White House creator summit promises summit-y somethings

It’s really pretty in suburban DC this morning, so hello from a sunny deck where busy bees pollinating a tomato plant have me grasping for some sort of metaphor to make re: assembling the nectar of links into the sweet honey below. Okay. I said I was grasping. TL;DR: It’s a link dump, beyotch!

• White House hosts first (and possibly last 😱)creator summit: Just in time for the final presidential election push, the Biden Administration plans to welcome the creator folk all the kids are talking about to “discuss the most pressing issues within the creator economy today — including privacy, fair pay, AI, mental health, and more.” As WaPo points out, this isn’t the admin’s first “what-the-kids-are-into-online” rodeo, but could be a crucial one as creators have withdrawn their support in record numbers as a potential TikTok ban looms. Want to apply for a slot at the August confab? You can do that right here.

• Live together, die alone*: The always readable Simon Owens shares his thoughts on why we need to stop thinking of creator journalism as a separate industry. “…[M]edia companies [need] to stop thinking of content creators as employees and more like partners.”

• We are all creators now: At last week’s VidCon conference, YouTube Google released a new data set, tracking the shift in fandom from followers to creators. Why we serious journalism types should pay attention? Because 65 percent of GenZers surveyed consider themselves to be “creators” and that is a crucial puzzle piece in understanding the shifting hierarchical structure of how consumers view everything from credibility to parasocial relationships.

• Ethics & Standards Dept.: Creators for Palestine raised $1.6M for organizations working on the ground in Gaza. Mashable explains how it all came together and explores the line between information, advocacy and activism. While most of the creators involved fell outside the news space, this is one I’d love to some thoughts on in the comments thread.

• Your ad here: The advertising industry is continuing to find all kinds of value in marketing via creators vs. traditional brands, per MediaVillage. Again, it’s all about the ability to reach niche audiences who already have some level of trust in the creators they follow, leading to reliably higher conversion. All while paying creators a fraction of the cost similar campaigns would command in traditional media. It’s not quite this stark a comparison, but just imagine the price point difference of a Super Bowl commercial vs. a creator channel sponsorship.

For those of us stateside, happy Independence Day week. Sigh. I’ll be back Monday with a fresh set of thoughts.

(*I covered LOST for four years.)