Shill or Be Shilled: What the Creator Economy Says About Us

Another reset for the American Dream?

The promise of the creator economy taps a new vein of the American dream, particularly for younger people. In the post-2020 haze of institutional breakdown, AI, high prices and aggressive algorithms, the ring light’s bright halo is more alluring than traditional career paths. A 2023 Morning Consult poll found that 57 percent of Gen Z wouldn’t mind becoming influencers. It’s not like stable, dream jobs abound these days. Who can fault those folks for not wanting to “wear many hats” for the rest of their working lives?

It’s easy to see the appeal of being an A-list influencer or creator: the flexibility of entrepreneurialism, the lure of quick money, the pipeline to fame and influence. But how do you get there? The starting point for most creators isn’t “creating,” it’s selling. The road to success is commerce-paved with cheap Chinese goods, though maybe not for much longer.

The “dream” of participation in the creator economy is basically a roulette game: your shot at generational wealth without climbing the corporate ladder. It promises that you’re one viral hit away from your first million. Or maybe you’ll buy your first house through steady efforts to court brand deals and monetize your content: “flavored water” recipes with Poland Spring, Shein affiliate programs, cold-call sales warriors fueled by Prime Energy, or eating seven Chicken Cholupas in a Hyundai Elantra. You might even get lucky and become the next Alix Earle or MrBeast.

This is the middle tier—the bourgeoisie, if you will—of the creator economy. Their influence is in moving literal capital, not cultural capital. The backbone of this economy has been cheap, imported goods: Temu hauls, “organize my freezer with me” clips, “what’s in my bag for Rush Week.” Selling has become the means of propelling yourself up the ladder. Pushing product, whether you’re getting paid or doing pro-bono spon-con, is the name of the game—at least until you hit the jackpot.

Enter the Trump administration with its ambitions to remake the American economy with its AI-generated-image-and-tariff formula. Most relevant here is the attempt to institute trade policy, potentially bringing back manufacturing jobs like “screwing in millions of tiny little screws.” One consequence is that the cheap goods underpinning the creator economy become more expensive and/or harder to come by.

“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the Economic Club of New York in March, one month before the tariffs began on the so-called “Liberation Day.” We’d argue to the contrary; access to cheap goods is at least a significant, weight-bearing underpinning of the U.S. government’s de-facto social contract with the American people—if not the dream.

On the other hand, the “American Dream: Creator Edition” relies heavily on the consumption and sale of cheap goods in a way that hasn’t been broadly acknowledged or accounted for, either by brands or the creators themselves.

Tchotchkes, clothes and other future landfill imported from the likes of Temu and Shein, now threatened by the revocation of the De Minimis loophole and a protracted trade war, have allowed the average American to “shop like a billionaire.” They’ve also been responsible for enabling the creator economy and the trend ecosystem to rise at scale: selling viewers the idea that they can be part of a “subculture” and “niche community” with a TikTok Shop purchase.

The tariffs might just be the pin that pricks the bubble, but there are other factors in play.

“Is selling the most s**t the same as being influential?” We’d argue, no. “Trend anxiety” has placed a new premium on underconsumption and “de-influencing,” a popular talking point for over a year now. Coachella has become the World’s Fair for brands: an “influencer co-working space.”

Perhaps most importantly, people are getting bored.

Creators and brands have gotten away with trading consumption for culture, and trend for personality. Depending on how the tariffs shake out, we hope to see a natural course correction away from cheap goods and virality to influence based on stronger stuff than an affiliate link.

Living in America has always been a shill-or-be-shilled game, but this is a chance for brands—and creators—to do something more interesting than QVC.

Let’s take this opportunity to draw clearer lines between what constitutes real cultural equity and e-commerce masquerading as influence.

To quote Warren Buffet: “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked” … or in a disintegrating Shein bathing suit.