been happening is that we got this access to all these tools and we content creators are just thinking okay so now I can just do all of it super easy create the scripts create that this and they're losing something in the process so that's kind of what I see and they like I mentioned before they they confuse originality with production value they think of their production value is 100%, meaning the way they speak the scripts, them sounding very like, you know, a professional, an expert, it's going to be what's going to take their content forward.

6:11And because of the overflow of this type of content, I see now this yearning for people to see people, you know what I mean? Like really natural and natural conversation, natural mannerisms. And this is kind of what I see Instagram is starting to really pay attention to more.

6:35Gary Lipovetsky: Yes, I agree with you. I agree that Instagram is, again, it's what I said before. Instagram is demoting very clearly like AI created content. But when it comes to script writing, that's a little different because it's only the script that's created with AI. but it's a real person reading it let's say in a yapping video or a talking head video right but you have to be careful and these are the small little nuances I think that creates like a really great content versus an average content content is these this human aspects of speech you know what I mean even for me I have to be honest with you I had a couple of like AI slops happening to that I used, you know, Chad GPT or Claude to really help me out, put something together.

7:23I couldn't really articulate my thoughts. And when I look at those videos or those captions, I'm like, oh, this is AI slop. This is what I'm talking about. Yeah.

7:31Gary Lipovetsky: I think you and I are referring to AI slop. I think we have two different definitions. I'm thinking of like, when I think of AI slop, I'm talking about, like I said, like, you know, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin walking down the wedding aisle together and Putin's wearing a dress. So that's what I think of AI slop. What you're talking about, I think it's, you know, I don't believe that's AI slop because writing scripts using AI, using, let's say, ChatGPT to write a script that then you can put into a teleprompter and then read as a yapping video. I don't believe that that's AI slop. But let me elaborate on that because the issue where it becomes slop is when a creator comes in.

8:08And let's say, for example, they want to create a piece of content about how the, I don't know, the color green and the color white go together.

8:14Gary Lipovetsky: And if they simply go into ChatGPT and say, I'm a creator, I want you to make a 45 to 60 second script that I can use in a teleprompter to say why green and white are good colors to combine together. And then it gives you that. So whatever it's going to give you, there's not enough context there. So if you are, let's say, a creator who you're a stylist and you're a color analyst, and you go in and you say, I strongly believe that green and white go together because the undertone of green works with the overtone of white. And depending on the season, if it's in the summer, this is why it works.

8:49Gary Lipovetsky: It's also depending on the article of clothing. If the article of clothing, if you're wearing a top that's green and pants that's white, that doesn't work. But the reverse works and with footwear and with socks, and you get into real detail and you're putting in not only the topic, but you're also putting in your expertise around that topic. And then you ask ChatGPT, you elaborate further and you say, I want the first sentence to be optimized to be scroll stopping. I want the hook to be scroll stopping and I want you to optimize for that to create intrigue and curiosity gaps. And so I'm bringing in my knowledge of color analysis, but then I'm bringing in my knowledge of content creation.

9:25Gary Lipovetsky: So on the color analysis side, I talk about the realities of combining the colors green and white. And on the content creation side, I'm identifying that I want the first sentence to be a hook that will stop the scroll. Then I go further. I'm just giving you an example. Yeah, yeah. We're talking about the same thing. And then I go further and I'll say that the body of the text needs to be optimized for retention. So I want to make sure that when I'm talking, the script is optimized so that somebody who's watching it will want to stay until the end. Because I know that will drive distribution, right?

9:55Gary Lipovetsky: The Whittle Drive distribution is people going into it from the hook and staying in it and listening to the whole thing. So I'll provide as much information as I can in that prompt. So that's why I don't consider what I'm describing to be AI slop. You get that script and then you do your own human edit. And so what I'm saying is when you created a few pieces of content that you used chat or Claude to create for you, that's why it felt like AI slop to you because you didn't put in maybe a sufficient amount of context and expertise. So just to give you an idea, when I say AI slop, like if you go through people's content, especially the talking videos, you'll see or captions, people in the comments be like, this is so AI slop because they can sense from the content.

10:38It's a real person speaking, but they can sense from the content that it's so automated that it doesn't sound like a human. Now, what I think is happening is that the consumers or the people that watch content are now becoming more sharper. When understanding like, okay, this is a computer talking and this is a human talking. I agree with you. The way to use it is where creators need to really learn how to do it properly. It didn't lower the barrier of entry. Not that there's a barrier of entry to become a content creator, really.

11:08Gary Lipovetsky: Anybody can put out content. Anybody can put out content. But a lot of people felt like, okay, now with AI, it's like, oh my God, I can just build accounts and become viral and whatever. But that's the thing. It's like knowing how to use it. You know, being able to know that, okay, now that we have AI that can help us to optimize the body of work. I don't think it's optimized. I think it's to use it as a tool in order to organize and amplify your thoughts. Yeah. But you have to have real expertise going into it. Correct. And I think what you're talking about, and I think kind of what the whole point of this is, is that it's AI slop when you're not adding any value of your own.

11:46Gary Lipovetsky: Correct. And then creators ignore improving themselves in terms of their subject matter, like knowing their subject matter, and in terms of their ability to deliver. So if they have a very low amount of knowledge on their subject matter and they have a very low amount of skill and talent when it comes to communication, like talking to camera, as an example, when they do that, it comes off as AI slop. And so I believe that there are creators out there who are getting either they're new and they don't know any better or they're simply getting lazy. But listen, it goes even further, right? There are people I've heard.

12:22Gary Lipovetsky: There are actually accounts that I've seen where individuals, creators are teaching other creators and they're selling a course on how to simply take a couple of selfies. Yeah. Load it into certain programs. Have AI write a script. Take that script and then it's on, it'll create like 20 videos a day that you can just blast out. I don't believe there's a future in that. I believe that ignoring, getting better at your subject matter, becoming a true authority in your value proposition, plus being able to deliver it in an efficient way, I don't believe AI will replace that. And the people who are just like trying to create like 10, 20, 100 videos a day through like, you know, selfies and AI script writing.

13:08Gary Lipovetsky: That's where I believe that there won't be any, they won't get traction. This is why I keep repeating how the strongest muscle that I think humans need to develop now is the art of noticing, you know, noticing moments, noticing stories, noticing what's going on inside, because you need that context in order and that information in order to feed it into a tool like AI. but also I think that in today's time and age I kind of love what's happening because taste is becoming scarce you know what I mean like has become scarce taste trust is becoming scarce because of AI right like we now have to work harder and we now have to really develop these things that AI cannot create it can create everything else is originality dead no but i definitely think that in the past maybe even decade or so we became lazy in the way we think and the way we create and i just think that right now it's really time to like show up and actually be artist because now you're competing with you know and i mean artificial intelligence what's actually original anymore that's back to my point of why noticing is such a huge muscle because that's where originality comes from you know the ability to articulate and to and to really be present in certain moments that can give you uh the words to explain a feeling or an emotion no computer will be able to do that if you started from zero tomorrow if you went back and if you started from zero tomorrow, what would you post?

14:54I mean, considering the beginning of my content creation journey, I would say that because I started on YouTube, it was a very, it was originality because it was just my observation and my point of view on the world. But I remember when I started on Instagram, it was much more like very aesthetic photos and like, you know, trying to create a catalog out of my life. So I would do the same thing I did back then. I was just like bring myself and tell a story.

15:28Gary Lipovetsky: Is AI making humans more or less valuable? More valuable. This is back to my point. Like these things like taste and judgment and trust, these are all becoming very important things that you have to earn. So the next headline, are you ready? Yeah. So Instagram changed what it rewards now. I think before there was a lot of conversation around views and, you know, numbers are important, but we've been talking about it for, I think, maybe a couple of years now. Maybe the past year was more. We're shifting from these really vanity metrics to something that is stickier, like shares, saves, DMs. It really cares to see that somebody who watched the piece of content, they DM'd it and send it to their friend.

16:11Yeah. which I think is very interesting because I do still think that a lot of creators are still optimizing for applause, right?

16:21Gary Lipovetsky: Sorry, optimizing for applause. For applause, for views, for the like, yeah, oh my God, a million people saw it rather than looking at, oh, look at this, like 4 ,000 people send it to their friends. Like that is gold. And I think that's where the focus needs to shift. It's did the person that watched your video send it to their best friend? That I think is very interesting. What do you watch that you personally send to me or your friends? Like what content sticks for you? The stuff I sent to you are things that are practical and applicable, right? So if let's say something about parenting, because you and I have kids together, so I will send you something about parenting that I think is useful.

17:02But yeah, categories make sense, but the way it's, do you see kind of a theme to the way those messages are delivered to you that resonate with you more? Like, is it usually a person that speaks? Is it a, like, what is it?

17:17Gary Lipovetsky: I think that it depends what stage of life you're at. And for me, I'm more interested in acquiring more knowledge. And so when you'll share something with me, again, the same example about parenting or about business, that's, I'm getting a lot of that. But it depends who I'm getting it from. So if I get it from one of my biker buddies, he's sending me stuff about motorcycle. So it really depends. I mean, from a formatting perspective, I would say that most of the things that are shared with me are people speaking. They're people speaking and they're conveying an idea or they're sharing something that's happened in the world.

17:51Gary Lipovetsky: So those are the type of videos that I'm seeing most. And what's interesting about that is that what I'm seeing, and it's kind of a more of a general kind of macro trend over years is that if you notice when you look back to what social media was, like Instagram and TikTok, what it was five, six, seven years ago, it was a lot of more humorous things. It was a lot of, you know, trending. And there's still a lot of that, obviously. But not that much. You're right. It may be, well, it may be isolated to your algorithm and my algorithm because maybe we're more intentional with what we're consuming and we're looking.

18:30Gary Lipovetsky: At ZocDoc, we know you care about your health. You wouldn't do that early morning cardio if you didn't. So the fact that your annual physical is overdue just shows how hard it can be to get seen by a doctor. Sorry, that doctor's not a network. Press one for more options. You've reached us outside normal business hours. The next availability is in three months. But ZocDoc makes finding the right doctor easy. Download the app and search by specialty, insurance, and availability. Read real patient reviews, then book instantly. ZocDoc, ready to be seen? at social media as less of a source of entertainment and more as a source of knowledge.

19:06Gary Lipovetsky: And I think that as the platforms, as time goes on, both audiences and the platforms understand the value of consuming not only for entertainment, but also for knowledge. And so initially when platforms come out, they're mostly used for, the way that I've seen it, they're mostly used for entertainment. So you'll get a lot of these funny videos. You'll get a lot of these viral trends. Then you'll get a lot of people repeating and making their versions of those viral trends to get as many views as possible. But then I really do see that migration into content that is more knowledge-based. More, you know, more, it's a different kind of quality.

19:46Gary Lipovetsky: Because there's still room, obviously, for entertainment. That's what I'm seeing in my feed. And if I had to guess, when I'm talking to my friends, that's what they're saying in their feed, too. so that the platforms are just becoming more of a tool for actual communication versus only entertainment. So that's what I'm seeing, and that's why I believe that all creators need to lean into expertise and developing their expertise. You have creators who are strictly entertainers, and there's nothing wrong with that, too. A comedian doesn't need to become a newscaster. yeah but in general i think the use case for social media has changed from entertainment to knowledge acquisition i agree and to back to the kind of headline where now it's the shares that are getting important like if you think about it even with aesthetics and if there's no value or messaging in the content that is created people don't share beautiful content they share useful content i agree with you today we consume in a different way and it continues to change right i think before it was just kind of a dump and people will spend hours and hours and in a way it even still the trickling of the covid days we really got consumed entirely with consuming online yeah and we are now i'm starting to see okay this is starting to trickle like to fade away and now we are obviously want to be entertained but we're also becoming uh much more aware of our of us sitting on technology.

21:18We want to be outside. We want to communicate with our friends. We want to build connections. And now all these platforms are becoming a place of like, give me value, give me content, expertise. Yes, but also just if you have a fresh point of view, if you can make me think, like if I leave feeling like, oh, I got something out of it, this is where it's at.

21:38Gary Lipovetsky: Yeah, I also think that, you know, if just going back to your question about what type of content is shared, just from examples from your content and my content kind of lately the most memorable ones have been you know the one with the cold plunge when i was in the cold plunge and you came out with identical shoes and asked me the difference between and apparently they weren't identical and so the the i believe that the care the the the sharing of cultural and relatable content i believe there's a high amount of sharing there because in that particular video there was the novelty about you know you who is my wife asking me and then I think all women will have a consensus that their husbands can't tell the difference between two completely different kinds of shoes that from a man's perspective are identical shoes.

22:27Gary Lipovetsky: So that was one and then the other thing is that you know just to kind of share like when you look at when I think about like culturally relatable moments the whole thing with the nails when I was telling you my buddy Craig who's my friend who I ride motorcycles with he was telling me how his wife came to him and told him about this whole thing that you're no longer doing your nails so just to give context i posted a video it really i really became a poster child for the bare nails movement i posted it in 2025 it had a completely different reaction to then what it became now because it resurfaced we brought it back because we saw there's an uptick again it's interesting how it's a conversation that i started in 2025 um and now in 2026 it became like the moment right so we brought it back and uh and yeah i think that it really went into all kinds of places but uh but yeah i agree it had like a cultural moment but but yeah but what i want to say is like you know you you call it what do you call it when you're when you're the art of noticing yeah right so i call it i've been calling it something different and I've been talking about this for a long time, is being an observer of your own life.

23:44Gary Lipovetsky: So that's what I've kind of called it. You kind of paraphrased it, but I've called it being an observer of your own life. And I think that's a very powerful thing because that moment in, and it's interesting because both of those videos that went viral for you, both of them were as a result of like there was no premeditation, there was no script writing, there was none of that. yep it's that being an observer of your own life where i was in the cold plunge and i heard you i heard your heels walking outside and i thought why is she wearing heels there must be something interesting about to happen because there's no reason for her to wear heels and then you showed up in your full like evening dress to go out that night while i was in the cold plunge um and so i recorded that and we just had our moment and you saw that the camera was running but i feel like you just ignored it and you were just trying to i had a problem i needed to solve i understand um And then the other one was you got a thought in your head, I think.

24:37Gary Lipovetsky: I think it was after you left the nail salon. No. Explain to me the genesis of that one. I was in the car and I was all done up. I was going to shoot something and I'm looking at my nails and I'm like, my nails are bare. And I was like, oh, shit, I haven't gone to the nail salon in a month or two. Like, oh, my God, now I have to go. You know what? No, I won't. I don't have to go. I like this. This actually works for me. It works with my – this is my thing now. Right. And I've realized after like making that observation, I then realized like, oh my God, the mental load, it took off not thinking about the next one and what I need to get and when and timing.

25:17And it was insane. So I made it all about that. So again, yes, you really have to learn how to go into the thoughts.

25:26Gary Lipovetsky: Well, so I have a question for you. What do you send your friends? A lot of millennial content. What does that even mean? I think that there's this universal experience. I feel like you're a little embarrassed because I'm asking you and you're thinking. No, I'm not embarrassed. I wanted to find the right words. It's a universal experience that a lot of millennials go through right now where we think that we're 24. You know what I mean? But we are. No, I don't know what you mean. Oh, okay. So we think. How does a 35 year old think that they're 24? it's just something in in in our minds i can't explain it i'm like oh we all think we look like we're 24 that we're like still super cool all of us are i mean the people that i send to my group is like all have all moms and stuff and it's just these small things that we're a little bit delusional about this phase in our lives because we're not in our 20s but we're not in our 40s we're like mid-step you know going to the next stage and it's just there's a little bit of a I'm not a girl not yet a woman so a lot of humorous yes shout out to Britney Spears a lot of humorous content like that or of course anything to do around like marriage or just to remind each other how amazing we are I mean a lot of humor but also a lot of education what was the last post that you can't stop thinking about that you've seen I'm still thinking about my post of when we were in Italy and I was hangry and you're like why are you doing this to yourself because it was really funny but I want you to know that I'm the content creator behind that not you you are the content because I saw you with your angry face and I was I didn't understand why you wouldn't have eaten all day but I want to tell you I have to I'm the recipient of all of this hostility because you didn't eat.

27:18But I want to tell you that you really took a bet on that one because it could have gone really bad for you. A lot of people in the comments were like, this is the question you should ask after she eats, not before. So you took a very, you know, I'm proud of you. I was very brave.

27:35Gary Lipovetsky: I'm in general a risk taker. You truly are. I married a woman 18 years younger than me, so I would say that I'm pretty open to risk. Yes, you are. Okay, let's move to the next one. creators in Cannes Lions. Have you been seeing what's going on? And so what I heard, what I heard anecdotally is that last year there were tens of, I don't know if this is accurate, but last year there were like tens of creators and now there's like hundreds or even a thousand plus creators. To me this year. And just, I mean, Cannes is like the largest kind of media event globally. And so to me, Cannes is a measurement of like whatever's going on in Cairns is a measurement of kind of the broader state of advertising and media and communication and content globally.

28:21Gary Lipovetsky: But yeah. This year creators didn't attend Cairns, creators became Cairns. It was absolutely insane to see. I don't think I know one peer that wasn't there. Everybody was there. And it really shows you this big shift that is happening where the creators are no longer just about brand deals they're becoming brands and they were there to put their brands out there they're becoming companies they're becoming brands themselves right and as a result of that there are companies that they're moving you know the industry forward so it was really interesting to see how all of this kind of transpired and i'm curious to see what it's going to be next year like i think it's going to just take over in general it's going to become the place for every media company and creator to be.

29:10Gary Lipovetsky: The way that we structured your career and the development of your personal brand back in 2017 was, I feel, somewhat, we kind of were trailblazing. 100%. You were kind of the first to, you know, put formal business structure behind it. But when does a creator become a company? I think that a lot of creators underestimating themselves still, because if you're managing editors, partnerships, communities, products, you're running a company. You know what I mean? You're doing so many things. Your hands is in everything. You're building a community while doing all of that. That is such an impressive thing.

29:49I think back to the days where I used to be really hesitant about explaining what it is that we do.

29:58Gary Lipovetsky: I remember you were very, you didn't want to you felt somewhat embarrassed to let people know that there's a whole organization behind you yeah and i think that a lot of creators are still kind of thinking about it in that way um you know more of like oh i'm a freelancer i'm a creator like more in those lines but i think that you see that the real winners looking at themselves as founders media company operators like that's where it's going so i think if you're doing all those things that i mentioned if you are managing like editors and partnerships and and products and all that you're a company and then the last kind of step is for you to acknowledge that you're a company a couple of things on that first of all i disagree with you that it takes all of the things that you just mentioned for a creator to become a company okay as soon as a creator starts putting out content consistently with the intention of generating revenue, they have now become a company.

30:56Gary Lipovetsky: A company is not defined by its scale. A company doesn't become a company because it has a certain amount of revenue or a certain amount of employees. It becomes a company, first of all, when it's registered as a company. So that's kind of the literal meaning of it, which all creators should be registering a corporation for themselves when they start. But it really becomes a company when the intention of the one and only employee being the creator themselves in the beginning when their intention is to create a product or a service which in their case is content to then monetize so as soon as that happens they're a company and i believe that when creators starting out consider themselves if they're taking this seriously and they want to become a personal brand at scale and with all of the benefits that are associated with that yeah they should consider themselves a company meaning a business right out the gates.

31:48Gary Lipovetsky: That's my take on that. You're absolutely right. And I think that the reason why we managed to build what we built is because you had the vision. You see, for me, I'm still like, these are these hard things that define a business. But I agree with you. I think it's mostly where you're setting your mind to. It's like, this is going to become X. This is going to grow this is going to roll out a business is a business whether it's one person yeah that's pre-revenue that's still working on creating a concept or creating value yeah to you know a publicly traded company with tens of thousands of employees worth a trillion dollars they're both still businesses they have the same intention they're just at different stages yeah so i believe that if a creator starting out if they want to achieve a certain amount of success financially they have to treat themselves like a business, not only from an incorporation and a legal perspective, but from the discipline that they need to have.

32:47Gary Lipovetsky: So I believe that a creator should be mostly an artist because that's where really their value is, you know, their value in being able to communicate with people at scale and get attention at scale, create attention at scale is invaluable. But they should have a business mind going into it. And if they don't have it, they should be starting to have conversations with people who are born business minded. But I want to point something else out to you. And, you know, we talk about when a creator should become a company. And it's a related, you know, topic that you and I discussed recently is that when people would ask you what you do.

33:20Yeah.

33:20Gary Lipovetsky: You know what I'm going to talk about now. When people would ask you what you do, you were very noncommittal and uncertain, even at your scale. Right? You were like, well, you know, I'm a content creator. I do social media. I do social media as like, you know, we'd be out meeting with people and people would go, what do you do? I do social media because you're being humble, you know. I don't know if it's, yeah, maybe. I honestly also just didn't really know how to articulate it. And then they're like, oh, let me take a look. And these are the people who kind of aren't familiar with your work. And then they'll open your account.

33:51Gary Lipovetsky: What's your handle? And you'll tell them and they'll look at it and be like, oh. And then they're kind of shocked that you just said I do social media. Right. That's the kind of civilians who aren't in the industry. And then you and I had a discussion. and I said, why do you keep playing small when people are asking you? I've seen you out with kind of titans of industry. I've seen you out with, when we're kind of in circles with entrepreneurs, like exited entrepreneurs who have sold their companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. And I see you answering this question, being like, I do social media.

34:27Gary Lipovetsky: I'm a content creator. What kind of content do you do? Mostly like fashion. I do like fashion and parenting stuff, you know. And that's kind of your demeanor. Ew. No, I'm sorry. I hope you're not getting offended. No, I'm not. And then I remember I said to you one time, I saw you do that. And then later that day, I was like, Valeria, you know, why are you answering this question this way? And you were like kind of like, you know, I'm not really sure. And I said, Valeria, okay, so you're a media company with 26 employees. So the first thing you say is you're a media company. The second thing you say is that you have an education platform, which is creator method with hundreds of members.

35:03Gary Lipovetsky: And the third thing you say is that you invest in companies. So the fact that you invest in rounds, in companies where you're investing alongside of massive venture capitalists, obviously not the same scale. We're not putting in millions or tens of millions of dollars into companies. You're doing all of this. So the one answer, and I think this is an important lesson for all content creators, is you can say, well, I do social media. I'm a content creator. Or I have a media company. I have an education platform and I'm an early stage investor. It's a very different thing. And then I saw you apply it on our last trip.

35:37Gary Lipovetsky: We were, we just got back from Italy and I saw the way you delivered it, which was excellent. And then I saw the response of the people around you. And I mentally compared it to the responses you used to get when you'd say, I do social media. I mean, listen, this is not going to become a psychological, a therapy session because yes, that's something that I had to learn and it took me a long time. I think it's something that not all women, but a lot of women that I've met where they feel like, oh, I haven't really. It's not just women. I do this. I was doing the same thing. Of course. I was making the same mistake as you.

36:10Gary Lipovetsky: I'm just pointing out that you did it. But I would do it too because it's a hard thing to describe, especially me. Like what do you do? It's a hard thing. I work with my wife. I do this. like yeah it's a hard thing to describe and also it's like in a way I'm waiting for this point to reach to get to where it's like so perfect that you like okay now I can say it where in reality it's already there we're already we're doing the thing I know but I don't want to like be one of those creators who like boast about money but yeah we literally generate millions of dollars every single year so for you to be like yeah but even if but even if you don't like If you're a creator making$50 ,000 a year, I want creators to understand how big that is.

36:52Gary Lipovetsky: It's so true. To go from somebody who has potentially no background in business, never had experience as an entrepreneur, doesn't come from an entrepreneurial family or an entrepreneurial background. To be able to generate$50 ,000 in a single year from their own independent work is, to me, mind-blowing. It's true. Because it's not the$50 ,000. I mean, the$50 ,000 is real money, but it's not just that. It's the fact that they now have the ability to scale that infinitely. You're right. I want to move to a really interesting and honestly exciting development in the industry, and that's Substack.

37:29I don't know about you, but this is all I hear about. I train my algorithm to really just serve me Substack content.

37:36Gary Lipovetsky: Sorry, on what platform? On Instagram. like how to first of all i'm getting i'm getting uh so many of these like sub stack coaches now everybody is like an expert which i think it's funny because i truly whoever's claiming to be an expert in something that just was created and like just getting developed like ai or sub stack i don't rush to be like this person knows crack the code it's constantly changing it's constantly changing but i would to me to me i believe that people should be learning from people who have done things absolutely so the fact that substack is new i agree with you but it's not so new that there haven't been people with results so there's a lot of people with results right so if the people so if the people with results yeah are trying to monetize their knowledge by selling courses on how to do it yeah and i'm okay with that but i'm also but no i'm not i'm not talking about this this is just a like a remark i made that i'm getting a lot of that content and it's exciting to me um but what i love about sub stack and i just joined it in a very um i don't know like hobby type of way i haven't really putting a lot of effort into it but it's something that makes me really happy because it feels like the opposite of instagram it feels like there's higher trust audiences are smaller but there's more attention span and brands are starting to pay attention i don't know if you've saw but balenciaga is now sponsoring sub stackers and they're really investing in you say sub stackers yeah okay i never heard that before subs i haven't i haven't done a real deep dive into sub stack but why does sub stack feel different for you this is why because it's just it feels calmer it feels more intentional uh it doesn't feel as performative like the ability to it reminds you there's a nostalgic feel to it of like sitting down and reading an article or an essay or you know people really can bring interesting point of views and bring you into their world in a larger way and I think even just the practice of sitting down and you have your like cup of coffee you're not scrolling you know and it's just like music in an app, this, that.

39:53No, it's like very calm. Um, and it's beautiful. I think that everybody's ready for it. You can tell by the numbers. I mean, people are making real money on Substack. Yeah. 20 ,000 followers on Substack equivalent to 3 million on Instagram.

40:10Gary Lipovetsky: Oh, I don't know, but that's a bold statement. How do you know that? I mean, I just pulled it out of my, but, but listen, think about it. You have email subscribers, first of all, right? Much more valuable than... But do you get to keep... So, for example, if you have 20 ,000 followers on Substack, can you go in and download a spreadsheet with all of those email addresses? I don't know if you can. If you can, then, yeah, it has a lot of value. Yeah, you own the emails. You own the relationships. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Also, the algorithm doesn't control delivery. So it's not like... For now.

40:47For now, yeah. But that's why it's a good time to be here. And there's ownership. There's a feeling of ownership, like I'm building something. This is a publication that I'm building and it's mine. And listen, email subscribers are portable. You know what I mean? That's why I feel like they're more valuable.

41:02Gary Lipovetsky: That's why I asked if you can download it. I would check into that because I haven't done a deep dive into Substack yet, but I would be interested to see if you can actually download that entire email list. And then you can take that to like a MailChimp or some other kind of independent mail delivery platform and if you can actually keep those. Yeah. And I think what is so cool about it is that it, you know, with followers, you kind of, it borrows attention, but with emails, you own the relationship. And it's, to me, I feel like on Instagram, I get to, people can discover me on Instagram, but on Substack, they can really understand me.

41:41Does that make sense? It does. Kind of what, honestly, blogging used to be, right? People used to be so all over the moon with bloggers, and it's coming back in a different way.

41:54Gary Lipovetsky: I do kind of disagree with the statement that you own the relationship with email lists. I don't believe that to be true because there's still an intermediary. So let's say, for example, whether it's Gmail or if it's like what I mentioned, like MailChimp or Constant Contact or any of these platforms, if you're sending out emails to people in one of using one of these platforms and if you're not hitting certain metrics in terms of open rates um they'll just put you in the spam folder yeah so i i don't believe you truly own that either it's you know what i mean like yes but i think that there's still definitely more than i don't know it's hard to quantify because there's still someone else whether it's gmail or constant contact or mailchimp who is still controlling if it'll get to the people that you, and those are spam filters, and we need that as people receiving that.

42:44Gary Lipovetsky: I want to have the spam filters. So I don't know that there's, I don't believe anymore that there's true ownership of audiences, whether it's email. Where I believe the ownership comes from is creating a lot of value in the content that you're putting out. Because if you create a lot of value in the content, whether you're sending it via Instagram, like you're posting to Instagram, or whether you're sending it by email, it's the value of the content that will allow you to continue to reach the audience to reach your audience right that's where it is yeah and it's not it's an asset that requires constant improvement unlike you know any other asset because if you have if you have an Instagram account you can say well you don't own your own audience and if they make an algorithm change they're making an algorithm change to deliver quality content to the people who are most likely to consume it.

43:35Gary Lipovetsky: So as long as you keep doing that, you'll continue to own your audience. And by the way, I, you know, I, I speak with other people in the industry. I speak with brands. I speak with a lot of people, you know, I'm in constant conversation and I, I get like this ongoing kind of message from people is that they're really surprised by the level of engagement that you have, right. In the level of engagement that you have in terms of like the average views per video, the, all of the engagement metrics, likes, comments, saves, shares, people are intrigued by how high that is for you in particular for a creator at your scale and the thing is is that you still own those relationships because you continue to iterate and you're continuing to improve your content but as soon as you start slipping and you have everybody has peaks and values your reach goes down yeah so i wouldn't like i believe that people really villainize platforms like instagram saying well they can make an algorithm change and change the way that you reach your you know audience or throttle you from reaching your audience you won't get throttled if your content i mean listen i think it's gonna be to your point it will arrive to sub stack at some point as well right now there's no pressure it has to of doing yeah it comes with the pressure that instagram has they probably have a chronological feed now yeah and you know i don't really push like i'm listen i still have a tiny audience there i haven't really done anything but but you also haven't promoted your subs i haven't really promoted i haven't really pushed I've been just writing as like an outlet for me, but it's been really interesting.

45:04I definitely want to put time. As an outlet meaning a creative outlet. A creative outlet, creative inspiration, you know, to get to ideate on other stuff.

45:13Gary Lipovetsky: So when it comes to Substack, are creators already too late? Not at all. I think right now is, it feels like gold rush right now, but I think that it's going to be like that for a while. What surprised you the most about Substack?

45:28what surprised me the most about substack is uh again this no pressure mentality like you get to enjoy what you create and take your time with it and not feeling like you're behind like on

45:39Gary Lipovetsky: other platforms does your audience behave differently on substack i mean i don't really have an audience to to speak of just yet so then hold on that leads me to another question you have the ability to go onto any new platform and immediately populate that platform with an additional with new followers you can port over from your highly engaged audience on uh on instagram yeah i have that advantage yeah but you don't do it because why aren't you why aren't you actively promoting your sub stack because right now i haven't been committed to sub stack i've been just kind of using it as a little like experimental place and i don't want to pour people into a platform where I'm not showing up, where I'm not showing up the way.

46:21Gary Lipovetsky: So I, I, I agree with that. I agree with, I, I'm a big believer in, I'm trying to, thank you. I'm trying to come up with the right term. Um, I would call it cohort maintenance, kind of roughly cohort maintenance. And what I'm referring to by cohort maintenance is that if you have an email list, if you have a Substack account with followers there, if you have an Instagram account with followers, if you are not maintaining that cohort of audience that are on individual platforms by sending them by constantly putting content into that into that cohort then there's no point in doing it exactly but even like within sub formats so for example broadcast channels on instagram yeah um don't create a broadcast channel on instagram unless you plan on consistently putting content out on a predetermined frequency and so i agree with you that because you haven't fully committed to Substack yet but you know what we're as a company you and I are at some point going to decide like it's on my to-do list for this month if you're saying it's as lucrative you made a statement with 20 ,000 followers you can make you know a meaningful amount of revenue then I would say we have to prioritize it and kind of you know look at your time and how we're how we're allocating it and then really allocated you know to Substack yeah so that's that's exciting um speaking of uh speaking of money forbes just released the highest paid creator list have you seen it i saw yeah i saw parts of it i saw parts of it um top creators collectively suppressed one billion dollars suppressed no sir surpassed top creators collectively surpassed one billion dollars yeah well i mean like mr beast alone is probably like hundreds of millions of that.

48:10Gary Lipovetsky: Yeah. But it's really not about the money because I'm not bringing this up to be like, oh my God, look how much money they made. It's really about what do they all have in common? You know, that's what's important to pay attention to. And this is the signals that I'm referring to that we need to look at, right? I've noticed, and I'm curious what you noticed, but people are getting rich by owning. A lot of those creators have products, IP, communities, obviously, equity, media businesses. At ZocDoc, we know you care about your health. You wouldn't do that early morning cardio if you didn't. So the fact that your annual physical is overdue just shows how hard it can be to get seen by a doctor.

48:51Gary Lipovetsky: Sorry, that doctor's not a network. Press 1 for more options. You've reached us outside normal business hours. The next availability is in three months. But ZocDoc makes finding the right doctor easy. Download the app and search by specialty, insurance, and availability. Read real patient reviews, then book instantly. ZocDoc, ready to be seen? Right. So it really is interesting because unlike previous years in the creator economy, I feel like now audience size is becoming one of the least interesting metrics because I see creators that are, by the way, on that list with smaller audiences. I'm not talking Mr.

49:28Beast. I'm talking about maybe when I say smaller, you know, relatively like 2 million, 3 million, 4 million on that list. One of the top earners creator wise. So it just shows you how how these specific people knew how to turn their audiences into something larger, you know.

49:47Gary Lipovetsky: Right. But I think that. And I would I would I would be careful how I like I'm going to be careful how I deliver this message to people who are watching this. the the type of things that you just mentioned with people having their own product lines you know even with us with our education platform with creator method those are all monetization tools yeah but what those creators do is they continue to focus on content they continue to focus on content they continue to focus on growing their attention and their personal brands you can have very robust monetization engines whether it's a course or a community or a product the cpg brand whatever it may be a consulting firm whatever it may be you can have all of these vessels if you are not feeding the top of the funnel through the constant acquisition of attention and the maintenance of attention really maintenance meaning nurturing relationships with people yeah none of that will matter and so my question to you is what do the richest creators know that the rest of the creators don't know well i have to i have two kind of sides to it to your point i agree if you take your kind of eye off the creative and uh honestly the biggest metrics which is attention then you really don't have much but i do think that it's the highest paid creators are not necessarily the best creators i think they're the best operators and when I say operators I'm not meaning like they're sitting down and like looking at you know HR and and whatever like small little things that I don't even know about because I'm not in it but you are no you're don't do that no but I mean like you know the technicalities of like certain aspects of the business but when I say operators is like being able to bring like a vision a strategy like really explain and and strategize on how everything is building together you know what i mean to me that is part of operating a media company right so so it's not all disjointed it all kind of comes together in a cohesive way does that make sense this is what i think about when i think about best operators so if i were to answer the question of what do the richest creators know that other creators don't is they would understand that they have to keep their attention squarely on the content and developing their skills as content creators and knowing and knowing how to hire for the for the positions that are that are required to make content creation operational and to make monetization operational that's what i believe that the best content creators do.

52:39Gary Lipovetsky: And what I see is I see an attention drift that goes from creators who start out, they get scale, then their attention drifts into operations and monetization, and that's where they lose. So they start trying to monetize. Too early. It's not even a question of too early. It's not even a question of when they do it. The fact that they're a lot of the creators who haven't figured it out, look, we know creators who have huge audiences, is bigger than yours and they're not making money because what they've done is they've stopped creating content and they've become business operators but the reality is is that i don't know you can hire business operators but you can't hire creators but i disagree with you because what i see are content creators that are great content creators they continue to be consistent and you know they know their brand but they're not operating their company in a way that creates it's just valuable, like a valuable media company.

53:42Like I can explain it. You know, you can't really.

53:44Gary Lipovetsky: They are or they are not. They are not. They don't have the right people around them. That's also part of operations. I'm not saying that you need to be the one that is in the trenches, but you need to be able to understand what you're building. If you're only the artist, there's a lot of, I mean, listen, look at artists, you know, in the art world, there's a lot of starving artists because they don't know. They're starving artists because they're not good. they're not good they don't have talent that's why they're i disagree that's why they're starving i disagree i think that there needs to be the market what's interesting about creators is that there's the art aspect but you also really have to have an entrepreneurship mindset like those two in this world need to come together you have an entrepreneurial mindset but creators need to know their lane within entrepreneurship that's what they need to know they need to know their lane within entrepreneurship yeah when it comes to even yourself when you look at the your brand deals right you don't negotiate your own your own brand partnerships you're brought in once you know brand partnerships get to a certain level and let's say a cmo or a ceo or the owner of an organization that is making a meaningful investment into into into marketing with you if they want to meet with you or we'll call and say hey like you know we think you should meet with valeria but you've you've known that we we have our team doing it you know so that's yeah but it was the ability to identify that we were we started making money it was time to reinvest rather than continue being artists and you know being like this is what i'm talking about operator mindset right it's like mr b is bringing all these like specific people in to know what is that next iteration of that of his company those are things that i'm talking about you even the hiring process that's yeah it's being an operator is know that okay right now i'm out of my lane i don't know i know what to do i'm at my kind of you know at my uh how do you say it capacity at my capacity time to hire someone else so that's how i'm thinking about i think we're saying the same thing uh but we're gonna head into a rapid fire are you ready is the rapid fire me asking you are you asking me we can I'm gonna ask you and then you can shoot it back at me.

55:58Are you ready? Yeah, go for it. Okay, most overrated metric. Wait, let me do it again. Most overrated metric.

56:05Gary Lipovetsky: That's a tough one. I think all metrics are relevant. I wouldn't say there's really anything that's overrated. Maybe for this season right now, where we at? Nothing. There's nothing I can think of that I feel is not important. I feel followers are important. I feel views are important. I feel all of the engagement metrics are important. so to me I think they're all important I wouldn't say anything is overrated okay I don't think anything needs to be overlooked everything has value okay let me ask you this most underrated metric every metric plays its role in understanding audience engagement and the quality of your relationship with an audience so I don't think any metric is irrelevant I think some are more relevant than others so I think it's not a matter of underrated or overrated I I think it's like establishing a hierarchy of metrics.

56:53Gary Lipovetsky: I personally believe that the most important metric is going to be reach. It's the amount of views you get per video. And then after that, it's the combination of all the engagement metrics. I think those to me are the two major metrics. The other important thing it's harder to measure is the sentiment analysis. So when you have a piece of content that has a large amount of comments on it, really copying that entire comment set putting it into chat and asking chat like what were the emotional triggers that were that were activated here in order to you know to to have the audience engage the way that they did and then taking that and and learning from that and understanding so i think that's what it is what i love you so much rapid fire who gary doesn't know how to do rapid fire okay most underrated platform i'm gonna answer that sub stack although i think it's underrated not because it's not getting attention i think it's underrated because i don't think people realize how much potential is there but yet with the speed of information i feel like it's going to be up there very quick these next ones biggest mistake creators with 100k followers make Run after monetization too early and take their eye off of the ball from a content perspective.

58:13Oh. 100K, I feel like a lot of people, okay, I made it. I have 100 ,000 followers.

58:18Gary Lipovetsky: That's the first thing. There's no I made it, not even at a million followers or 10 million. Right. There's no I made it. There's no finish line. Well, there isn't because if you take your foot off the gas, then it goes down rapidly. So even if you have 10 million followers and if you're not iterating and if you're not putting out more content, then it's going to go down. So there's no making it in this business. biggest mistake creators with one million followers make not delegating okay explain not not hiring other people and trusting them to do the things that you as a creator should not be doing which is anything that is not really to do with creating more and better content okay which creator are you secretly studying secretly there's a few interesting things because where I'm at right now with my personal brand is where I started, which was very heavy on like fashion, family lifestyle.

59:12And that's what I build the platform on. I'm now changing into really being more engaged with things like investments and business and entrepreneurship and, you know, Substack, something where I can really deeper go into different topics. So I'm I have a few people that I'm looking at that are doing that in each category like I think Maggie's doing an amazing job with Maggie Sellers on Hot Smart Rich I love her love the podcast love what she's doing in her own way in the kind of investment and finance world with finance you know your rich BFF we love Vivian she's the best love what she's doing so just really seeing these badass women showing up in a very authentic and original way on their platforms it really inspires me to be like okay how am i bringing in these different verticals yeah i mean we're we have a

1:00:09Gary Lipovetsky: bias because we're mentioning people that we know and we're close to but like kim perel for example i think she's brilliant because kim does such a great job she has such expertise and she has real receipts from the businesses that she's created and then the way that she's able to integrate it with her like her aesthetic like she's so intentional with the way that she like appears from like a fashion and just a wellness perspective that combined and I find that whenever you combine kind of multiple disciplines I think that that's what I'm seeing real yeah I mean the girl that I don't know not the girl the woman I don't remember her name Jessie something with a yap challenge I think she killed it that to me is a very interesting case study just I think that that yeah you know in the education space so you see everybody have really like stars everywhere I agree and I wish for Jessie to continue to develop her personal brand and to get huge but what I'm seeing happen with Jessie is because the terminal like the the concept of yapping videos it's really the name that's trending because up until now they were called talking heads right so now they're called yapping so she came in she's at the right place at the right time yeah and I wish for her to or continue to develop her personal brand.

1:01:17Gary Lipovetsky: But that's different than developing a long-term personal brand based on who we just mentioned. You know, Kim and Vivian and Maggie. But I like how everyone, to me, with Jessie, it's just like, you know, her being able to read what's going on in culture, being like this is something that's catching or interesting. She went all in, amazing. Kim would just like how she brings forward her expertise, amazing, Vivian too with finance, you know, Maggie with investments. they're all doing something so I'm paying attention to people where I'm landing on their pages a lot of them I don't even know their names but I'm landing on their pages I'm like ah they they caught something like they you know because it takes to notice a little thing and really build on it that feels original fresh smart um so I disagree with that I don't think they caught something they're just being who they are authentically and it so happens that who they are authentically is resonating with people.

1:02:13Gary Lipovetsky: I know, but it's the way, I'm not saying caught something like they caught a persona. I'm saying they caught something where they have their interests, they have what they're good at and they have what they want to like build a personal brand on. You know what I mean? But it's obviously have to come from like an authentic place. Yeah, but what I'm saying is I don't believe any of them saw a trend and said, I'm going to go to where the trend is. Like Kim is an actual entrepreneur. She actually is the person who she appears to be on social media, just like you are so it's which actually leads me to the next question what trends disappears it's it's this what you're saying the trend of you know jumping on something and being like this is who i am and it's going to sustain some like a long-term thing it i feel like there were a few creators uh throughout the years that were really like just jumping all over all around and that i see is actually disappearing people are really taking the time now to invest build and really expand what that personal brand is and they're not scared of how long it takes before again there's still some people that are chasing after virality but now people really understand that there's longevity to this game and what can happen in 10 years if they put their heads down and build okay what's exploding expertise driven content and in real life events the return to analog which is in real life events so those two things is expertise driven content and actual in real life events i believe are going to explode yeah starts on platform um but then it migrates to off platform i love that it became a term in life events like we're in real life events where it's just like being human in society, going out and seeing people?

1:03:58Just the basics. Do you have a prediction for Instagram?

1:04:02Gary Lipovetsky: Yeah, I mean, as the platform continues to mature, which I feel it's pretty close to full maturation, as it continues to mature, it will be more knowledge-based, practical content that is going to be populating the platform. There's something else about Instagram that I want to make an observation about is that when we look at Facebook and what happened with Facebook, obviously they're both owned by the same people. But what happened with Facebook is the generation of people who started on Facebook, Facebook wasn't able to, maybe at least in the United States, because I don't know a lot of people who are on Facebook.

1:04:42Gary Lipovetsky: I understand that by the numbers, they're still the biggest platform in the world. And I think that has a lot. It's because we didn't close our accounts. Well, yeah, but I think that I would guess that even by traffic, but those are countries like India who have like massive populations who are fueling that. But I think that what happened with Facebook being the first kind of iteration of a social media platform is they weren't able to bring in the new generation. And so they may have retained some of the older generation. And quite frankly, people my age are still on it. I'm not on it because I kind of, I think I'm more advanced from a social media perspective.

1:05:18Gary Lipovetsky: You're very advanced. Thank you. You're so smart. Thank you. But what I'm saying is, is that where I believe Facebook failed to attract new demographics, younger demographics, I believe Instagram will succeed in doing that. Because they've, what the people at Facebook have learned kind of, that was almost like a trial run for them, which is still massively successful. but bringing kind of that knowledge on Instagram and really concentrating on recruiting the next generation. And the other biggest thing that I see, which is the biggest kind of my prediction for Instagram versus just in general, but specifically with Facebook.

1:05:57Gary Lipovetsky: So back in like 2000, between 2012 and 2015, I had a business that was exclusively on Facebook. and in that business one of the things that I noticed is that Facebook was not supportive of creators they underestimated the value of individual creators and I believe it was too late like they couldn't bring the creators on and it was too late however again because it's the same people who own it they understand they've learned from that mistake on Facebook and so on Instagram they're highly valuing the creators and the biggest example sorry one sec the biggest example of that is the fact that Adam Mosery, who's the CEO of Instagram, he's constantly putting out content and he's really pulling back the curtain with Facebook.

1:06:36Gary Lipovetsky: I don't know what it's like now, but back then it was closed. They didn't want to tell people how to optimize. So actually, Facebook is actually a little secret place where people are making bank, just so you know. That's actually on my list of things to do for us as a company to put more attention into Facebook because yes they maybe haven't been able to attract now they're attracting with money so a lot of creators repost a lot of their stuff on Facebook and making very impressive numbers I've seen the notification on my yeah so that's very interesting like earn three thousand dollars now but yeah so I think that's how they're gonna get a little bit of traction until they're gonna find something that will be stickier but you know money always attract people in to me I want to move to tick-tock because I think that tick TikTok will continue to be the discovery tool.

1:07:25I think they really excelled in that space of like people going to TikTok to just really see everything and anything. And it feels very noncommittal. Like I don't follow people on TikTok. I just go to my explore page and just kind of see what's up, what's new, what's happening. So I think TikTok will stay that way. YouTube is one that I need to come back to YouTube. I love YouTube so much. It was the origin of like my, you know, social media journey. And we use right now YouTube for our Not Alone podcast. But I really think, you know, one of the biggest trends that are happening right now is these TV shows, right?

1:08:08Short form TV shows that's popping everywhere. That is, which by the way, Dharman really was ahead of his time. I gotta hand it to this guy. He killed it. So that is something that we'll see everywhere. I mean, there's a lot of deals that are happening right now with all these production companies to create the short form movies and series for Instagram and TikTok. YouTube is another platform that I think will really will see a lot of that. And I am excited to come back to YouTube and not in a capacity of vlogging the way I used to do, because I think it's just not possible with all the things that we do today.

1:08:44Gary Lipovetsky: I disagree with that, but OK. Really? Okay. But between the podcast and like kind of have a series where, you know, we have episodical once every maybe a week. Maybe I think week is crazy, but maybe every once, two weeks. No, but it's more of life. It's not like sitting down and talking. Is that not vlogging? It's vlogging, but not in a way where it's like, hi, guys. Right. So what I think we should do, we may or may not do it. But it's a different level of production. So I believe that this vlogging that you and I used to do, which, by the way, we had great numbers on that. Like, you had great numbers on that.

1:09:22Gary Lipovetsky: We are, like, the vlogs did hundreds of thousands and more. I know, but it was so much. I know, but what the difference is now between kind of what we were like back then is we were doing it all. So my prediction is when you talk about these kind of short episodical content, it has to be someone else filming it, or it's more like a Kardashian-esque type of cinematography. So if right now, let's say, for example, there was, you know, we had our, you know, episodical, because I'm trying not to call it vlogs, but like our reality show person who was following us around, and you and I would develop the skill of forgetting that person is there, and we were just living our lives, and, you know, you and I had a conversation this morning over coffee.

1:10:08Gary Lipovetsky: they would have potentially caught that or not if we decided that it's too personal you see this is my problem with that kind of thing it needs to be more not scripted but more thought through but it can be structured saying okay like nothing in the house or you know but following us around like so to have multiple days let's say in the course of a week that person would come they would coordinate with our team scheduling yeah okay i see that you already mapped all of this out i love this so much this is uh this is going to be for our next editorial ryan reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying.

1:10:44It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three month plan equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra default terms at mintmobile.com real meeting well let's talk about

1:11:07Gary Lipovetsky: it right after this because i actually think it's a good idea but let's discuss okay this is it this is it we are done how did it feel how did this debrief feel i like this i like this format um this is a brand new format that we're trying for the creator method podcast so for me if we can once a month aggregate kind of all of the news yeah and that's that's the you guys let us know what you think if you find it useful if there's any insights here because I think what I see for this is to your point a series where we once a month sit down I want to talk about the industry the industry is moving changing shaping the future and if you don't pay attention you feel like you're behind but I think that's something that we talk about naturally every single day in our household and I also yeah I also want to I don't know I'm wondering if it's applicable here but I also want to talk to brands too because you and i have the unique vantage point of we've done over a thousand brand partnerships in the course of the last almost 10 years so to bring to the brands on how to successfully work with creators to achieve their desired output it would be interesting to have those conversations here as well okay well it's time for lunch thank you guys for watching is it literally it's literally time for lunch are you is it really time for lunch that's a wrap oh You're about to pass away.

1:12:31Gary Lipovetsky: We have to save Arielle's life. Okay. Okay.