What makes a great content creator?

Two years ago, while having lunch with my parents, my dad and I got into an argument over the societal value of content creators. My dad claimed he didn’t understand how someone making YouTube videos could be making so much money and what—if any—benefit they were bringing to the table.

I managed to convince him that societal value doesn’t manifest only in something physical, like a sold good, but that it can also manifest in something more virtual and cultural, like a content creator who is pushing boundaries of comedy.

But I couldn’t answer his other question. He asked how one can even know what a great content creator is when the only metric measuring their success is popularity. I knew that I had strong opinions of which content creators were good and which were not, but I couldn’t give him a good answer as to what actually made them good.

So, after two years of scrolling through Instagram when I really could be exercising, of watching YouTube videos at 2 a.m. when I really could be sleeping, of reading interviews with content creators when I really could be doing meal prep for the upcoming week, I think I finally have an answer to my dad’s question.

Very good content creators have at least two of the following: depth, relevance, and novelty. Great content creators have all three. I’ll call these three pillars “The Venn Diagram of Content Creators.”

The Venn Diagram of Content Creators: Depth, Relevance, Novelty

There are a lot of content creators out there. The decent ones, those who attract at least some level of viewership, fall at least into one of these pillars: depth, relevance, or novelty.

Depth refers to the uniqueness or incisiveness of the creator’s content. It essentially answers the question: Will I learn something new or think differently about myself or the world by consuming this creator’s content? A YouTuber who offers very structured and honest film reviews that are different than those of mainstream critics would be a deep content creator. On the flip side, a YouTuber who offers reviews that are vague and very similar to those of mainstream critics would not be a deep content creator.

Relevance answers the question: Could many people be interested in this? I want to be specific here and emphasize the modality of this question. Relevance is not only about whether people currently care about the content, but it also speaks to the possibility that many people could care about the content if they were exposed to it. A talented photographer who documents lesser-known conflicts and crimes around the world on Instagram would be an example of a relevant content creator. While the subjects of the photographer’s content might be unfamiliar to the followers, the followers can still be invested in their stories. Conversely, a TikTok creator who reviews high-end ski gear would not be a relevant content creator. There will certainly be a subset of people who care about this topic, but the majority of the people will find it inaccessible.

Finally, novelty answers the question: Is this content something I have never seen before or is it presented in a refreshingly unconventional way? For example, an incredibly talented TikTok creator who does fantastic impressions of celebrities is not novel. Many people have done that for many years now. But, say that the same TikTok creator not only impersonates the celebrities, but dresses up to look exactly like them, and then publishes reels of demanding absurd orders at Starbucks as the celebrities–that would be novel.

Decent content creators are typically good at one of these three pillars. It’s the overlapping regions of the Venn Diagram, however, where very good and great content creators are found. The very good ones can be identified in the overlapping spaces of two pillars. And the great ones can be found in the overlapping space of all three pillars.

So, who are they?

The Very Good Content Creators

Overlap 1: deep, relevant, but not novel

The first category of very good content creators is the overlap of those creators whose content is both deep and relevant, but not novel. In most cases, these content creators appeal to wider audiences because their content showcases ideas or discussions that most of us care about or are at least somewhat interested in. These creators also typically offer unique and incisive insight in their content.

The content and its presentation, however, are not necessarily novel. Product reviews, styling inspiration, fashion advice, and art are typical examples of this: they can be incisive and unique but not novel.

I love fashion, so I follow a few content creators whose Instagrams and YouTube channels are great examples of this intersection. Nick Wooster, for instance, has been a popular style icon among men because he seamlessly achieves depth and relevance in his content. Insta photos of well-dressed men are not in any way novel, but Wooster offers something unique: cool and youthful sense of style against the backdrop of his admirable physique. And, that’s the catch. While the content itself is nothing new, Wooster’s personality and his curation of outfits offer something far more incisive—an underlying affirmation for young guys around the world that one can still turn heads, even in their sixties.

Other two creators I follow are Olaf Hernandez and Gallucks, two younger guys who take a distinctly futuristic approach to streetwear. As a result, while they are not relevant to the wider male audiences as much as Wooster is, they have quickly become an endless source of inspiration for city dwellers.

Hernandez, in particular, has a great eye for curating looks across the entire color spectrum, playing with exaggerated and contrasting silhouettes, showing how the neo-Y2K style can look refreshingly sexy. Gallucks takes a completely different approach; his outfits are usually far more monochromatic and reminiscent of underground London and Berlin clubbing scenes, but they are not replicas of those nightlife uniforms. The outfits instead take a far more bionic and far more approachable tone. On top of that, you can also find him on YouTube giving well-argued reviews of footwear, clothing, and fashion scenes across the world.

These guys are clearly not doing anything novel. But their talent, eye for quality, and sense of style put them above the rest and add depth to the endless universe of fashion content.

Overlap 2: relevant, novel, but not deep

The second category of very good content creators is the overlap of those creators whose content is both relevant and novel, but not deep. What that means is that these creators will typically not offer any unique or incisive insight in their content, but their content is usually relevant to larger masses and is presented in a refreshing, unorthodox way. My hypothesis is that this overlap tends to be the easiest target for criticism because “anyone could do it.” Which is, by all means, not the case.

One of my favorite content creators who falls in this category is Amelia Dimoldenberg, English journalist and content creator, known for her YouTube series Chicken Shop Date. If you haven’t seen it, the premise is very simple: Amelia and a celebrity guest meet up for a date at a place that you would most likely never choose for a first date—a chicken shop.

Now, some versions of this premise existed previously in American MTV shows, but what’s really novel about Dimoldenberg’s approach is that the final cuts of the episodes are quick, snappy, cringey, deadpan, and for the most part, actually have nothing to do with dating itself.

And, it’s absolutely relevant. Maybe you’re a Rosalía fan? You’ll enjoy the episode in which Rosalía tells Dimoldenberg she’s going to be her wingwoman while Dimoldenberg tries to break down what “peng” and “leng” stand for in English slang. Or maybe you don’t care for Rosalía but love Daniel Kaluuya? Then watch Dimoldenberg try to seduce him using zero facial expressions. Or maybe you’d rather witness Shania Twain’s chaotic mom energy while in a chicken shop? That’s an episode too.

You won’t learn anything new about these celebrities when watching Chicken Shop Date. But, the episodes are absurdly entertaining and strategically unconventional, which will catch your attention even if you have seen many other interviews with these celebrities before. So, don’t immediately discredit it. You try coming up with deadpan questions for different celebrities that will feel equally disarming and alarming. It’s not easy.

Overlap 3: deep, novel, but not relevant

The third category of very good content creators is the overlap of those creators whose content is both deep and novel, but not relevant. My opinion is that these creators get the shorter end of the stick in the online hustle game. They are typically a refreshing addition to the online world, because they offer unique insights and because they present novel content or at least existing content in a novel way, but because their content doesn’t appeal to the masses, their fandom doesn’t have as much expansion potential.

One of my favorite content creators in this category is AJayII, a YouTuber who produces videos of her live reactions to albums and songs, typically pop or hip hop. She has attained a cult following within the online music community for her genuine and formidably analytical reviews of music releases. While not musically trained, she is able to recognize quality and deconstruct that quality in a very accessible way for her viewers.

I loved, for example, that she amusingly kept complaining about Sia’s lacking enunciation in her reaction video to 1000 Forms of Fear or that she couldn’t stand Ariana Granda’s sweetener. She is certainly a deep content creator. I also think her method of evaluating music is novel; I don’t know whether other creators were recording live album reactions before her, but AJayII was the first content creator I discovered who was listening to the albums for the first time and reacting to them realtime instead of producing a post-mortem album review.

The catch is that only music aficionados actually listen to whole albums and care about the contextual significance of the album’s songwriting, production, and art direction. For that reason, someone like AJayII will probably not seem like a relevant content creator to a person who only occasionally enjoys listening to music.

The Great Content Creators

The full overlap: deep, relevant, novel

And, for the grand finale, we reach the full overlap. The great content creators can be found at the overlap of all three pillars. They are deep, they are relevant, and they are novel. This is by far the hardest space to reach, and I think getting there is a combination of talent and timing. Who are these unicorns?

There’s quite a few of them out there but my two favorite are Emma Chamberlain and Nikkie de Jager-Drossaers, more commonly known as NikkieTutorials.

By this point, Emma Chamberlain has become a celebrity herself, but even before her meteoric rise, her content was pushing boundaries. I remember discovering her for the first time and being initially dismissive, then intrigued, and then absolutely amazed. She was relevant. She talked about anything and everything, from existential life crises to the driest minutiae of her routine, which was also the first time I understood what “relatable” meant—I actually could relate to her!

Her style of recording and editing videos was absolutely refreshing to me, maybe even initially a bit disorienting but certainly catchy and addictive. And, while most people will say that there is nothing deep about what she does, I think Chamberlain’s content is anything but shallow. Just watch the video in which she drives around LA on a Monday, trying out different coffees, and offering amusingly entertaining and yet very incisive reviews that capture the misery of wanting to branch out only to realize that you just want to stick to the coffee you already know and love.

Everyone can do it, right? I really don’t think so. Just observe the people in your own life, or even yourself, and ask who would actually spend a day passionately trying out different coffees and getting absolutely absorbed in such mundane adventure?

Nikkie de Jager-Drossaers is a Dutch makeup artist who rose to fame with her YouTube makeup tutorials. Makeup instructions are not necessarily novel, but what de Jager-Drossaers was doing with her videos was absolutely groundbreaking at the time: essentially reverse-engineering celebrities’ makeup and then engineering them back for her viewers. I would also say her novelty then increased even more once she became more known and started having famous people on her channel, like Lady Gaga and Adele. To see public figures appear willingly without makeup and get transformed by a makeup artist was a huge milestone in our celebrity culture.

de Jager-Drossaers’ depth is unquestionable. You don’t need to understand makeup or even be interested in it to realize that she is definitely an artist. You could make an argument that relevance of her content is more gender-specific, but as the boundaries of gender expression have been relaxed over the last decade, many guys have also become more appreciative of makeup. As a result, someone like de Jager-Drossaers has become one of the defining content creators of the 2010s and early 2020s.

What both Chamberlain and de Jager-Drossaers prove is that occupying the space of full overlap in the Venn diagram is certainly a matter of timing, especially as it relates to novelty. But it’s important to note that novelty can’t be intentionally timed, and neither Chamberlain nor de Jager-Drossaers finetuned their rise according to some obscure calendar of success. What did happen is that both of them, being talented and hard-working and innovative, came a time when culture needed them the most. And they seized the opportunity to push cultural boundaries.

So, the formula to being a great content creator, I would say at least, is very clearly defined. What goes into that formula, on the other hand, whether that is depth or relevance or novelty, is most certainly not something that everyone can do. It requires a lot of talent, it requires a lot of hard work, and it requires a bit of luck and a bit of opportune timing.