[Hur Young-joo's Creator World]
Happier as a creator than as an idol
Creating 'my own' and enjoying freedom to the fullest
The reality of creators: half earn 400,000 won annually
Giving up midway if you jump in with vague illusions

These days, when you ask young people what their dream is, they say 'creator'. According to a survey conducted annually by the Ministry of Education and the Korea Research Institute for Vocational Education, creator ranked 3rd in the list of desired jobs among elementary school students in Korea.

It's not only young people who dream of becoming creators. Recently, there has been a meme circulating about the "two biggest lies of office workers," which are "I'm going to quit my job" and "I'm going to do YouTube." While it's difficult to actually do it in reality, the desire to "quit my job and do YouTube" is something that office workers always have in their hearts.

The reason why so many people want to become creators is that they see a positive aspect of it, like a kind of fantasy where they can "have fun, do what they want, and make a lot of money."

There are actually many advantages to being a creator. First, unlike working in a company, you create "your own" things in a proactive way. In the era of "mass layoffs" where jobs are disappearing due to AI, the "my channel" that you have built on your foundation will be a solid strength.

Also, as we enter the era of the "creator economy," where individuals sponsor creators, a culture is becoming more active, and if you have your own "community" through your channel, you can create content and get sponsored anywhere in the world, living freely.

I used to be an idol and became a creator, and my quality of life and happiness have increased significantly since becoming a creator. Of course, my income has also increased more than 10 times.

The best thing about being a creator was having "freedom." The fact that I could create the content I like on the platform I chose and work with people I love was almost like a blessing. When I was an idol and belonged to a company, I couldn't release an album as I wanted or create a stage. I just had to wait and entrust my entire fate to the company. When I left the company and started working on my own, I created opportunities myself and felt an immense sense of self-efficacy and accomplishment.

There are many other advantages. The creator profession can be expanded into various professions. Thanks to becoming a creator, I was able to teach at university as a visiting professor at a young age, write a book on trends, and even act as a radio DJ, which I couldn't do during my idol activities. I also became an ambassador for international NGOs, received advertisements from global brands, and was invited by the US Embassy in Korea to travel to representative regions of the US, where I had the opportunity to interact with local creators in the US.

Well, those were the good things. The reason I was able to list these good things is because I am a creator with a total of 6.5 million followers on the TikTok platform.

Let's look at the cold reality. According to the National Tax Service's data on the income of one-person media creators (including YouTubers) released in early May, the top 1% earned an average of 713 million won per year. On the other hand, the bottom 50% had an average annual income of only 400,000 won.

Just like in the entertainment industry, the creator industry is also highly polarized. A very small number of creators make a lot of money, and the fact that the bottom 50% has an average annual income of 400,000 won shows that it is difficult to jump in as a full-time profession.

According to an anonymous creator, they have been uploading content every week for two years, and even though they have close to 20,000 subscribers, they have almost no income. They spend over 10 hours editing videos, and their monthly income is between 100,000 and 200,000 won, which means they can't even cover labor and material costs.

Becoming a creator and creating a channel is like "starting a business." Just like most businesses fail, creators are also more likely to fail. In the early days of platforms, there were fewer competitors, so there was a chance of success. However, nowadays, major broadcasting stations are creating channels with 10 cameras and famous celebrities as MCs, making the competition more difficult.

Even if you become a creator and gain many subscribers and views, there is not only a positive side to it. First, most creators around you with over 1 million subscribers often suffer from panic or burnout. In order for the channel to grow, you need to constantly put in fuel, which is content. If you have a growing channel, you need to supply fuel more urgently, and when you constantly grind yourself under pressure, burnout inevitably comes.

When you're burned out, you need to rest, but if you rest, your subscribers and views will decrease, and the algorithm will be "destroyed," so you can't rest. Then panic sets in and you have no choice but to take a break. You can resume your activities like before after taking a break, but your recovery may be slower than expected, or even if you return, the algorithm may have changed, so you may not be able to achieve the same performance and growth as before.

In my case, I experienced burnout after filming content to the point of vomiting for four years. I felt pain just pressing the platform button, and I felt dizzy when I tried to film, so I stopped making content for a while.

The channel quickly lost its strength when I actually stopped moving. As time passed, my body recovered, and I tried to return to my previous state, but it wasn't easy. I persevered and continued uploading content, and eventually it started to take off again, reviving the channel. I managed to create an upward trajectory again because I didn't give up, but looking back at the process of perseverance, it's a memory I don't want to experience again.

Another dark side of being a creator is that there are a lot of "pretty good but worthless" creators. This goes without saying for lower-level creators, but even having a lot of followers doesn't mean you automatically make a lot of money. There are many TikTok creators around me who have over 1 million followers but no income.

Especially if your channel grew through attention-grabbing or sensational videos, it's difficult to earn advertising revenue, which is the main source of income for creators. Advertisers consider not only the number of subscribers but also the "image" of the creator.

Instagram has lower advertising rates compared to YouTube and TikTok, and most creators have over 100,000 followers and good branding, but they can't make a living. So there's no need to envy numbers. There's a meme on the internet that says, "I wish I was rich and nobody knew me," but many people here are in a situation where everyone knows them but they have no money.

The last fatal drawback of the creator profession I'll introduce is that you're easily exposed to indiscriminate malicious comments, and you're judged and evaluated by the standards of a celebrity, while you can't make as much money as a celebrity. You can even become an icon of witch hunts, raising the viewership of cyber-bullying channels. If you experience something like this once, you're likely to have your mental health broken.

So far, we've talked about the pros and cons of being a creator, and the choice is yours. There is no perfect job in the world. And there is never anything free in the world. Growing one channel is like growing one business, and growing a business is absolutely impossible with just moderate effort.

These days, the slogan "Earn 1 million won a month through SNS" is popular, and many people are challenging themselves to become creators with inflated dreams. I wholeheartedly support the challenge itself, but I would advise you to abandon "vague illusions." I think it's essential to have your own channel in these uncertain times, but I want to let you know that running a channel takes a tremendous amount of energy. Let's challenge ourselves to become creators by knowing the pros and cons and facing reality.

※ The author of this article is me, and it wastaken from an article in Woman Economy Newspaper..