For Creators, Everything Is for Sale
March 10, 2021 10:30 AM   Subscribe

Digital stars are coming up with new ways to make money. Yet fans still hold the power. Recently, a platform called PearPop has become popular for allowing fans to pay for interactions with their idols on social media. For $250, for instance, the TikTok star Griffin Johnson will comment on your video. If you don’t have $250 to spare, you can offer your best bid.
posted by folklore724 (52 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
> a creator can use NewNew to post a poll asking which sweater they should wear today, or who they should hang out with and where they should go. Fans purchase voting power on NewNew’s platform to participate in the polls, and with enough voting power, they get to watch their favorite influencer live out their wishes, like a real life choose-your-own-adventure game.

Choose Your Own Someone Else’s Adventure Mundane Experience
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:40 AM on March 10, 2021 [5 favorites]


The Toy, starring Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:47 AM on March 10, 2021 [7 favorites]


Yay I love living in a Black Mirror episode.

My employer already purchases 40+ hours a week of my life. If I could make that money outsourcing the small annoying decisions I have to make every day instead and have that time back to do what I want with, I'm here for it. Buy a share of do I eat froot loops this morning or frosted mini wheats, and let me spend less of my day in conference calls.
posted by phunniemee at 10:49 AM on March 10, 2021 [6 favorites]


This started out as porn, right? Or at least, paying a webcam worker $20 to stomp grapes with their bare feet? It seems weird that this isn't mentioned in the article. I guess I should be relieved -- no one ever does a great job talking about sex work anyway -- but it seems weird that they don't mention it at all.
posted by grandiloquiet at 10:50 AM on March 10, 2021 [6 favorites]


This stuff has been around for a while. In fact, I worked at a place back in 2011 that did pretty much exactly this as part of our larger offering, and one of my coworkers and one of bigger artist users got together and founded Patreon because of this concept.

It was a "watch a artist play a concert in their living room, from your living room" startup. And while fans would pay for the show and tip the artist for some interaction with the online crowd, they would absoultly open up their wallets for even the chance that the artist would call them via FaceTime or follow them on Twitter.

I once saw Jake Owen (young country music dude from Vero Beach, FL. I think he's in Nashville these days) make ~$2k in about 20 mins after tweeting out he was doing a show and then say "top tipper gets a phone call during the show!"

And this was in 2011 to 2012. Instagram was not only not owned by Facebook, it was iOS only. Hell, we even tracked all the songs that mentioned "Instagram" in lyrics (I have no recollection why we were doing this) and the grand total worldwide was 7 songs.

Anyway, artist to fan interaction is a trillion dollar industry, if you can figure out the right ways to do it.
posted by sideshow at 10:55 AM on March 10, 2021 [6 favorites]


Serious question - creator is a new term for influencer?

I've always enjoyed scrolling through Cameo.com and looking at the pricing. I'm always curious which celebrities think their time is worth $50 (hockey guy I loved back in the 80s) versus $300 (comedian I haven't thought about in decades).
posted by librarianamy at 10:56 AM on March 10, 2021 [7 favorites]


Serious question - creator is a new term for influencer?

I believe they are related, yes, but I too would love a more detailed breakdown. My expectation is that it’s a bit more all-encompassing: someone live-streaming on twitch and making money off of donations isn’t really trying to be an “influencer” but they are definitely a “content creator”.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:02 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


Serious question - creator is a new term for influencer?

Depends on if you believe Instagram invented the concept of Social Media™.
posted by sideshow at 11:03 AM on March 10, 2021


Serious question - creator is a new term for influencer?

Not all creators are influencers, IMO. Influencers are creators who use their online presence to do marketing. For example, a photographer would just be a creator if they're just known for the photos they post, but would become an influencer if they start influencing people to buy the same equipment or visit the same destinations.

Not all influencers are creators, either. For example, many famous actresses and models are influencers, but they're not considered content creators because their primary work is not through social media.
posted by airmail at 11:09 AM on March 10, 2021


creator is a new term for influencer?

I think it's a higher tier, like Jesus was an influencer, while his Dad was a creator. Granted the religion is different, but it's still all about worship I guess.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:11 AM on March 10, 2021 [19 favorites]


I'm seeing some of the more intellectual youtubers charging one way or another to answer questions.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 11:15 AM on March 10, 2021


> This started out as porn, right?

That's what I thought, too. It's like cam sites, only you're paying someone to wear a sweater instead of taking it off.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:17 AM on March 10, 2021 [7 favorites]


Sounds reasonable.

What's the difference between this and paying Facebook for ads? You're paying someone who has the attention of large groups of people to divert some of their attention your way. In this case, someone who creates content gets paid as well.

Social media is a business. Clicks are currency. Building a following is an arduous process that takes a shocking amount of expertise. I've been trying to navigate this mess for months now, trying to bring attention to a brilliant new invention that will change the world for the better and bring music to millions of people, but I really suck at social media. It's a whole professional skill set.

So, yeah. If an attention broker wants to put a price tag on talking to a whole bunch of enthusiastic fans with a set of common interest, that seems fair. I'm really not getting the outrage. There are huge barriers to accessing influential people, and this seems like a relatively cheap way around them that allows for safe interactions.
posted by MrVisible at 11:53 AM on March 10, 2021


Graham Wardle was or is doing this. be kinda neat to discuss spirit- logic but calculated the silence at 200CA$ an hour,.
posted by clavdivs at 12:03 PM on March 10, 2021


What's the difference between this and paying Facebook for ads?

As I read it this isn’t about one-person ad sales, it’s about charging for imitations of friendship.
posted by clew at 12:05 PM on March 10, 2021


If I pay someone $250 to write a comment, that's a professional service that I'm hiring a professional to do. If I pay an entertainer to call me up and entertain me one-on-one, that's also a professional service. The scale is different, but the results are the same; I'm not going to leave that interaction with a life-long buddy, or form lasting bonds of eternal friendship, and as long as it's not sold with those sorts of expectations, it seems like a completely legitimate way for creators to profit from the work they've put into building a following.

Would I pay Eef Barzelay to do a house concert? Absolutely. Would I think that incurred any other obligation from him because of the intimacy of the venue? No. Would I pay Simone Giertz to take a look at my inventions? Yes. Would I think she was my pal because I paid her? No. Would having a video clip of Simone Giertz looking at my inventions be incredibly freaking helpful to me, and worth a few hundred bucks? Well, yeah.

Social media is a business. Finding ways to monetize it that let creators get paid doesn't seem like a bad thing.
posted by MrVisible at 12:32 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


I’ll pay you $5.00 for the opportunity to tell you what a tasteless jerk you are.
posted by njohnson23 at 12:39 PM on March 10, 2021


It's a great gig if you can get it. Let me introduce you to Shamus the Insulter, who works at Renaissance Festivals. For a fee, he will insult (or compliment) the person of your choice. He takes your hand and insults the hell out of you. It's marvelous.

As a one-on-one experience with a professional entertainer, for a reasonable fee, I recommend it enthusiastically. I got sent a compliment once and I blushed for days.
posted by MrVisible at 12:44 PM on March 10, 2021 [4 favorites]


Social media is a business. Finding ways to monetize it that let creators get paid doesn't seem like a bad thing.

And what if you're a creator who doesn't handle parasocial relationships well? Or (and this is a concern for many female creators, I would think) you have fans who don't handle parasocial relationships well? What if you're a creator and an introvert? And so on and so forth.

The problem isn't creating paths to monitization - it's that we are creating paths that by their nature are exclusionary, as a replacement for the path of letting creators sell their creations. Worse, we ignore how these new paths are exclusionary.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:46 PM on March 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


And what if you're a creator who doesn't handle parasocial relationships well? Or (and this is a concern for many female creators, I would think) you have fans who don't handle parasocial relationships well? What if you're a creator and an introvert? And so on and so forth.

There's a whole set of youtube videos along the lines of "I let instagram choose my ____" which can be pretty amusing, and I can see this being a nice way to get extra money for that.

I follow a bunch of artists on youtube and I would love to see them get paid more for letting their fanbase vote on what color hair does this character have, or does this miniature cafe need a cake display or an outdoor umbrella table, or should my next sculpt be a character from an animated or live action movie?
posted by phunniemee at 12:57 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


As a creator and introvert who doesn't handle parasocial relationships well, or relationships in general well at all, yeah, I wouldn't want to do this.

But I'd take advantage of it to leverage the social media power of people who enjoyed this sort of thing.

The exclusionary nature of social media is already in full force, and we're seeing it manifest in a culture that's shaped almost entirely by people who know how to leverage social media. I agree that it's problematic; good ideas can come from people who don't take well to social media, and those ideas are being lost to society. If you're brilliant, but not good at self-promotion, you're probably never going to be able to get your ideas out.

But that's why I like this particular idea. I can't conjure social media wherewithal out of thin air, but I can scrape a few hundred bucks together and see if I can ride someone else's social media cred to get my ideas out there. It's still exclusionary, but now instead of excluding everyone except people with the ability to do social media, it's also including everyone who's got a few hundred dollars.

We need more ways to bring attention to brilliant works. This particular method is flawed, but it definitely has its uses. And hopefully someone creative will have the resources and the time to figure out a better way for the introverts among us to take advantage of this huge network of interpersonal attention.
posted by MrVisible at 1:03 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


I've always enjoyed scrolling through Cameo.com and looking at the pricing. I'm always curious which celebrities think their time is worth $50 (hockey guy I loved back in the 80s) versus $300 (comedian I haven't thought about in decades).

Same! Though I also see it as “I have no interest in doing this, but if you’ll pay this insane amount of money for it, for me, then sure, what the hell” - like, frankly, all of them should be asking for a few thousand more dollars just to see what the market would actually bear. Because this is already something that nobody needs, for money that can’t possibly help them that much.

Then again, what do I know
posted by Mchelly at 1:03 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


George: Now, listen, we can’t just go in there and plead “not guilty,” we have to have someone big behind us, our own private Matlock. So I made some calls and I got him.

Michael: Got who?

George: Andy Griffith. What, you never saw Matlock?

Michael: Not a real attorney, Dad.

George: Now, for ten grand, he’ll actually sit behind us in court and read the paper. For $15,000, he’ll actually sit at the defense table. For $20,000, he’ll twice lean forward

George: (Whispers.) and whisper something in your ear. Oh. White suit, that’s extra.

Michael: Boy, that’s an awful lot of money for the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:28 PM on March 10, 2021 [3 favorites]


Ten years ago some friends organized a game in which a stranger we didn't know would remotely control all of our activities for a day. I didn't realize our goofy situationist-inspired experiment was the future of consumer culture.

On one hand, this seems incredibly silly. On the other hand, I've paid the cost of 10s of sandwiches for VIP tickets to chat with radio artists and Star Trek actors for 2 minutes. I'm not sure this is actually much different.

But, it really needs to be taken to an absurd extreme to be interesting: "determine how I exit the building," "write a line I will say on late night television," "choose the country I will fly to today," "select the drug I will consume," "draw my tattoo," "name my child," "pick which body part I cut off," etc. I don't know who the living celebrities are today that could be counted on to actually fulfill the promise of the concept.
posted by eotvos at 1:35 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


And here I am writing comments in exchange for MetaFilter favorites.
posted by chavenet at 1:37 PM on March 10, 2021 [9 favorites]


UR DOING IT RONG
posted by Windopaene at 1:50 PM on March 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


"Fans hold the power?" Nonsense. Who owns the platform that is funneling people into these commodified interactions and what are their quarterly earnings? 'consumer choice' is power of the most minuscule form.
posted by StarkRoads at 1:56 PM on March 10, 2021 [5 favorites]


This started out as porn, right? Or at least, paying a webcam worker $20 to stomp grapes with their bare feet?

I don't think so, the idea of paying celebrities to do stuff for fans is as old as the entertainment industry. Anyone who's been to a con has seen all levels of "celebrity" willing to shake hands or draw something or whatever for a fee. This is just bringing that online, and I'm not sure why it's strange or even notable. Haven't there been like services where you can pay celebrities to call you or leave a personalized message or something for decades?
posted by star gentle uterus at 2:02 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


creator is a new term for influencer?

I think it's a higher tier, like Jesus was an influencer, while his Dad was a creator. Granted the religion is different, but it's still all about worship I guess.
posted by gusottertrout at 11:11 AM on March 10 [9 favorites +] [!]

This is the pithiest thing I've read in a long time. Shakes head in wonderment
posted by elkevelvet at 2:11 PM on March 10, 2021


So, we’re all gonna have an OnlyFans site?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:15 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


I've always enjoyed scrolling through Cameo.com and looking at the pricing. I'm always curious which celebrities think their time is worth $50 (hockey guy I loved back in the 80s) versus $300 (comedian I haven't thought about in decades).

I had never heard of this site before.

I guess you have to make your money wherever you can, but if I were a Grammy winning musician reduced to pre-recording some random dude's 50th birthday party message for a hundred bucks, I'd definitely be wondering where my life went wrong...
posted by madajb at 2:24 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


I've also never heard of cameo and am just overwhelmed by how depressing it is. I also completely do not understand the economics. Bob Saget is enormously wealthy ($50 million according to google), why is he doing anything for $350? It just boggles my mind.
posted by skewed at 2:55 PM on March 10, 2021 [4 favorites]


I had never heard of this site before.

The only introduction you will need.
posted by sideshow at 3:03 PM on March 10, 2021


Saget probably just sees it as a new experimental form of comedy to play with. $350 to have Bob Saget scream curse words at somebody? I can see the appeal there.

A friend's wife paid I think $150 for Debbie Gibson to sing Happy Birthday to him in a 30-second video. Say she knocks out 20 of those a day one day a week. That's $156K a year working 5 hours a day once a week.
posted by COD at 3:04 PM on March 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also, the comedy touring circuit has been kinda slow since...oh about March 16th, 2020.
posted by sideshow at 3:05 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


Also, the comedy touring circuit has been kinda slow since...oh about March 16th, 2020.

It would seem like a no-brainer for either Netflix or Prime to have started-up some form of “live” Friday night comedy shows on their services. That said, there is at least one recorded stand-up special on, I believe, Prime that is shot during quarantine sans-audience and it’s...um...not very good. It’s amazing how much the audience plays into a comic’s routine. With no one to play off of, it’s a pretty sterile performance.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:20 PM on March 10, 2021


Except for John Oliver.
posted by gottabefunky at 4:05 PM on March 10, 2021


I bought two Cameo's for a friend who's struggling through a year of cancer treatments. Both videos were a couple minutes long and oddly engaging. My friend watched each one dozens of times, and they were one of the only things that could lift her spirits. Definitely worth the money I spent.
posted by obol at 4:12 PM on March 10, 2021 [11 favorites]


Good to know that Joe Apraio's time is worth the same as a contestant on The Bachelor.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:32 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


A friend of mine got a himself a Cameo from Dee Snyder for for his 50th birthday. Dee was sweet and enthusiastic and he even sang a few bars of the Covid vaccine-positive lyrics my friend suggested for "We're Not Gonna Take It.*'

Every person my friend showed it to lost their goddamned mind. It was delightful. That $250 bought an awful lot of joy.


*("We're All Gonna Take It," obvs)
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 8:02 PM on March 10, 2021 [8 favorites]


And what if you're a creator who doesn't handle parasocial relationships well? Or (and this is a concern for many female creators, I would think) you have fans who don't handle parasocial relationships well? What if you're a creator and an introvert? And so on and so forth.

There is no "right way" or blueprint for being an artist (sorry, am I supposed to be saying "creator"?). This has always been true. I do not do social media at all and I make a living making stuff. I have colleagues who spend all day posting & running ads on social and think that is the key to a successful business. I have thoughts about that, and I'm sure they think I'm ridiculous for having zero social presence. But neither are wrong approaches and it's certainly not some kind of requirement. That's bullshit the media and advertising/social companies want you to believe - that you can't possibly follow your dreams, run your business, or live your life without their platforms and their terms. Let's not pretend any of these things are essential to what "creators" do - create things.

I would never pursue this kind of fan base and then attempt to monetize in it this way, but I'm also not the kind of person who would hire some rando actor on Cameo to do my voicemail recording. In general I think artists having more options for income - especially directly from the consumers of their work - is a good thing.
posted by bradbane at 8:37 PM on March 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


There’s definitely an assumption (and I’ve made it too) that everyone on cameo is sad and desperate, and not, you know, enjoying the ego stroking that comes from being popular and being compensated for that popularity. People are occasionally hate-hired, but I doubt that that’s the general experience.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:42 PM on March 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


In general I think artists having more options for income - especially directly from the consumers of their work - is a good thing.

Artist is not a synonym for celebrity, which is what Cameo and its ilk are about. Paying an artist for their work is good but entirely different than paying a famous person for being famous.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:26 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


That $250 bought an awful lot of joy.

I'm very much hoping that Dee Snider's lawsuit against Clive Palmer yields a lot more than that, and my level of joy (and I'm sure I will not be alone) will be directly tied to the size of the award.
posted by pompomtom at 10:46 PM on March 10, 2021


Cameo sounds pretty horrible, generally, but I can't stop scrolling through the list of its list of celebs. Davie504 paid for some cameos from assorted celebrities and put them on his youtube channel, and those were uninspired at best. But then if you read the reviews for LeVar Burton's cameo, some people are deeply moved by his messages, so I guess it just comes down to the quality of the celebrity.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 11:34 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


When I tell you the 180 that my opinion of Cameo did upon learning that LeVar Burton has one! Not too proud to admit I would love that.
posted by Emily's Fist at 12:39 AM on March 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


I took a look at Cameo. I wonder, is it like a market? If we all start buying from the same actor, will the price rise? I mean, GameStop Redditor Bros might wreak havoc with this.
posted by chavenet at 1:23 AM on March 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


The usage of 'Creators' in the title is subject of a strong dispute. By me. I dispute it.
posted by signal at 7:23 AM on March 11, 2021 [2 favorites]


When I tell you the 180 that my opinion of Cameo did upon learning that LeVar Burton has one! Not too proud to admit I would love that.
Thanks for the tip. My complaint about Cameo when it first came up on metafilter was that it didn't have enough Star Trek / Red Dwarf / BBC-mystery-show actors to be useful for the people I care about. That has changed a lot since I last looked, at least when it comes to Star Trek. The range in pricing, though, is incomprehensible. I suppose some of these people are probably also famous for other things. (To be clear, I'm not talking about Burton, who is obviously famous for many great things.) I hope someone's writing an econ thesis on this market.

That Cameo offers a financing option isn't surprising, but it does dampen my good feelings.
posted by eotvos at 11:01 AM on March 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


This piece talks a little about Cameo's pricing approach: they offer "price guidance" but ultimately let celebs decide. I suspect most in the $250-500 have elevated notions of what people will pay for a minute of their time, and the ones charging $500+ just don't want to be bothered for less than $500+. Cameo still feels more like an autograph than what they're talking about in the NYT's link, but I suppose I might be overreacting in one respect. As dystopian as it sounds, the social media fan service thing doesn't actually force creators to do anything. And since creators are ultimately in charge of editing and uploading their own content, the fans have a lot less control than they think.
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:38 AM on March 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


James Buckley from The Inbetweeners is making a tidy sum swearing at people on Cameo.
posted by Orkney Vole at 1:49 PM on March 11, 2021


Holy crap, Laura Jane Grace is on it! makes gun with fingers, points at head, pretends to shoot.
posted by signal at 2:16 PM on March 11, 2021


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