what creators are learning and artists know 06.11.25

tom scott just released this video marking his return to some semblance of his old youtube content after 18 months and i am here for it. in the video he lays out some of his steps and where he's going with his content, but i'll leave that to you (reader) to watch the video (if it's still there) to understand.

the jumping off note for this post is a specific point that tom makes within the video. 'the general rule on youtube is that you always go bigger and numbers must go up and expenses must always increase...'

i believe that this points to the fundamental rift that creates a lot of misunderstanding within creator communities. by way of creating something that one loves, there is an inherent tie to the artistic and creative processes, but within the medium of 'content' the primary goal of that art must be to propogate and be shared.

on the other hand, artists are those who are enacting in acts of self-discovery in front of an audience.

creators are standing firmly in the middle of this and are being pulled and aligning with one of the two opposing heirarchy's of value (growth of content {economic} vs growth of self {artistic}). you can see all sorts of content creators (and artists of other mediums as well) stratifying this spectrum and aligning themselves with one heirarchy or another. there has always been an awareness for artists that this spectrum exists, but with the expansion of accessibility to creation, more and more people are entering this field and not understanding the place in which they want to align themselves.