Essay 1.2: The Weirdos Are Winning
There's never been a better time to monetize your weirdness online. For Essay 1.2, we looked at how we as creators can succeed while swimming upstream — even if you're not as uniquely weird as Tyler, the Creator.
In May of 2019, multi-talented rapper, designer, and producer Tyler, the Creator released his fifth studio album Igor. The project would go on to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 and ultimately bring home a Grammy for Best Rap Album. But it was an odyssey to reach Number One, and his peers didn't always celebrate someone they viewed as different.
When stopping by Hot 97 in August 2021, Tyler had this to say:
“They try to push you to the side and keep doing that. And it's like 10 years later...I'm still here bro! My career has only been doing this!”
Yet that lack of respect hasn't stopped Tyler from doing what he does best: creating. Two years later, he's still reaching new heights, as his new album Call Me If You Get Lost debuted at number one and he headlined Lollapalooza with a zany set. By leaning in to what makes him unique, Tyler is building something truly special, and we're all just along for the ride.
Part I: Tyler, The Creator vs. DJ Khaled
After the release of Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler's follow-up to the award-winning Igor, the artist sat down with HOT 97 to open up about his career and the music industry as a whole. He covered a lot of topics over the 90-minute interview, but his comments on the beef between him and DJ Khaled were what really stole the headlines:
“Bro, that Khaled thing was like, it was fun, it was just watching a man die inside...The weirdo was winning. I was moonwalking in a wig."
Tyler’s “Yonkers” music video reached 134M views
Growing up in a single-parent household in Los Angeles, Tyler was accustomed to being the odd one out. He attended 12 different schools in 12 years and taught himself to play the piano at age 14. Working various jobs at Starbucks and FedEx, he went on to co-found alternative hip hop collective Odd Future in 2007, yet it wasn't until his song "Yonkers" went viral four years later that his music started to really reach people.
Of course, eating a cockroach in a music video will do that.
Since then, Tyler's career has taken many twists and turns. Odd Future's offbeat sketch comedy show Loiter Squad ran for three seasons on Adult Swim, though by the time it ended in 2015, members of the group like Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt pursued solo careers.
Additionally, while Tyler's own popularity continued to grow, he faced controversy for some of his early lyrics, which many have described to be homophobic and, at times, violent. While he reflected on this in 2018, labelling his debut studio album Goblin as "horrible" in hindsight, it took a major shift in his style — distancing himself from shock-value music — for the artist to be accepted by critics and the mainstream alike.
Yet even after his run of celebrated albums in Flower Boy and Igor, Tyler still was getting labelled as an outcast. This is where DJ Khaled enters the picture, posting a not-so-subtle, since-deleted video on Instagram saying the following:
"I make albums so people can play it and you actually hear it. You know, turn the radio on, and you hear them playing it. It’s called great music. It’s called albums that you actually hear the songs. Not no mysterious shit that you never hear it.”
Khaled’s outburst at his office made headlines.
That's the rapper and producer in a since-deleted Instagram post from 2019, after the rollout for his star-studded album, Father of Asahd, amounted to a No. 2 debut behind Igor. Khaled reportedly stormed his distributor's offices with an entourage and spewed "nasty stuff," unhappy that his album wasn't number one and blaming the team behind the release.
In the same Hot 97 interview, Tyler had this to say about Khaled's outburst:
"...his whole identity is being Number One and when he didn’t get that, that sat with him longer in real life than that moment. I moved on."
Tyler let the palpable energy behind his work — and the connection he shared with his audience — speak for itself, proving that you don't necessarily need to sell out artistically or feature every A-Lister on Earth in order to come out on top.
At the same time, though, we can't all be as singularly-weird and downright fascinating as one Tyler, the Creator. So how can we channel the things that make us different, to tap into our weirdness and build our own little corner of the Internet?
Part II: 1,000 True Fans
Brand strategy professor and writer Scott Galloway has this to say on why he thinks the advice many thought leaders give — to "follow your passions" — is dangerous:
“Do your passions on weekends. Be a DJ. Jay-Z followed his passion and became a billionaire. Again, assume you're not Jay-Z.”
As the Internet has evolved, the so-called "passion economy" has grown exponentially. New platforms like Substack and Fiverr allow anyone to monetize unique skills, from newsletter writers to video course creators.
Yet for every YouTuber making six figures off of ad revenue, there's 99 others seeing pennies. If an artist gets 1 million streams on Spotify, for example, they'll get paid out a grand total of roughly $4,000.
Another example: Twitch's recent data leak showed that not only did the top 1,000 streamers haul in nearly 50% of all earnings on the platform, discovery is a huge issue, skewing towards the biggest names and disproportionately deterring those who are BIPOC, LGBTQ+, or disabled.
When you look at the numbers of the passion economy, it can be quite daunting, a clear uphill battle from the jump. Nevertheless, while things might look dire, there's a superpower we can tap into.
Herein lies the 1,000 True Fans model.
First explored back in 2008 by Wired magazine editor Kevin Kelly, the concept states that you don't need an army of millions behind you in order to make a living as a creator. You just need 1,000 diehard fans, the type of people who will drive 200 miles to see you sing or shell out $20 for your behind-the-scenes footage.
On top of that, you need to have a direct relationship with those fans, where you get to keep all of their support without dealing with an intermediary. "If you keep the full $100 of each true fan," writes Kelly, "then you need only 1,000 of them to earn $100,000 per year."
The Internet has only made this model more streamlined, as things like distribution, analytics, and retailing are more accessible to everyone. Modern-day platforms like Patreon feature an easy-to-use paywall for premium content and merch, as well as a solid customer relationship management system.
Of course, making this into a sustainable living is easier said than done. Not every fan will be as engaged as a "true" fan, and to Galloway's aforementioned point, you may need to practice on the weekends before you give it a go full time.
But let's say you know you want to write a newsletter, or film a course, or maybe even sell mugs with mean phrases on them. Where do you even start?
Part III: Never-Ending Niches
Ben Thompson, an analyst and newsletter writer well-known for his commentary on tech and media, has this to say about finding your audience: hone in.
The natural scarcity of content — limited by things such as physical distribution for newspapers and the amount of hours in a day for cable news — was replaced entirely with the Internet's boundless landscape, where we reach an infinite amount of people instantly.
Therefore, Thompson says, we now live in an “aggregation world” with three clear strategies. The first is to cater all of your work to speed and SEO; that way, you can drive traffic to your content through Google. The second is to place an emphasis on click-bait and human interest stories; that way, you can drive traffic to your work through Facebook (and other social media).
Given both of these platforms planted their seeds in the 2000s and have grown deep roots since, they practically have a stranglehold on the industry. This sets up a difficult dynamic for new players to break in. Thompson writes:
“Both approaches, though, favored media entities with the best cost structures, not the best content, a particularly difficult road to travel given the massive amounts of content on the Internet created for free.
That left a single alternative: going around Google and Facebook and directly to users.”
Enter the third strategy, or the World of Never-Ending Niches.
When it comes to content, quality — while seemingly subjective — is pretty cut-and-dry. Either something is polished and well-organized (and therefore worth consuming), or it isn’t.
But in comes the niche. There are an infinite amount, all laying on an ever-lasting horizontal axis. “Success,” says Thompson, “is about delivering superior quality in your niche — the former is defined by the latter.”
For example, if your niche involves writing about cars, your subscribers — who most likely care a lot about cars — are the ones who decide whether or not your content is of a high caliber. It doesn’t really matter if someone obsessed with, say, bird-watching thinks your newsletter is trash. The audience that you’re delivering value to is the only audience that matters.
There are both positives and negatives to honing in on a niche. The upside is that there’s a proven, scalable model where you can sustain a business in the digital media world without sacrificing quality. The downside is that there’s not a whole lot of flexibility present, and we never want to feel like our work is being boxed in.
In other words, no matter how "good" you perceive your work to be, it will be difficult to gain a following if it's unfocused. So how do we ensure we succeed when we're running into the wind?
Part IV: Swimming Upstream
It can be really scary, confusing, and isolating to pursue your own vision and your own voice, especially when it feels like everyone and everything is pulling you in the path oft travelled.
Trust me. I've been there.
Yet stories like Tyler's are a reminder that sometimes, playing into your weirdness can give you the upper hand, especially when the internet helps us better celebrate what's different. Besides, even if the mountain you're climbing sometimes feels insurmountable, just remember that all that glitters is not gold. It's lonely at the top, too — just ask DJ Khaled.
Therefore, you should surround yourself with people that continuously push you to be better, who embrace you for who you are while joining in to celebrate your successes. In order to reach 1,000 true fans, you first need to have one.
Creator business models can survive unique of startups.
Past that, a lean business canvas — the type used by tech startups — isn't essential in order to build a brand as a creator. You do, however, need product market fit, best found by serving a specific niche with focused, consistent content.
And you still might fail! There's a lot of other voices you're competing with, and at the end of the day, a clear strategy and open mind will only get you so far. Creatives who dedicate their lives to their work will always be the ones taking on the most risk.
Is that bet worth it? To many, the answer is a resounding no. Yet for the ones who dare to dream, for the ones who can't help but swim upstream in the pursuit of pushing boundaries, doing something deemed crazy is the only way they know how.
Here's to those creators, artists, storytellers, and entrepreneurs. Here's to the weirdos.
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