Grace Xu, holding a compact mirror in one hand and an eyelash curler in the other, informed her approximately 300,000 TikTok followers that she was likely to be laid off.
In a follow-up clip, she confirmed her redundancy but revealed she had plans to switch careers anyway to become a content creator. "I guess the decision has been made on my behalf," she told viewers in the video posted earlier this year. "The universe has spoken."
Despite the US job market appearing robust, with employers adding 303,000 workers to their payrolls in March and the unemployment rate remaining below 4% for 26 consecutive months - the longest such streak since the 1960s - it offers little solace to the thousands who find themselves jobless.
Job opportunities have been largely concentrated in a few industries, while tech and finance have only added a small number of jobs in the last 12 months. However, instead of attempting to return to traditional employment, individuals like 26-year-old Xu are forging new career paths through online content creation.
They can earn money from brand deals and advertising by producing social media videos that range from educational to entertaining.
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"I think most employees look at employers now and no longer think that they are going to find security - permanent security - in a job," said Sarah Damaske, an expert in labor and employment relations, and sociology at Penn State. "I think it makes it less risky to do something like go and be a content creator because employment with a traditional employer is so much riskier."
In the booming $250billion content creation industry, Goldman Sachs Research highlights that only 4% of global content creators rake in over $100,000 a year. YouTube, often seen as one of the more profitable platforms for creators, boasts over 3 million channels in its YouTube Partner Program, which allows creators to earn revenue.
A spokesperson revealed that the platform has distributed over $70billion to creators in the past three years. On the other hand, TikTok, currently under the shadow of a potential national ban that could slash many creators' earnings, has experienced a 15% surge in user monetization, according to a company spokesperson.
Brooke Erin Duffy, a communication professor at Cornell University, pointed out that many individuals embrace full-time content creation after witnessing substantial returns from their efforts, or they may turn to it as a pathway back into the workforce. The pandemic saw a significant shift in work attitudes for individuals, as staff craved more autonomy over their schedules and the ability to work from home.
Nearly 440,000 in February applied to kick-start their own businesses, a rise of almost 50% from the monthly average of 300,000 prior to Covid-19, amongst them content creators, albeit a likely small majority. For creator called @amazingishgrace on TikTok, known as Xu, lockdown presented her with an opportunity to go back to hobbies she previously enjoyed. She began creating viral content hand-sewn thrift flips, amassing a solid following.
Even after leaving the banking industry to join the tech sector for a better work-life balance, she continued producing entertaining titbits. Last summer's job cuts led Xu to ponder if she should transition full-time into content creation, despite fears it might tarnish things she enjoyed by making them work-focused.
Her redundancy propelled this idea forward. According to Xu, "You just have to have this belief that, like, once your life is wide open for something, it will come," noting that "otherwise you'll drive yourself crazy thinking about it."
Another content creator, who goes by Pot Roast’s Mom on TikTok, described staying in her engineering job for so long because she was afraid of not having health insurance while also having to pay off her student loan. But when her eponymous cat, Pot Roast, died two years ago, she turned to content creation full time.
“Her death just like revealed, or I guess opened my eyes, to that I liked nothing in my life besides her,” said Pot Roast’s Mom, who goes by her username to protect her privacy. "And when she died, I was like, OK, it’s time to make some changes.”
She credits a network of supportive women within the industry for helping her transition from a conventional job to becoming a full-time content creator, by clarifying how to manage brand deal pricing and establishing income levels on platforms such as Patreon, which supports content creators through subscriptions.
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On TikTok, she's amassed a following of 1.2 million, with the bulk of her earnings last year - roughly $30,000 - coming from Patreon subscribers, complemented by an additional $10,000 from brand partnerships.
After watching a video where a fellow creator claimed to have made $200,000 from cat-related content in a single year, Pot Roast's Mom remains sceptical, suggesting such success stories are not the norm. "I think if you do something like this, you have to be ready to fail, ready to not make a lot of money," she advises those considering a similar path. "You have to be realistic."
Content creation as a career requires significant investment in terms of time, effort, and resources, notes Duffy. To achieve financial stability, creators often need to secure multi-video brand deals or sponsorships, which can come with long payment terms.
Some may even dip into savings from previous traditional employment to tide them over during lean periods. "The level of unpredictability when you're dependent on a platform is quite profound," she said. "Your success is dependent upon an algorithm or updated community guidelines or an audience that may or may not like you on any given day."
After being laid off from her brand marketing job in February 2023, Cynthia Huang Wang decided to dive into full-time content creation. She took her 164,000 TikTok followers on a journey in January, sharing a TikTok about her return to the workforce and updating her resume.
As the job market shows signs of improvement, Wang admits she's tempted by the prospect of a stable income. The benefits of maternity leave offered by a corporate role are also attractive as she and her husband mull over the idea of starting a family.
However, Wang has her conditions for re-entering the traditional workforce, including salary expectations, job title, and the nature of the work. "Going back to the office every day would be a nonstarter for me," she declared. "I think maybe like two, or max three, days because I still want to be able to create content. And I think going into the office every single day would really impact that."
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