Is the future of media going it alone? There's still strength in numbers

Content creators are all about the individualism, something which established media finds difficult to replicate. But, collectivism has its strengths too.

by Rob Corbidge

Published: 15:43, 16 January 2025

Last updated: 16:25, 16 January 2025

As the age of the social media content producer pushes the boundaries of published or posted material ever further, it's worth reflecting on the difference between such operations and those of the more traditional media organisation, and also the similarities.

American "GunTubers" are interesting place to start. There is a small constellation of active and prominent firearms channels on YouTube and other platforms, with content intended for the many active hobbyist shooters out there, and also people who just like guns even if they have never so much as touched one.

Given that the nature of their material is largely shooting at things, preparing to shoot at things, and talking about what they've shot after they've shot it, on YouTube some strictures have been placed on the kind of things they're allowed to show. Guardrails if you like, in the awful current parlance.

Such rules are understandable, if somewhat arbitrary, given the possibility of what platform owner Alphabet could be on the hook for in terms of legal liability, if for example advice or information given on such a channel was used by a lunatic. Even association can be problematic, as prominent gun channel Demolition Ranch discovered last year when Donald Trump's would-be assassin was found wearing its merch.

Yet, as known by any of us who have tangled with the Terms & Conditions of the platform gods, such policies can change frequently and on a whim, for reasons often inexplicable to those who were building channels with complete respect to said old rules. 

As with any media or business reliant on other people's algorithms, engagement can be given or taken away. Or, in this case, entire channels removed.

The power of many

Knowing this, and realising how exposed they are to such platform-level decisions, so it is that some of these independent gun content creators have banded together to create their own streaming platform, where their audience can enjoy content unregulated by YouTube's policies, for the price of a subscription. One of them could not do it alone, but together they have the resources.

Effectively, they have created a media company - not so different to the media companies that the platforms seem to have been keen on killing off - albeit with a subject matter the platforms don't want to approach themselves. 

We might be in the middle of a cycle here.

The GunTubers aren't alone. A number of specialist history channels have also created a similar platform, and one of the largest tech channels, Linus Tech Tips (LTT), built its own "liferaft", called Floatplane, some time ago.

There will be others hedging against an increasing number of platforms. Whatever the outcome of the mooted US TikTok ban, for example, it's exactly the sort of scenario that promotes these considerations for creators.

The power of power

While thinking about this, I recalled one of my early experiences with The Times newspaper's legal department, when I was still a lowly trainee journalist in London.

It was a late Friday night, and on to the editorial floor materialised one of the paper's ever-ready lawyers, the room temperature dropping slightly in his wake, approaching our team to cast his eyes over some copy.

A few questions were fired out to the senior reporter and, inexperienced as I was, I assumed that this person tasked with understanding the paper's exposure to risk would probably suggest some softening of line or aversion of gaze within the article under discussion. 

In fact, quite the opposite. He expertly picked the story apart and went on to advise that certain aspects of the story could, in legal opinion, be significantly expanded upon or toughened up and still stand the test.

Producing impactful, contentious stories was the best of what the newspaper did, and I realised then just how much strength we had to achieve that by having experienced media lawyers on hand who would urge us to take our stories further, nevermind tell us if what we'd written was simply acceptable. It felt like a bit of a secret power.

Trust me, I'm an influencer

One of the most important ideas I've absorbed recently about the content creator age is the one of trust: an individual creator starts with zero trust from their audience, and needs to win that trust to become a regular go-to for an audience of meaningful scale. 

It's an organic process, but benefits from the largely one-on-one medium that social media presents to us. People are largely presenting themselves, and not some other entity, and as a result can be more easily taken at face value.

That's a real challenge to larger media organisations. Yet, as the examples above show, the strength in unitary action of people working together can protect against the wildest storms. 

If you look at the music charts, you will see a lot of individual acts and also one-off collaborations. What you won't see so many of is bands, in the old accepted sense of what that meant. This is plentiful evidence of the individuality of our age. Yet, if you listen to the notes used in those contemporary songs, you can quickly find a remarkable uniformity in very many of them. Probably always been that way, but still.

Individual empowerment is all well and good, but it's important not to discard the value of intensive long-term collaborative effort. The kind of effort the established media is still equipped to perform.