It’s almost midnight as we sit down to write this edition. We’ve been poring over Forbes’ (July 2022) current issue on top Indian creators and influencers. Is it Forbes’ first cover on creators? Only a few months ago, MrBeast was the first creator to be on Rolling Stone’s cover. With traditional (and iconic) magazines covering creators, the day isn’t far when we’ll see more creators embracing bigger things and covers.

What have you been reading? Do let us know.

On that note, let’s go through our weekly round-up of happenings in the creator economy.

In today’s Going Solo:

• Neil Gaiman on making art
• Discover a new creator: Fluently Forward
• Beyonce embraces TikTok
• Journalists covering the internet in search of meaning

Neil Gaiman on Making Art

Neil Gaiman is easily one of our favourite writers. Whether it’s his fiction or advice on the creative process — everything caters to the creator in you. There’s this tiny book called Make Good Art by Gaiman that is loaded with advice and thoughts on hard work and making mistakes.

A few lines that we dug from the book! 👇🏼

Interesting Creator on the Block: Fluently Forward

It’s 2022, so obviously, we rarely see blogs or podcasts that discuss celebrity gossip or entertainment news. At least not from the lens of a millennial creator, but Shannon McNamara is here to change that.

This 28-year-old creator from Manhattan has about 17.9K Instagram followers, but most of her stuff goes out on Substack and her podcast. She writes a great deal of satire on relationships, skincare, and New York City.

Interested in checking out this new creator? Head over to her podcast right away.

If you’re keen to read her work (it’s good fun), check out her website here.

Beyonce Embraces TikTok

And now her entire music catalog is available on TikTok. 🎵

Rolling Stone described this move the best: “Beyoncé isn’t two years late to TikTok, everyone else was just early.”

With about 3.9M followers and nearly 1.9M likes already, this move depicts a new mindset shift in the entertainment industry. Surely, we’ve all come too far from the days when artists wouldn’t enjoy making music videos for channels like MTV, but today, the only way to reach Gen Z or younger audience is through apps they use. Although let’s be clear: various musicians weren’t and still aren’t pleased with TikTok. But times are slowly changing.

And of course, who’s more ideal to lead the way than the Queen B herself! TikTokers obviously made the most of this moment and were found dancing to her tunes. In one of her videos, Beyonce even thanked her fans. 👇🏼

While the entire catalog is on TikTok, Beyonce’s new album Renaissance is also available on the platform. Perhaps this will inspire other artistes to launch their music on TikTok. After all what’s trending on TikTok and Reels is actually trending everywhere else.

Read more about this here.

Very Online: Journalists Scout the Internet for Meaning & Not Trends

“Ours is a period of increasing noise”, is how this piece begins, and that has us hooked! We’re living in times where anything and everything can become a trend. We mean people are donning blue-tinted glasses to make food look less appetising — so even before wondering why, we give up trying to understand certain things.

But this piece is quite interesting, because it’s a conversation with five journalists who search for meaning and not viral trends on the internet. Must be a task, eh? 🏋🏻‍♀️

You should check this out because it talks about how they use social media and navigate algorithms.

Five journalists on covering the internet in search of meaning, not viral trends