https://www.noemamag.com/the-new-media-goliaths/
"One of the more remarkable artifacts of late-stage social media is the
indelible presence of a particular character: the persecution profiteer. They
are nearly unavoidable on Twitter: massive accounts with hundreds of thousands
to millions of followers, beloved by the recommendation engine and often
heavily monetized across multiple platforms, where they rail against the
corporate media, Big Tech and elites. Sometimes, the elites have supposedly
silenced them; sometimes, they’ve supposedly oppressed you — perhaps both. But
either way, manipulation is supposedly everywhere, and they are supposedly
getting to the bottom of it.
Many of these polemicists rely on a thinly veiled subtext: They are scrappy
truth-tellers, citizen-journalist Davids, exposing the propaganda machine of
the Goliaths. That subtext may have been true in last century’s media
landscape, when independent media fought for audience scraps left by hardy
media behemoths with unassailable gatekeeping power. But that all changed with
the collapse of mass media’s revenue model and the rise of a new elite: the
media-of-one.
The transition was enabled by tech but realized by entrepreneurs. Platforms
like Substack, Patreon and OnlyFans offered infrastructure and monetization
services to a galaxy of independent creators — writers, podcasters and artists
— while taking a cut of their revenue. Many of these creators adopted the
mantle of media through self-declaration and branding, redefining the term and
the industry. Many were very talented. More importantly, however, they
understood that creating content for a niche — connecting with a very specific
online audience segment — offered a path to attention, revenue and clout. In
the context of political content in particular, the media-of-one creators
offered their readers an editorial page, staffed with one voice and absent the
rest of the newspaper.
The rise of a profitable niche media ecosystem with a reach commensurate with
mass media has been a boon for creators and consumers alike. YouTube, Instagram
and TikTok have enabled sponsorships and ad-revenue sharing for quite some time
— spawning a generation of influencers — but patronage opened additional paths
to success. A tech blogger can start a podcast about Web3 with no
infrastructural outlay, reaching their audience in a new medium. A Substack
newsletter devoted to political history can amass thousands of subscribers,
charge $5 a month, and deliver a salary up to seven figures for its author. Pop
culture pundits can earn a living producing content on Patreon, and web-cam
adult performers can do the same on OnlyFans. Even Twitter has launched
subscriptions.
Whatever the kink — from nudes to recipes to conspiracy theories — consumers
can find their niche, sponsor it and share its output. This ecosystem has given
rise to people with millions of followers, who shape the culture and determine
what the public talks about each day.
Well, their public, anyway."
Via
Future Crunch:
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-clean-energy-aids-big-cats-africa/
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
