We’re Wildly Underestimating the Size of the Creator Economy

“Creator” has become an identity. Brands are still treating it like an occupation.

Last week, I found myself in the back seat of an Uber on the outskirts of Dubai, where I was in town for the 1 Billion Followers Summit, wedged between the CEO of a podcast network out of Nairobi and the founder of a private community where thousands of creators learn and build together.

In the front: two journalists-turned-operators who’ve been covering the creator economy since its infancy and are now building a creator-first media and intelligence company, an executive who’s helped creators generate nearly a billion dollars in subscription revenue, and the head of one of the largest creator economy agencies in the world.

Everyone in that car was on a slightly different trajectory, at a different stage of their careers—some were building their own companies, others were leading global divisions at established firms—but they had all internalized the same ethos: autonomy, ownership, building something on your own terms.

That’s when it hit me: “Creator” no longer describes how people make money. It describes how people see themselves.

The identity comes first, shaping how they talk about their work and what they believe they’re building toward.

New data from Dan Frommer’s latest New Consumer report, an annual deep-dive into consumer behavior, seems to reinforce this dynamic: 45% of Gen Z and millennials identify as “creators.” Yet only 38% of those have actually posted anything online in the last month.

What’s more, most don’t expect significant financial upside from pursuing the creator path: according to the report, very few believe the typical creator earns six figures, let alone millions.

At first glance, that gap seems contradictory. But we’ve seen this pattern before.

In 2013, 66% of millennials said they “identified” as entrepreneurs, according to Forbes. In reality, just 3.6% of U.S. businesses were owned by someone under 30.

Today, "creator" follows the same arc: it's as much about self-perception as output. In other words: an identity before a career.

And because identity needs reinforcement to survive, it naturally consolidates in creator communities—spaces where people who see themselves as creators come together with those who are doing it professionally to learn and build alongside one another.

In today’s newsletter, I take you inside two creator communities—one in Johannesburg, one spread across 100 American universities—to examine what they reveal about the massive creator opportunity most brands are missing.