Soothing & personal content top draws for online audience in 2022 – Hybrid creators & communities to rule in 2023

• 65% of Gen Zs agree that content that’s personally relevant to them is more important than the content that lots of other people talk about, states YouTube.
  
• Fandom also emerged as a popular trend in 2022, with fans actively communicating and interacting online.
  
• The year 2022 saw multiple digital creators transition from social media to the silver screen – Prajakta Koli (Jugjugg Jeeyo) and comedian Viraj Ghelani (Govinda Naam Mera)
  
• As per talent management company Clout Talent and YouTube, harnessing the power of communities will be integral to a creator’s growth in 2023.

From financial advice to sex education, content on every imaginable topic is available at one’s fingertips on different digital media. But amidst this wide variety of content, personal connection and the power of community were what mattered the most in 2022. These two themes defined content in 2022 and creators who churned out material along these themes won big.

Here’s a look at the trends that dominated the creator economy in 2022, and how this space will shape up in 2023.

Personal relevance & connect

Opting out of the ‘watercooler discourse’, 65% of Gen Zs agree that content that’s personally relevant to them is more important than the content that lots of other people talk about, states video sharing platform YouTube in its Culture and Trends Report 2022.

Venture capital firm Kalaari Capital echoed this sentiment in its Creator Economy report, stating that “consumption patterns of Indians have also evolved. They want to follow people they identify with, and consume products that showcase their individuality.”

As Vinay Pillai, head of talent management company Clout Talent shared with Business Insider India, “People have shifted from vlogging, DIY (do-it-yourself) content to thought-through sketch-based, informative and easily-relatable content – anything that offers connection, whether it is light-hearted comedy content, informative content, well-being content, or content that is pleasing to the eye.”

Fan communities no longer on the sidelines of entertainment

According to YouTube, online content consumption in 2022 was dominated by communities, and soothing or comfort content. Fandom also emerged as a popular trend in 2022, with fans actively communicating and interacting online - be it the BTS ‘army’ or ‘SRKians’.

Pillai also added that there’s been a sharp rise in community-led content. “Whether it's the “orange juice gang” or Viraj Ghelani’s connection with the Gujju community, we saw people loving them as a group and as one of their own,” shared Pillai.

According to YouTube, fan communities are no longer a side effect of entertainment. Rather, they’re central to the entertainment experience, with 61% of Gen Zs agreeing to describe themselves as a “really big or super fan of someone or something.”

Pillai also added that the fan culture has reached new heights, with a creator’s success–on any platform–being defined by the level of their engagement with the audience.

“Fandom takes a creator out of their box of just creating content, to something bigger. They can enable social change, launch businesses key to their audience and aim to succeed in their new ventures,” shared Pillai.

A great example of using fandom to launch new ventures is digital creator Vishnu Kaushal’s clothing and merchandise brand, Peach by Vishnu, which started in 2021 and sold out four of its collections in days.

Short-form content & democratisation

As far as content format is concerned, there has been a rise in short-form content. As per YouTube, 59% of Gen Zs use short-form video apps to discover things.

“With Meta’s launch of Instagram reels and YouTube’s launch of shorts, people started consuming more audio-visual short-form content. We also saw a sharp rise in ‘bored at home people’ becoming content creators. With in-app built-in features, it was easier to make content, post, and engage,” added Pillai.

Former RJ and digital creator Antil Yadav echoes this sentiment, sharing with Business Insider India that since the time he started creating content (in 2015) the two big shifts have been the democratisation of content, and the affinity towards short-form content.

“The democratisation of content brought in by various short-format apps changed the notion that only big publishing houses can create content. Anyone with a good story to tell can find an audience these days,” said Yadav, who goes by the Instagram handle rjkhurki.

RJ Karishma, Viraj Ghelani & Ankur Warikoo among creators who won 2022

Despite intense competition and users’ diminishing attention span, certain creators have built a loyal content base, with their reach and followers growing by leaps and bounds. Clout Talent named digital creators Karishma (also an RJ at Red FM), Viraj Ghelani, Sakshi Shivdasani, and Macwin among their top creators for 2022.

“This year we’ve witnessed the fastest-growing female comedy creator, RJ Karishma; She has grown by 333% in the last year, and her every 5th reel has more than 10M views and has an average of 5M views overall,” stated Clout Talent.

The year 2022 also saw multiple digital creators transition from social media to the silver screen. One of India’s first successful YouTubers, Prajakta Koli starred in Dharma Productions’ Jugjugg Jeeyo in 2022. Comedian Viraj Ghelani also played a supporting role in Dharma Productions’ Govinda Naam Mera, sharing screen space with actors like Vicky Kaushal and Bhumi Pednekar.

Then there is digital creator, entrepreneur, author, and YouTuber Ankur Warikoo, who has achieved the unthinkable (at least in 2022) - convincing people to read again – with his novels, Do Epic Shit and Get Epic Shit Done. Most young professionals and students look up to Warikoo as a self-help guru, because he follows the golden mantra of creating successful online content - being authentic and relatable.

“I had made so many mistakes with money, my career, my biases, my relationships and as a manager that I started sharing all of that in the form of content. When I spoke about the mistakes I made in my 20s, I realised that it resonated with people between the ages of 18-24. These people wanted someone to speak to them who had gone through similar experiences. One of the reasons my content blew up was because I am old and not putting out random stuff. This was actually my life,” shared Warikoo in an exclusive interview with Business Insider India.

As Pillai puts it, “we’ve seen people from different genres like food, finance and gaming branch out and create content about the things they know best, empowering more people to learn, just by the click of a button!”

The future is hybrid

According to YouTube, the future of online content is in hybrid creators or multi-platform creativity, and actively developing communities.

Clout Talent’s Pillai believes the most important thing needed to make it as a content creator in the current market is a creator’s ability “to not just create content consistently around what they love the most/their passion/their skills, etc but also the ability to engage and connect with their audiences. A consistent effort to build a loyal community helps a creator sustain in this industry.”

Simply put, while different songs, activities, and even creators may go viral at one point or the other, the audience, at large, is looking for personal engagement. And creators are well aware of this.

Yadav also shared that “for any community to grow, two-way communication is important. Engaging with your community shows that you care about their thoughts, opinions, suggestions, or compliments.”

Apart from it, YouTube believes that trends not restricted to any one digital video format or medium will define the future of content, and hybrid creators and continuously remixed trends can be expected to become the new norm.

“As both watching and creating videos become part of everyday life, trending concepts are spreading fluidly across different formats and content types. As a result, how two people experience a trend may now be entirely different. Producing and consuming remixable content — often as memes — is a major way that Gen Zs and millennials participate in pop culture,” stated YouTube.

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