Gen Z built the creator economy... and brands are still trying to rent it

It’s pretty clear at this point that the creator economy is no longer a small hobby or side hustle.

It’s a $250B global force reshaping how brands build loyalty, drive engagement, and grow their businesses. Once dismissed as kids playing around on social media, it’s now literally the engine of modern marketing. Goldman Sachs predicts it could nearly double to an eyewatering $480B industry by 2027.

And behind this booming economy isn’t a platform or a corporate innovation lab. It’s a generation.

Gen Z, the first true digital natives, have transformed content creation from a niche practise into a mainstream career. And, in doing so, they've completely redefined how culture is made, shared, and monetised.

For Gen Z, digital consumption isn’t passive (like it is for the rest of us). It’s participatory.

These are digital tastemakers shaping culture in real time. A single TikTok sound becomes a collective inside joke. A random shower thought turns into a viral stitch. A micro-influencer’s offhand comment can start a whole freaking movement.

The heart of the creator economy is co-creation. Gen Z blurred the lines between audience and creator and built an internet culture that rewards participation over perfection. They don’t care if your content is polished. Actually, they’d prefer it isn’t. Because they care if it feels real.

The reason the creator economy exploded isn’t just because tech made it easier to publish; it’s because Gen Z made it desirable.

They replaced broadcast-style content with collaborative storytelling. They normalised user-generated content, remix culture, and creator collabs.

Where previous generations followed trends, Gen Z actively builds them. And brands, understandably desperate to tap into that energy, have spent the past few years trying to catch up. Often with mixed (and mildly humiliating) results.

This is where brands keep getting it wrong: Instead of listening to Gen Z, brands have been trying to speak like them.

Cue the corporate “it’s giving” tweets, the random lowercase captions, the faux chaos posts.

It’s not that these attempts are offensive… they’re just painfully transparent.

You can always tell when a brand’s trying to cosplay as culturally fluent instead of actually understanding the culture. And baby, I mean always. The irony here is that Gen Z can spot inauthenticity faster than an ad disclosure.

Brands keep mistaking participation for performance. They’re mimicking the language and aesthetics of Gen Z, when what they should be doing is just handing over the mic.

According to eMarketer, brands that want Gen Z’s attention need to show up in creator-led spaces, not brand-led ones.

Think TikTok collabs, Twitch streams, Discord communities, and UGC campaigns that feel like invitations, not directives.

Gen Z doesn’t want to be marketed at. They want to co-create with. They value brands that empower creators to interpret, remix, and play.

That means actually giving creators creative control, letting the campaign evolve organically, and investing in the ecosystems where culture is already happening instead of trying to build it from scratch (to no avail, I might add.)

Because the creator economy isn’t just a marketing channel. It’s a cultural infrastructure, built by Gen Z and powered by participation.

If brands want to stay relevant, they need to stop chasing the next viral trend and start building long-term creative partnerships within these ecosystems.

Gen Z doesn’t need your approval, your tone guidelines, or your corporate slang experiments. They already run the show. And by the show I mean the whole internet.

The smartest thing brands can do right now? Stop trying to rent their culture and start creating with it.

-Sophie Randell, Writer