NEW YORK (AP) โ It’s not just you. The word โdemureโ is being used to describe just about everything online these days.
It all started earlier this month, when TikTok creator Jools Lebronย posted a videoย that would soon take social media by storm. The hair and makeup she’s wearing to work? Very demure. And paired with a vanilla perfume fragrance? How mindful.
In just weeks, Lebron’s words have become the latest vocabularyย defining the internet this summer. In addition to her own viral content that continues to describe various day-to-day, arguably reserved activities with adjectives like โdemure,โ โmindfulโ and โcutesy,โ several big names have also hopped on the trend. Celebrities likeย Jennifer Lopezย andย Penn Badgleyย have shared their own playful takes, and even the White House used the wordsย to boastย the Biden-Harris administration’s recent student debt relief efforts.
The skyrocketing fame of Lebron’s โvery mindful, very demureโ influence also holds significance for the TikToker herself. Lebron, who identifies as a transgender woman, said in aย post last weekย that she’s now able to finance the rest of her transition.
โOne day, I was playing cashier and making videos on my break. And now, I’m flying across country to host events,โ Lebron said in the video, noting that her experience on the platform has changed her life.
She’s not alone. Over recent years, a handful of online creators haveย found meaningful incomeย after gaining social media fame โ but it’s still incredibly rare, and no easy feat for most to maintain.
Here’s what some experts say.
How can TikTok fame lead to meaningful sources of income?
There is no one recipe.
Finding resources to work as a creator full-time โis not as rare as it would have been years ago,โ notes Erin Kristyniak, VP of global partnerships at marketing collaboration company Partnerize. But you still have to make content that meets the moment โ and there’s a lot to juggle if you want to monetize.
On TikTok, most users who are making money pursue a combination of hustles. Brooke Erin Duffy, an associate professor of communication at Cornell University, explains that those granted admission into TikTok’s Creator Marketplace โ the platform’s space for brand and creator collaborations โ can โearn a kickback from views from TikTok expressly,โ although that doesn’t typically pay very well.
Other avenues for monetization include more direct brand sponsorships, creating merchandise to sell, fundraising during livestreams and collecting โtipsโ or “gifts” through features available to users who reach a certain following threshold. A lot of it also boils down to work outside of the platform.
And creators are increasingly working to build their social media presence across multiple platforms โ particularly amid aย potential TikTok banย in the U.S., which is currentlyย in a legal battle. Duffy notes adding that many are working on developing this wider online presence so they can โstill have a financial lifelineโ in case any revenue stream goes away.
Is it difficult to sustain?
Gaining traction in the macrocosm that is the internet is difficult as is โ and while some have bothย tapped into trendsย that resonate and found sources of compensation thatย allow them to quit their nine-to-five, it still takes a lot of work to keep it going.
โThese viral bursts of fame donโt necessarily translate into a stable, long-term career,โ Duffy said. โOn the surface, itโs kind of widely hyped as a dream job … But I see this as a very superficial understanding of how the career works.”
Duffy, who has been studying social media content creation for a decade, says that she’s heard from creators who have months where theyโre reaping tremendous sums of money from various sources of income โ but then also months with nothing. โItโs akin to a gig economy job, because of the lack of stability,โ she explained.
โThe majority of creators aren’t full-time,โ Eric Dahan, the CEO and founder of influencer marketing agency Mighty Joy, added.
Burnout is also very common. It can take a lot of emotional labor to pull content from your life, Duffy said, and the pressure of maintaining brand relationships or the potential of losing viewers if you take a break can be a lot. Ongoing risks of potential exposure to hate or online harassment also persist.
Is the landscape changing?
Like all things online, the landscape for creators is constantly evolving.
Demand is also growing. More and more platforms are not only aiming to court users but specifically bring aspiring creators on their sites. And that coincides with an increased focus on marketing goods and brands in these spaces.
Companies are doubling down โto meet consumers where they are,โ Raji Srinivasan, a marketing professor at The University of Texas at Austinโs McCombs School of Business. YouTube and other social media platforms, such as Instagram, have also built out offerings to attract this kind of content in recent years, but โ for now โ it’s โTikTok’s day in the sun,โ she added, pointing to the platform’sย persisting dominance in the market.
And for aspiring creators hoping to strike it big, Dahan’s advice is just to start somewhere. As Lebron’s success shows, he added, โYou don’t know what’s going to happen.โ
