It was during the year 2000 when our television sets were largely dominated by Saas-Bahu soaps that kept Indian audiences glued to it. The shows were aired at 8 pm that ran for several years and completed episodes nearing 2000. In those times, a teenager who had just stopped watching Cartoon Network had no other choice but was left to watch the daily soaps with family. The age group of 15-25 years remained largely untapped since the entertainment content catering to them was largely absent. The advent of inexpensive internet plans, affordable smartphones, short-form video apps like TikTok and Dailyhunt’s Josh, and the addition of video features on social media platforms like reel, FB live, YouTube live on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube respectively have changed the course of entertainment that has given birth to independent content creators, even from the rural parts of India as well. The emergence of such platforms has given the millennials and Gen Z to be vocal about experiences, knowledge, and opinion. Right from entertainment, education, DIY tips, gaming to news, the creator economy has personalized content that caters to the audience of various interests and motivations. 

This boom in the creator economy has now emerged to be a career option for many Gen Z and millennials since many big brands are collaborating with the creators.

The future of the creator economy seems to be bright in India since it is expected that the number of internet users will touch a user base of 974 million by 2025. An average Indian spends around 17 hours on such platforms each week, which confirms its popularity. 

The popularity in the creator economy can be attributed to the below reasons: 

• Easy creation of visual content using a smartphone
• The duration of videos being short: an average of 15 seconds to 3 min which is easier to consume.
• Hyper-customized content delivery
• Multiple modes of creative expression
• The minimalist vertical video feed, since 94% of the viewers hold their phone upright to which vertical videos occupy the entire screen grabbing viewer’s undivided attention

The content from the creator’s economy is based on the following facets: 

DIY or tutorial content

This content genre has witnessed immense popularity in the pandemic as out-of-home consumption reached an all-time low. Creators turned to create content that could help people do tasks on their own. For instance, cutting your hair yourself, create masks from your T-shirt, work from home makeup hacks, fashion hacks, etc. 

Entertainment

Indian population majorly comprises Gen Z that likes to consume and create short videos. Other than YouTube, short-form video apps like TikTok for their easy-to-use features and localized content were largely successful in developing content creators from tier-II, III, IV, and V cities. Though, the app was banned but, the creator economy being a lucrative one, led Dailyhunt’s Josh a short-form video app, an alternative to TikTok to raise a funding of $100 billion through a series H round from Qatar Investment Authority. Local language support is one of the key highlights of Josh, it currently supports 12 Indian languages. Josh currently has 77 million users per month and has over 1.5 billion video plays per day. 

Collaboration with brands

Brands that are big or small are now collaborating with content creators on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook because of their fan following and authentic content creation. 

Creating community

Human beings have an affinity to be in groups where there is a sense of belonging. From lifestyle to social commerce, and from health and fitness to mental wellness, users on most of these homegrown platforms are engaging and interacting with content that caters to their specific interests.