Hank Green took a moment to reflect on how social media has changed us. He started making YouTube videos with his brother, novelist John Green, in 2007, when the first iPhone was still in development, MySpace was still a thing, and Instagram didn’t exist. Seventeen years later, posting videos on the Internet is no longer a hobby; it’s a $250 billion industry. And yet the Green brothers remain two of the longest-tenured and most respected creators in the game all this time.
Now, in an age of addictive infinite scrolling and increased loneliness, Hank is left to ponder his role as a content creator. But Green is no ordinary creator. He has started so many companies and projects online that fans have created a website to count down the days since he started something new.
Green founded the crowdfunding platform Subbable, which was acquired by Patreon in 2015, and co-founded DFTBA (an e-commerce company for creators) and Complexly (an educational media company). He served as CEO of both companies until 2023, when he stepped down after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Fortunately, Green is now in remission. He even performed a stand-up comedy special about his cancer treatment experience. Because he’s Hank Green, not even chemotherapy can stop him from creating something new.
Green’s startup experience combined with his tenure as a creator gives him valuable insight into where the creator economy is headed. As the shortcomings of social media become more apparent, Green is thoughtful about the power and attention that creators wield.
Meanwhile, the Green brothers have shown that social media can be used to change the world for the better. The brothers have grown their fan base to millions and used their online community for good. They have raised money with Partners in Health for maternal health centers in Sierra Leone and persuaded pharmaceutical company Danaher to lower the price of life-saving tuberculosis tests. In addition to their main channel, vlogbrothers, the Green brothers have also founded Crash Course, a free educational YouTube channel with 15.7 million subscribers that has been widely used in American classrooms.
But for all the good the internet can do, it’s still isolating. If you’re feeling lonely, it’s much easier to keep scrolling through TikTok than to call a friend.
“I’m part of the problem. It’s not just the algorithms, it’s the content,” Green told TechCrunch. “I’ve been trained by algorithms and my peers to be very good at capturing and holding people’s attention. I hope to use that skill for good, but I also use it to distract people from other things they might be doing.”
The people who created Green’s phase have tremendous power. They can reach millions of people with just one click of a button. But they are making those connections in the realm of platforms, whether it’s TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram.
“I think I feel more powerful than[social media executives]because I’m more directly connected to my audience, and I see the impact in ways they don’t,” Green said. “When you talk to the people who are making these really big, important decisions on these platforms, they want to believe that they don’t matter, and I don’t have the luxury of believing that I don’t matter, because there are people who say, ‘You know, that video you made really hurt me,’ or, ‘That video helped me. ’”
Invest in creators
At this year’s VidCon (the online video conference the Green brothers co-founded and sold to Paramount in 2010), the creator economy is tackling the broader tech world’s spotlight. On the show floor, teenagers still dress up as Hatsune Miku and line up for meet-and-greet with Minecraft YouTubers. But upstairs on the “industry track,” things are different. Venture capitalists like Megan Lightcap of Slow Ventures detail their strategies for investing in creators, and MatPat explains how he became one of the first creators to successfully sell a company.
Every creator is a business owner, but Green goes beyond the norm. At a time when VC funding was booming in the industry, Green thought about investing in tools for creators, which makes sense given his background in founding Subbable.
“Honestly, at that moment, I thought, 'I should have done this. I should have started a fund,'” he said. “It's not that I didn't have other things to do… and I was lucky I was so distracted, because I probably lost a lot of people's money. Starting a business is hard.”
This is especially true in the creator economy, where there are a variety of creators who are constantly changing.
“Creators have such a wide range of needs,” Green said. “If you try to build a product that’s scalable and doesn’t cost a lot to personalize to each individual creator, you’re going to end up with a bad product.”
In some cases, VCs have decided to invest in creators as if they were individual startups. Others, like Spotter, provide creators with up-front capital in exchange for advertising revenue from YouTube’s back catalog. Green is interested in this funding model, but describes investing in content creators as “very antithetical to the Silicon Valley VC playbook.” That’s not because he doesn’t believe creators are good investments, but because creators don’t scale at the same pace as the kinds of startups that typically attract VCs.
“It’s just a regular investment,” Green said. “It’s not going to go up 10-fold.”
The creator economy is less of a buzzword in Silicon Valley these days, but the sector is still growing. Creator startups in the U.S. have already raised more money this year than they did all of last year, thanks in part to the AI boom that Green sees as a fad.
“My gut tells me that people want to connect with people,” he said. “The relationship with creators is already artificial in some ways… but I don’t think AI is going to be that good at building an audience.”
Creators fight against the power of platforms
Creators navigate the same challenges as any small business owner, but they’re also subject to the unpredictability of social platforms and the changing interests of consumers. These big tech companies are incentivized to drive as much engagement as possible, and when a small tweak to the algorithm means their video doesn’t show up on TikTok’s For You page, creators feel helpless. And when creators lose access to their accounts (sometimes through coordinated reporting campaigns by malicious actors), they’re less likely to reach out to someone on the platform for help.
Green attempted to form a trade organization called the Internet Creators Guild in 2016, but it only lasted three years, as the industry proved too fragmented to create a unified advocacy body for creators.
“(SAG-AFTRA members) are doing the same things for some of the same companies, but we all do very different things for the same companies,” Green said, citing creators’ reliance on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. “Someone who does textile art and sells on Etsy has very different needs than a musician.”
“There are a few things that everyone agrees on, like when an account no longer exists, there has to be a way to get out of it,” Green said. “If I live in a town and I start a business there, the town can’t come and put a bike lock on my door and say, ‘You don’t own that business anymore.’”
Even creators who watch their stars rise have the anxiety that they might not always be able to maintain their audience. This is the power that social media platforms exert over creators who make their apps worth our time.
“The bad thing about TikTok—that it’s infinitely fungible—is also the good thing about it,” he said. “People are really discoverable. Talent discovery has never been this powerful.”
Andy Warhol’s adage about 15 minutes of fame is more real than ever. Characters like Lisa Tissa, the “Hok Tua” girl and the Four Seasons Orlando baby grab our attention, then sign with talent agencies and try to turn their shining moments into full-fledged careers. But the speed at which these people are becoming household names, at least temporarily, is evidence of a growing anxiety among creators that their fortunes may be drying up.
And then there's creators like Hank Green. He was there when you were a kid struggling with biology, and he's still here when you show up on your TikTok with weird science facts. And hopefully, he'll stick around a little longer.
