Most responses were along these lines when I asked several people if they knew creator-monetization platform Patreon was sponsoring the first dedicated program for creators at the annual South by Southwest festival and conference in Austin, where I was a first-time attendee.
Held in March, the festival brings together thousands of people from the tech, politics, film, and music industries from around the world. I met young professionals who had traveled from as far as Australia and China to speak at panels, network at parties, and attend activations by global brands like Meta, Delta Air Lines, and Snapchat.
Themes at the conference ranged from climate to health to energy, but one of the most popular was artificial intelligence, which also had its first dedicated track, sponsored by IBM. However, many weren’t impressed with the sessions about how AI intersects with the creator economy.
During a featured session on Tuesday, the audience loudly booed a video where industry experts praised the merits of AI.
Here are three key takeaways from what creators were talking about on the ground at SXSW:
1. AI was very popular, but most panels failed to discuss the cons
The harmful impacts of AI dominated the conversation among creators at SXSW.
At the “Snap Sanctuary” house hosted by Snapchat, where attendees flocked to member’s club Pershing House for wellness experiences like yoga and sunset cocktails, I heard three creators in a hushed discussion about how AI influencers could put them out of a job one day.
Meanwhile, at a dinner hosted by creator startup Kajabi, fitness influencer and blogger Cassey Ho told me she’s never tapping into AI as it’s currently programmed.
“Models like Sora, it’s destroying humans,” she said, referring to OpenAI’s text-to-video tool. “It’s extracting our creativity and not giving back in any way.”
Moreover, during the official SXSW programming, speakers dodged hard-hitting questions about AI.
At a featured session on AI and humanity, OpenAI’s Head of ChatGPT, Peter Deng, avoided answering questions about the problems that AI poses, like potential adverse health impacts and safety concerns.
Instead, Deng focused on praising AI’s effectiveness in reducing people’s workloads, shared anecdotes from different users, and explained how he’s teaching his young children about ChatGPT.
“We love to see how people use it, and we’re trying to make the product better and better and follow where society wants to take it,” he said onstage.
In a session titled “AI in Video: Revolutionizing or Replacing Creators,” Vimeo product executive Zohar Dayan’s presentation similarly focused on the technology’s benefits.
“A lot of companies I know are actively training models to safeguard the content that can be generated,” he told me afterward. “For example, ChatGPT and DALL-E, if you try to create something harmful, it blocks you.”
2. Talk of a TikTok ban? Employees and creators are ‘bored’ of it
Outside SXSW, the conversation has picked up about a potential TikTok ban in the US, but there was radio silence about it in Austin among the TikTok employees and creators I met.
“We’re so bored of that topic, honestly,” said one of two TikTok employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern about facing repercussions from their employer. Their identities are known to BI. The sentiment echoed what my colleague Dan Whateley has heard from other employees who said they’ve felt “numb” to the renewed ban threats.
The staffers I spoke with said most TikTokers they know have figured out how to post and make money across different platforms.
Creator Kahlil Greene, known as the “Gen-Z Historian” on TikTok where he has more than 600,000 followers, said he’s posted across Instagram and LinkedIn for years, ever since he heard about the issues with the ByteDance-owned platform.
“I’ve been very intentional about fortifying myself against that (the ban) from the beginning,” he told me.
3. Creator spaces for specific marginalized groups were very popular
Gatherings for creators of color stood out to the attendees I spoke with more than the events by the big social platforms.
Asian Creator House, hosted by Always Be Creating cofounders Jerry Won and Justin Nguyen, organized a happy hour and a creator meetup packed with several hundred people. Talent managers like Mylen Yamamoto Tansingco spoke with creators, including Sam Li, who most recently starred in Netflix’s “The Brothers Sun,” about how to build their businesses while creators lined up to introduce themselves to executives like Kajabi’s Sean Kim and Patreon’s Sam Yam.
“I never get to meet people like this!” one creator, who traveled to the festival from Singapore, whispered excitedly to her two friends as she waited in line.
The Black TikTokers meetup at the Austin Hilton Hotel next to the Convention Center held a similar energy.
Tumi Brooks, a talent-agency owner representing artists and creators of color, told me not many conferences hold spaces like this — and it could go a long way in setting a new standard.
“I felt so safe walking in here and seeing everyone who looked like me,” she said. “The room is packed for a reason,” she added as dozens waited in a line outside the door.
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