How People Became Products: The Commercialisation of People and How Social-Media Personalities Remade Popular Culture

“Influence used to be a title given by studios and labels. Today it’s a monthly revenue spreadsheet.”

The creator economy and influencer marketing have transformed attention into revenue with unprecedented speed. Platforms, brands, and creator-focused services have industrialised personal brands: creators now monetize intimacy and community through ads, sponsorships, subscriptions, commerce and equity deals. This shift has not only created new pathways to fame and income, it has altered who sets cultural trends — and how culture is made, sold, and consumed.

Key facts (most load-bearing claims with sources):

• The creator economy is large and rapidly growing: reputable market research estimates the global creator economy at roughly USD $205 billion in 2024 (Grand View Research) while other models put it in the $150–200B range — highlighting measurement variance but unanimous growth. Grand View Research+1

• Influencer marketing is a major ad channel — projected to be ~$32.6B in 2025 according to industry trackers, and marketers continue to shift budgets toward creators for measurable ROI. Influencer Marketing Hub

• The number of full-time “digital creator” jobs has surged — rising from roughly 200,000 in 2020 to about 1.5 million in 2024, an indicator of real labour-market change. Axios

• Academic meta-analyses show that social media influencers (SMIs) perform as well as — and in many contexts better than — traditional celebrity endorsers on engagement and purchase intent, especially for younger or niche audiences. journals.sagepub.com+1

From celebrity as sponsored image to creator as small business

Historically, celebrity influence moved through centralized gatekeepers: studios, labels, talent agencies, large media companies. Those institutions packaged, polished and placed stars in films, cover shoots and TV appearances — and money flowed via advertising, box office, and record sales.

The modern creator model flips the pipeline. Platforms built tools that let individuals publish, grow communities, and monetize directly. Instead of a studio scheduling a photoshoot, a creator posts a short video, sells a product embed, and collects revenue from multiple tiny sources. Those revenue streams — brand deals, platform ad revenue splits, subscriptions, affiliate sales, and direct commerce — collectively create the “creator business.” As this infrastructure professionalises (agencies, creator fintech, merch fulfilment, contracts), the person becomes a business unit.

“Creators behave like startups: test, iterate, scale, repeat.”— Pull-quote

The economics: how attention becomes cash

There are four economic mechanics that turned creators into commerce:

1. Direct monetization primitives. Platforms offer subscriptions, tipping, ad splits, and programmatic commerce links. Creators no longer need intermediaries to monetize a followership. (See Influencer Marketing Hub and platform docs for recurring-monetization breakdowns.) Influencer Marketing Hub

2. Measurable ROI for brands. Unlike billboard or TV impressions, creator-driven campaigns can be instrumented (UTM links, affiliate codes, trackable conversions); marketers can measure immediate sales impact and iterate quickly. That measurability attracts spend. Influencer Marketing Hub

3. Niche-scale economics. Micro- and nano-influencers deliver high engagement within tight communities. Scale many micro-campaigns across niches and you reach a powerful, targeted audience with efficiency that megastar endorsements sometimes can’t match. Academic work shows micro-influencers often outperform on engagement metrics. iircj.org+1

4. Platform power and productisation. Platforms don’t just host creators; they sell creator-facing products (creator funds, analytics, shopping integrations) and entire ecosystems of services (creator marketing agencies, merch platforms), turning attention into an industrial pipeline. Industry reporting documents a growing marketplace of creator-focused businesses.

Three mechanisms explain how creators can overtake conventional stars as cultural gatekeepers:

• Parasocial intimacy and trust. Daily posting and direct audience interaction create perceived intimacy. Followers often feel like they “know” creators in ways that studio PR can’t replicate; that closeness often converts to higher persuasion for recommendations. Meta-analytic research shows that SMIs perform very well on engagement and purchase intent, often on par with celebrities for certain categories and audiences. journals.sagepub.com+1

• Algorithmic velocity. Short-form formats and remix culture produce viral cascades where songs, products, or memes can spread within hours. Creators are both producers and accelerants of trend cycles; a single viral clip can create overnight cultural ubiquity. Influencer Marketing Hub

• Lowered gatekeeping and broader representation. Because publishing barriers are low, niche voices (regional creators, subcultural tastemakers, marginalized creators) can rise and reframe what “popular” means. That diversification fractures older, centralized notions of celebrity.

Positive outcomes are real. Creators can represent communities previously ignored by mainstream media; they can build livelihoods outside established industries; and they lower the cost of cultural entrepreneurship. For many creators, the path to a sustainable business means controlling their IP (products, courses, memberships) and avoiding jumpy algorithmic dependence.

Wholesale cultural innovation is now possible: micro-scenes (aesthetic movements, meme genres, subculture fashion) can leap into the mainstream quickly and often with far less institutional friction than before.

But not all that glitters is gold. The business model rests on monetising attention and intimacy, which brings ethical and economic hazards:

• Commodification of vulnerability. Confessional content and “authentic” glimpses can be powerful engagement drivers; monetizing them turns vulnerability into a repeatable product. Scholars caution that “authenticity” itself has become a commercial asset. Grand View Research

• Precarious incomes. Despite attention-grabbing incomes for a few dozen super-creators, most creators earn little. Platform revenue shares and take-rates matter a lot, and many creators face unstable incomes and burnout. The IAB’s employment analysis shows dramatic job growth but not equal distribution of earnings. Axios

• Regulatory and disclosure friction. Advertising rules are catching up unevenly; disclosure obligations, FTC-style guidance, and regional regulation (EU/UK) create compliance complexity. Creators and brands risk reputational and legal costs if paid promotions are opaque. Influencer Marketing Hub

Traditional celebrities remain powerful in legacy arenas (major motion pictures, stadium tours, traditional broadcast). The shift is less annihilation and more pluralisation: creators are new intermediaries that can sometimes outcompete celebrities for certain influence tasks (product sales, meme creation, trend incubation), while celebrities still dominate on global-scale spectacle and established entertainment formats.

“It’s not celebrity vs creator — it’s an expanded toolkit for cultural production.”

Look for:

• Consolidation. Agencies, creator funds, and fintech will consolidate creator businesses. Brands will buy creator-adjacent companies or sign multi-year deals.

• Off-platform diversification. To reduce algorithmic risk, creators will push to subscriptions, owned commerce and first-party audience channels. Influencer Marketing Hub

• AI augmentation. Generative tools will change content scale and raise harder questions about what audiences perceive as “authentic.” Exploding Topics

• Regulatory tightening. Expect more explicit ad/disclosure rules and scrutiny of platform practices. Influencer Marketing Hub

For creators:

• Diversify revenue; build first-party audience channels (email, membership).

• Treat trust like capital — monetization that undercuts community will erode long-term value.

For brands:

• Test micro-influencer funnels; measure conversions, not just reach.

• Factor creator authenticity into creative briefs — but validate with A/B tests.

For audiences:

• Enjoy creator culture, but be mindful that intimacy is often monetized.

The commercialisation of people is the cultural industry adapting to an attention economy. It opens doors and creates jobs — but it also creates new forms of commodification and precarity. Popular culture isn’t simply replaced; it's re-architected around measurable attention and micro-commerce. How that re-architecture is governed — by platforms, creators, brands, or regulators — will shape whether the net effect is emancipatory or extractive.

Industry-sourced charts & images (image carousel)

Below are four images pulled from recent industry reports and articles that illustrate the market-size and funding trends discussed above:

Sources (selected, for further reading)

• Grand View Research — Creator Economy Market Size (2024 estimate). Grand View Research

• ExplodingTopics / market syntheses — creator-economy valuations and projections. Exploding Topics

• Influencer Marketing Hub — Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2025 (spend projections). Influencer Marketing Hub

• Axios reporting on IAB report — Digital creator jobs jump (IAB/HBS employment analysis). Axios

• SAGE / meta-analytic studies — Do Influencers Influence? and related meta-analyses on influencer vs celebrity effectiveness. journals.sagepub.com+1