As Korea stepped into the smart phone world, posting videos in social network service has been a trend. With the increase in the number of sites where you can post videos, making and editing your own videos has become a favorite pastime, more interesting than uploading existing movies or TV series.
With the growing volume of contents posted, revenues derived these has grown as well, so much so that people have starting thinking they could make a living doing just that. This could be a job rather than a hobby, and this job is called “Creators.” Creators produce videos, which they then share online and generate money once they become popular. No topic is off limit. Music, cooking, sports, game, experiments, makeup, and others are hot contents.
How do creators get their money from? When you watch videos on social network services, you usually find advertisement before the video starts running; that accounts for a big part of the creator’s revenue. Also if creators do real-time streaming of their videos or audio recordings online they can get revenue from patrons or sponsors. Online content creators have risen up to get the attention of many people. But what are their advantages and challenges?
First of all, a creator benefits from cheap production cost and it is easy to make videos. For example, just with a smart phone, you can film and edit your video and it does not require special skills. So, making an online video is relatively less pressure than producing a traditional content for the mass media. Everyone can try to be a creator. Because, original mass media contents attract advertising revenue calculated according to the size of the audience, to target audience’s taste is paramount and, thus, the number of topics is limited to the very popular ones. Since production tools for online creators are cheap, they can explore a wide range of topics for video contents.
The second advantage online creators have over traditional video producers is that they are not constrained by topics, time and place. They can give free reins to their imagination and touch on any subject. They have control over aspects of the making of videos, such as coming up with ideas, designing, producing, editing, managing the page, etc. Many choose this job for this reason.
There are disadvantages or challenges being a creator, however. Some creators make videos that are very violent, aggressive or suggestive to draw viewers and subscribers. A few social network services try to monitor the contents and take action against some creators, but it is not easy to delete objectionable videos. Also, some adult viewers started to swear and make sexual jokes against the young creators. Afreeca TV, a famous Korean social network service, tried to get rid of all young creators under the age of 14, but a lot of young children started to use their parents ID to log in, so the attempt to clamp down was useless. So many people spoke out that there needs to be strict rules that regulates creators.
Another problem is that creators have today more subjects to choose from for their videos than traditional mass media contents because they are targeting 10-to-20-years-olds. So, videos tend to be mostly game, eating, cooking, and beauty product. But if regulations come about, they are likely to reduce the range of contents on offer. It means that the wealth of topics that are being dealt with by today’s creators, which is the biggest advantage of the system, will disappear if there is no more differentiation from traditional contents. It’s important to let creators unimpeded to keep making diverse ad unique video contents.
Creators can make their own videos in their own ways. But since children can be impacted by the videos they are watching, creators have a responsibility not to cross red lines. Some people choose this job because they can quit whenever they want. It may be the reason why so few creators pay attention to they need to be responsible. Since social network services operate globally, creator is a job that can bring together people from around the world. But currently they are only looking at the functionality of the job not what impact it can have on society. To make a better network system creators and users need to work together. Creator is a job that is rewarding and trendy these days, but it needs to be exercised with great responsibility.
