why has UGC become an MLM?

For weeks my for you page on TikTok has been flooded by creators telling me how amazing user generated content creation is, how it's the best job ever, and anyone can do it. UGC is a real job, and though it is not an MLM, the language and tactics these creators are using to describe it and pitch their courses and templates is very much raising red flags in my shenanigans meter.

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[nicole]

I'm a professional actor, and UGC has become a really annoying and somewhat disrespectful thing. Because of Covid, we film self-tapes instead of going to auditions in-person. The prevalence of UGC has skyrocketed since then. We are being asked to film ourselves in "reviews", skits, demos, etc. almost as often as submitting an auditions for real commercials. This includes taking care of lighting, sound, wardrobe, makeup, set, etc. It's a lazy way for products/brands to get commercials for their social media without having to pay professionals. It's really sad because the lighting designers, sound engineers, costume dept., set dressers, makeup and hair artists, let alone the crews are now being replaced by one person with an iphone and a TON of time on their hands. Covid hit our industry really hard, and people continue to suffer because of it. Brands should pay professionals instead of taking advantage of desperate, young, inexperienced actors who then unknowingly hurt the industry they are trying to break into.

[lisahoshowsky]

Adam Ellis, a well known artist/cartoonist (with 1M FB followers) was just approached by Wicked to make them free art under the guise of “Fan Art” for some promotion they’re doing. Wicked, which has made over a BILLION dollars at the box office felt it was okay to ask a person also in the creative industry to make them free art for the exposure of it. He’s not a micro-influencer but I feel this anecdote fits into the narrative of UGC and how it hurts all creatives and creators. Not just those looking to make a living in it either because you know when one creator says no to their disgusting proposition they’ll just move down the list until they find someone desperate or not knowledgeable enough to say yes and it hurts even those doing it for fun.

[marinemanaphy]

The Mike’s Mic x Swell Entertainment crossover is something I didn’t expect but was extremely happy to see

[ArtisticlyAlexis]

I'm just sick of our hyper capitalist society we're all stuck in now. Almost everyone online is obsessed with money & monetization of everything. Influencers are no longer care about their audience or the entertainment factor of their content, only seeing viewers as dollar signs. As a regular person, I'm just bored watching people shove their wealth or products their selling down my throat.

[crazyinnocentturtle]

Swell : be careful of UCG content
Me, a non content creator with no interest in making content: 👁️👄👁️

[imjustdandy]

UGC is just another way for corporations to get free labor by further merging the employee with the customer with the product.

[TheVirtualObserver]

The over-saturation of UGC is especially funny to me because so many of these micro-influencers probably think they’re “gaming the system” when in fact they’re being played instead.

[ramalam]

I'm a booktoker and it does genuinely feel like we're just a groupchat of booktokers liking each other's content, most of the time. There are a handful of big booktokers with 50k, 100k+ subs but the majority of us are in the 1-5k sub range just promoting books to other booktokers lol

[annaissodone]

I always say, when there are "guru"'s in the space, and a lot of creators that talk about the creator business, it means the bubble is about to pop

[halplease]

"...and then on Twitter, I'm considered annoying" 💀

[jspihlman]

Whenever you're being sold a program to teach you how they did it, just know they absolutely still don't do whatever they're selling you on and make money from the rubes who do the program. Also the reason they don't bother to build a brand first and then take advertisers for products they like/support is because they see a "get rich quick scheme" and want in on it with little effort on their part.

[yogoshun]

The internet has become as saturated, which is killing its appeal to me. I am getting more into reading lately because I know I won’t be advertised to in the middle of the book.

[kaduku]

This isn’t super related to the video, but it’s really cool how competent you are in this business. I don’t really follow anyone else who talks about the business of content creation, so it’s essentially a black box to me, but your info is super clear and well-spoken.

[jauwn]

I think this is part of the reason a lot of creators have moved towards Patreon / donations for 100% of their income, and make no attempt to do brand deals or advertising. People are sick of watching content by people who are obviously bought and sold to say whatever. Like you said, these examples you showed are people who's entire online persona revolves around promoting crap. People doing that is only going to bring down the value of advertising, as the average person sees so many ads on a daily basis that they don't even bother clicking anything anymore. But hey, what do I know, maybe people are buying stuff from these pyramid scheme UGC people and not just lying about everything?

[gaerekxenos]

Reminds me of how once certain "secrets" get out, they lose value almost immediately. Eg. An artist had a particularly desired art style with colored pencils (way prior to AI), decided to sell the technique in classes due to how in demand it was -- then got quickly replaced by all of his students and people who picked up the technique, losing commissions and the higher pricetag he used to be able to charge

[desertels]

Personal friendships/networks being used for advertising feels kind of dystopian

[Xpndable]

William's freeze frame skills at work 16:20 🤣

[emi.mp]

you're so right. we see the top 0.1% of creators winning, and it looks easy because we don't see the literal hundreds of millions of people who aren't winning!

[yourfriendlyneighborhoodsm]

Dang, I just learned about this in my advertising class and yeah, we had a whole unit on UGC. They’re really putting a focus on that now

[AnOtterNamedMoMo]

"On twitter I'm considered annoying" I feel that