{"id":5992,"date":"2026-08-25T21:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5992"},"modified":"2026-08-25T21:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T21:12:12","slug":"the-creator-economy-is-headed-for-500-billion-so-why-do-their-fans-feel-like-a-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5992","title":{"rendered":"The creator economy is headed for $500 billion, so why do their fans feel like a prison?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The artists who my colleagues and I interviewed as part of our research on content creators did \u2013 and many went on to question whether it was worth it.<\/p>

Read more OpenAI asks for more regulation from California after its own cybersecurity incidents prove just how capable AI is at hacking<\/a><\/p>\n

Mark, an illustrator with millions of followers, revealed a deep sense of dread about what was once his dream: to make a living creating art and sharing it online. (We used pseudonyms to protect the privacy of the people we interviewed.)<\/p>

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\u201cThe thing that I got right, that I loved for the longest time and now has almost become the bane of my existence, is creating relatable comics,\u201d he told us. \u201cNow, I\u2019m stuck \u2026 I would rather die than make relatable comics, but I\u2019ve built an empire of relatable comics. So what the (heck) am I supposed to do with my life?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ironically, the very thing that Mark felt he needed to fulfill his dream \u2013 a large, admiring audience for his illustrations \u2013 began to feel like a prison. No longer a distant or abstract entity, he now felt inextricably linked to his followers and their reactions to his work.<\/p>\n

As an organizational psychologist, I\u2019m convinced that Mark\u2019s existential angst is not unique, nor is it relegated to content creators. Rather, it has profound implications for anyone who cares about the future of work.<\/p>

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Although the strange oppressiveness of collective adulation isn\u2019t new, it is becoming far more ubiquitous \u2013 and insidious \u2013 in the attention economy.<\/p>\n

A \u2018chamber of despair\u2019<\/h2>\n

The pursuit of fame for fame\u2019s sake has become an almost banal pursuit in the attention economy. Content creation is, according to some estimates, a US$300 billion industry. Goldman Sachs projects it to grow to half a trillion dollars within the next few years.<\/p>

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Becoming a content creator has officially elbowed out old standbys like doctor and astronaut as the job that Gen Z and Gen Alpha most aspire to have. Countless online courses now promise to teach the ropes of content creation, while Arizona State University will be offering a new content creation major.<\/p>

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And yet, the realization of this goal often comes with unanticipated psychological costs.<\/p>

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The 54 creators we interviewed as part of our multiyear research project \u2013 visual artists and musicians with massive online followings \u2013 repeatedly described the unrelenting sense they had of being oppressed or restricted by their audiences, using phrases that involved contorting themselves into two-dimensional versions of themselves.<\/p>\n

One artist bemoaned that she had to \u201cflatten and suppress her real self\u201d to engage her audience. An illustrator revealed that she had felt like a \u201ccrumpled-up ball of paper\u201d for years. An otherwise chipper cartoonist likened her audience to a \u201cchamber of despair\u201d that nobody else understands.<\/p>

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Over time, we came to think of this condition as \u201caudience entanglement.\u201d It\u2019s a state in which creators become so psychologically intertwined with their followers that the audience begins shaping not just what they make \u2013 a phenomenon that has been referred to as \u201caudience capture\u201d \u2013 but also the meaning they derive from their work and how they understand themselves.<\/p>

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Audience entanglement plagued creators from all walks of life, regardless of age, gender or nationality. It struck musicians and illustrators, YouTubers and Instagrammers, self-proclaimed anxious wrecks and the freest of spirits. No single personality type or demographic was immune to the experience of a deep enmeshment with one\u2019s audience, and to its profound consequences for their creativity and well-being.<\/p>\n

Suffocated by a pressure to perform<\/h2>\n

Becoming entangled with one\u2019s audience meant that followers\u2019 reactions \u2013 whether positive or negative \u2013 often started to feel like a burden.<\/p>

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Creators described feeling hypersensitive to how their posts performed, and spending more and more time each day monitoring them.<\/p>\n

Then there were the comments. As Selena, an illustrator, put it, a single mean message \u201cwould ruin\u201d their week. While they recognized that they needed an audience to do the work they loved, managing it began to feel like a job in and of itself \u2013 and not one they signed up for.<\/p>

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At their lowest points, the creators we spoke to were not disrupted merely by the errant hostile comment. They described being unable to take in even the most effusive messages from their audience \u2013 the types of affirmations that had initially pushed them to begin creating in the first place.<\/p>

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\"Illustration<\/figure>\n
An adoring audience can be both a reward and a burden. Golden Sikorka\/iStock via Getty Images<\/figcaption>\n

One wildly successful creator, Maya, recalled receiving direct messages from fans that her art was the only thing getting them through death, divorce and other catastrophic life events. Maya experienced this profoundly positive feedback as being harder to handle than critique:<\/p>\n

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\u201cI didn\u2019t know how to really hold people\u2019s pain in a meaningful way, and I was also getting really deep criticism \u2013 and, in a way, I could almost deal with that better than praise. It\u2019s just a lot for a person to take on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As a result, many creators began to view this creative path they had once wanted more than anything as totally unsustainable. There was a tragic irony to this pain. The very thing that made their creative work possible \u2013 a large, mostly admiring audience \u2013 was also its biggest threat. The audience that allowed them to monetize their creations in the first place had now led to creative paralysis.<\/p>\n

Healthy boundaries, intentional engagement<\/h2>\n

Not everyone we spoke to remained forever imprisoned by their so-called fans. For some, the intense enmeshment they experienced eventually morphed into something healthier.<\/p>\n

The creators who shifted toward this dynamic did not stop caring about their audiences. Instead, they learned to develop clear boundaries around audience interactions and clarity on who they wanted to be online \u2013 what we called \u201centanglement management strategies.\u201d By limiting time and energy engaging with the platform, they were able to escape the prison of their fans and once again find meaning and a sense of authenticity online.<\/p>\n

As Charlie, an illustrator, explained:<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere is something about hitting this true internal place where, it\u2019s kind of a mystical thing, but some balance between being yourself internally and being yourself externally. There\u2019s some sweet spot there where you know what your audience is and what they expect, and you know where you as a person or creative person overlaps.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Having spent the better part of two decades researching the psychology of work, I believe that audience entanglement doesn\u2019t just happen to full-time influencers.<\/p>\n

The ability to cultivate and manage an online audience has become an essential skill in more traditional professions, like journalism, politics and higher education, with large followings sometimes becoming a prerequisite for, versus a consequence of, success.<\/p>\n

Most people will never have a thousand \u2013 let alone millions \u2013 of followers. But they\u2019ve probably felt some hints of audience entanglement in their relatively banal online lives: the addictive siren\u2019s call of rechecking a post as the \u201clikes\u201d roll in, or an idyllic afternoon with your kid ruined by a snarky comment from an internet stranger.<\/p>\n

While countless influencers offer tips for growing online audiences, little training exists for how to actually deal with managing the stress of having large followings.<\/p>\n

Previously, only the truly famous \u2013 actors, rock stars, pro athletes \u2013 were at risk of experiencing the anxiety of public scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Now, many of us are just one viral post away from its grasp.<\/p>\n

Julianna Pillemer, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations, New York University<\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/em><\/p>

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NYU’s study of 54 top creators finds a psychological toll researchers call “audience entanglement.” One creator said she’d “rather die” than keep going.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[237],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creator-economy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe creator economy is headed for $500 billion, so why do their fans feel like a prison? - Cross Country Moving Team<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crosscountrymovingteams.com\/?p=5992\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The creator economy is headed for $500 billion, so why do their fans feel like a prison? - Cross Country Moving Team\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NYU's study of 54 top creators finds a psychological toll researchers call "audience entanglement." 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