The Creator Economy and the promise it holds for Creators & Brands in Flanders
How the Creator Economy is still very nascent in Flanders, why Creators & Brands should embrace it and how I can help.
In October two of the most prominent fashion creators were invited by VISITFLANDERS, the City of Antwerp, and the MoMu to cover the fashion scene in Antwerp.
Apart from being a very inspirational exchange, it also highlighted how unexplored Creator Economy in Flanders still is.
While fashion in Antwerp has been covered by many influencers before, Bliss Foster and Odunayo Ojo of The Fashion Archive are actually part of a new wave of Creators, one that is fundamentally changing the nature of brand collaborations' and the very fabric of our middle class itself.
What makes these two gentlemen so different from more traditional influencers is not just their niche, which is accessible long-form fashion analyses on YouTube, but also the ecosystem they're part of.
Indeed, their brand doesn't just consist of a YouTube-channel, it also includes a thriving community actively engaged on YouTube & Discord and a sustainable business model enabled through Patreon.
Furthermore, the people who interact with Odunayo & Bliss aren’t just vapid followers who just drop a comment to increase their social capital, but rather equally passionate aficionados whose contributions are oftentimes as valuable as the content itself.
For brands, this means that collaborating with this generation of Creators in the right way also means opening a gateway to a highly passionate community.
By tapping into these communities, campaigns are passed along a chain of fresh and new perspectives eventually becoming evergreen content that also spawns entirely ideas and relationships for brands to use.
Sure, traditional influencers might give you more reach in absolute numbers, but engaging with the right communities will give you the type of authenticity and genuine interest you won’t find anywhere else.
My interest in the Creator Economy isn’t just limited to what it can mean for brands, though. In fact, what excites me the most about all of this, is what all these new tools and business models can potentially offer the new generation of Creators.
The reason why I started teaching, and why I teach specifically about Internet Culture & Online Marketing in the Media Unit at Thomas More University College, is because I believe my students are on the cusp of entering a new Golden Age.
Not too long ago young Creators would have no other choice than to work for a big media company or ad agency with little control over their focus. The influencers that did manage to become independent had no other choice than to do sponsorships with big brands in order to pay the bills.
Now, thanks to the way the Creator Economy Ecosystem has matured over the past years, Creators are finally able to double down on their niche and even become completely (financially) independent in the process.
This isn't a knock on brands, because I know how difficult running a business and accommodating to everyone's passion can be, but rather an observation on how the economics of scale has radically changed our society.
For a media company, trying to run a sustainable business with just tens of thousands of visitors and a couple of hundred paying subscribers will never work, but for creators focused on a niche, these numbers are all they need to become (completely?) independent.
And that is what the Creator Economy is all about: a sprawling universe full of independent niche creators and communities all connected through an ecosystem of platforms, ranging from YouTubers covering the obscure fictional history of the very peculiar Warhammer 40.0000 sci-fi universe to TikToker’s explaining the principles of math in a very accessible way.
For some people reading this, none of what I wrote above is new. But for a lot of brands and Creators in Flanders, the possibilities of the Creator Economy have just been barely explored.
Not that influencer collaborations are new in Flanders, but the number of companies that know how to tap into Creators and their community properly is just as sparse as the number of Creators who understand how much potential the Creator Economy Ecosystem holds for them.
Teaching at Thomas More has allowed me to cover the latter, but for the former, I’ve been feeling increasingly dissatisfied with how I’ve been positioning myself with my marketing agency Fadawah in the past two years.
Enter Voidwalker.
Digital marketing, creative digital strategy, community building, internet culture curation, … Over the years I’ve used many words and titles to describe what I do, but they always felt limiting or inadequate.
While I do think that’s inherent to the creative & digital industry, it’s also a sign of our times where “old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense.”1
So I gave up trying to shoehorn myself into one specific role, and instead decided with Voidwalker to position myself more as a guide, one that combines 7 years of experience in digital strategy, curation & community building to help brands navigate through the internet society, Metaverse, … or whatever you want to call the hybrid times we live in.
Just like the Guild Navigators from Dune are employed to find safe paths between the stars, I can help you traverse through our changing society.
I don’t have all the answers nor do I claim to be an expert on every digital trend. What I do offer is a sharp mind that makes unexpected connections, an empathic soul that naturally forges genuine relationships with people and communities, and a genuine passion for all the topics I’m interested in.
If the future is one big Void, then I am the person who can help you walk through it. All while connecting and inspiring you along the way!
To be honest, I wasn’t planning on shilling Voidwalker in this article. But since the project with these two Creators is at the heart of what I’ve always wanted to do2, I decided to use this opportunity to finally explain what Voidwalker actually is.
I’ve been struggling to describe it for almost two years, and this project really helped me find the right words. Internet culture, communities, fashion, … basically all the Voidwalker ingredients were present here.
I have no idea what the future brings, but I’ve never been so eager to explore it. What is Voidwalker if not throwing yourself into the abyss, embracing the unknown, and doing cool shit?
For this newsletter, however, I do have a plan! The goal of this newsletter is to cover the voids or unexplored opportunities that are out there in our ever-expanding internet society.
This edition focused on the Creator Economy void still to be explored by Brands and Creators in Flanders, and the next will probably go more in-depth about the different types of niche Creators and their ecosystem.
If you like to stay updated, you can subscribe via the button below. You’re also more than welcome to share your thoughts below or via DM!
For inquiries, you can email me at vince@voidwalker.eu or connect with me on LinkedIn.
This quote is from Ziauddin Sardar and refers to the post-normal society which is a very interesting way of looking at our society and just a very intriguing framework overall.
Important to note, though, is that I did this project for VISITFLANDERS in collaboration with the city of Antwerp and the MoMu. I work as a consultant for VISITFLANDERS and this project was part of the campaign for the reopening of the MoMu.
It might sound like a technicality, but I’m very strict when it comes to attributing the proper ownership of the projects I’ve participated in.
Moreover, Voidwalker is a state of mind just as much as it is the name of my agency. In fact, I’ve been a Voidwalker whole my life, I just recently decided to turn it into an agency for practical reasons.