The Internet Reporters Summit, Part 1
A candid roundtable with Kat Tenbarge, Michelle Santiago Cortés, Rebecca Jennings, Taylor Lorenz, Terry Nguyen, and Zoë Haylock.
During the pandemic, social media and the internet went into overdrive: TikTok exploded, Clubhouse spurred an audio boom, and every top platform from Snapchat to LinkedIn scrambled to introduce major new features. Meanwhile, countless new stars and trends went viral, and top creators like David Dobrik and James Charles faced huge scandals. Documenting all this in real time? A core group of reporters on the internet beat, writing for established media brands and posting for their own sizable social media followings.
Because the beat is relatively new, and was energized by a pandemic that also limited social interactions, few of these reporters have gathered together at industry events or just drinks to talk shop. Which is why we asked some of the leading voices in the space to take an hour out of their weekend last Saturday to log onto Zoom and conduct a first-of-its-kind summit. After a little over an hour of candid and thoughtful discussion—much of it clearly pent up over the last year—we arrived at something like a state of the union for the industry.
Today’s newsletter features part one of the discussion, covering internet creators, culture, and current trends. Tomorrow’s newsletter will be more meta, focusing on life as an internet reporter and changes we hope to see on the scene. The panelists are listed below. We exclusively invited women in part because it's women who have pioneered and still dominate this beat—but also because, as you'll see, many of the challenges of internet reporting are inseparable from the challenges of being a woman online.
Kat Tenbarge, digital culture reporter at Insider specializing in accountability and scandals. Wrote the story exposing allegations of sexual misconduct and bullying against David Dobrik and his crew of creators.
Michelle Santiago Cortés, lifestyle writer at Refinery29 covering internet trends and niche online culture.
Rebecca Jennings, reporter for Vox focusing on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Taylor Lorenz, internet culture and technology reporter for The New York Times.
Terry Nguyen, reporter for Vox whose coverage leans toward business and consumer trends. Also writes the newsletter Gen Yeet.
Zoë Haylock, news writer at Vulture following internet trends and scandals. (Zoë’s internet went out the day of the panel, but we've added some responses that she later submitted by email.)
Moderator: Kate Lindsay, writer and co-founder, Embedded. Formerly of nofilter and Refinery29.
The mainstream media has recently taken a much greater interest in internet stars. But it often seems like the same four or five people make headlines for things that often aren’t the best representation of the diverse and hardworking creator community. How do you decide who and what to cover?
Kat It's not necessarily successful to focus on the things that people actually like and what makes them feel good, which kind of feels unnatural. You would think that people would want to read about the people who actually make their online lives more wholesome. But in general, of course people are drawn to conflict. So I feel like that's why James [Charles] gets headlines, but then beauty creators who are awesome, minding their own business and doing something cool, have a quieter online career in terms of how their name appears in the media. I will say that I have been a long time ASMR enthusiast and I try to write about it and people don't care. ASMR has its own drama, like every community, but in general, I think it's really wholesome. And a lot of ASMR creators have really good faith reasons for doing what they do.
Rebecca Taylor, I think about your newsletter post "Your Success Is Not a Story" every day of my life. I'm sure all of us, we get pitches from people like, "Hey, you should feature me. I have like X amount of subscribers." I'm like, "Cool. That's not a story." There's no tension in that. And I think that's why—obviously all of us have little niches of the internet that we enjoy—but there's no tension in that story. It is not news that people find something comforting online, which is too bad. But that's not what news is for. We can enjoy things without making them into big stories.
Taylor I keep wanting to say this because it's triggering me so much on the internet, but it really bothers me how a lot of people in the tech industry, they know the names of literally three people and it's David Dobrik, Mr. Beast, and Jake Paul. It's frustrating because so much of what we write about is very female-dominated and they kind of wrote off influencers for so long. So many of those OG mommy bloggers and lifestyle influencers on Instagram, they're very much creators, too, and ran businesses and launched brands and products and did a lot of this stuff before these men came along.
Kat We were just having a conversation about Michelle Phan and how Michelle Phan built a huge global business to rival anything Dobrik, Mr. Beast, or either Paul [brother] has ever done. And she is completely brushed over. I'm sure no one at Andreessen Horowitz knows who Michelle Phan is, which is such a shame. And now I'm pretty sure she's a Bitcoin millionaire too. She's so ahead of the curve on so much stuff.
Taylor Of course they don't. They don't care. They want to back some of the worst men, because I think they are some of the worst men, and they see these horrible people as versions of themselves.
Terry I also want to add that a lot of these fandom economies are very feminized. There's a lot of queer folks, a lot of women who pretty much created the groundwork for what we now know as the creator economy. They want to subscribe to people, they're avid followers, and they truly love these people and create fan-based works to support them. Now that it's really hip and cool, as Taylor mentioned, there's a lot of erasure that's happening. There's a diversity of audiences here that this entire economy can serve. And I just don't think that it's been written or considered about broadly enough.
Michelle I always try to think of the emotional root of everything. What drives everything we do from an emotional standpoint? And when you think of it, fandoms are escapism and fandoms are such a strong audience, and they also generate a lot of culture and a lot of culture that people outside of the fandom appropriate and experience and recreate. So when you think about who needs escapism the most, I'm sorry, it's not Jake Paul fans. It's the girls, it's the gays, it's people of color, it's really young people, it's people that are struggling with their health.
For people like Jake Paul and James Charles, it’s assumed that controversy is a purposeful publicity strategy. How do you cover those controversies without playing into their plans?
Kat What I try to do personally is pick the framing that's going to suit whatever narrative I think that they're going for the least. It's very much on a case-by-case basis. For example, I think Nikita Dragun is one of the influencers who does this the most, and it's frustrating because her rise to fame online initially started out really positive, because people were fascinated by her transition and her experience as a transgender woman of color. And then over the past year and a half in particular as her channel has maybe faded from relevancy a little bit, and she's not pulling in views on the type of beauty content she used to, every day she goes out and tries to pull some sort of stunt where she's not wearing a mask or she's going to a party or she's going all over the place with her skin color.
It's really tough to cover some of that stuff, but I know at least with the pieces that I've done on Nikita, I always try to highlight: What is the larger implication of this? Blackfishing I think is a really important topic to analyze and make people aware of. And I don't think that's the narrative that Nikita is going for when she tries to pull these types of really insane photo transformations, but I did a piece just looking at what that phenomenon is and the history of it and how Nikita fits into that. And I think that was something that hopefully contributed positively to the discussion around her skin tone and not just, "Oh my gosh, 'Nikita Stuns In New Picture.'"
Zoë Since nearly everything an influencer does is about promoting themselves, you have to find ways to decenter them sometimes. From their music videos to their boxing matches, influencers are often the least interesting part of their own project, anyway. When it comes to apologies, it’s about making sure the issue or accusation is given just as much weight as the influencer’s response. I personally think that that legwork is up to the reporter, especially since the demographic for these stories often skews younger and more impressionable. And while I wouldn’t say any subject is off-limits, my editors and I definitely try to stay cognizant of when covering a specific influencer is in their best interest more than the audience’s.
I wonder if the same thing is happening with startup culture—that there are plenty of female or POC-founded companies doing good work but not making the news.
Terry It does seem, unfortunately, that the ones that get the most press are the ones that get the most money and the ones that usually attract the attention of a certain type of figure in tech in Silicon Valley. Millions of dollars are funneled into this startup that is very new and this person might not even have true internet experience. I'm glad we brought up Michelle Phan because she pretty much created Ipsy, she has longevity. And sometimes when we think about YouTube stars who get the most air, it's kind of like a celebrity machine, like creator culture is similar to celebrity culture back in the 90s or before that. So it is unfortunate that those people tend to still exist because they have fans and they're never really canceled. But I do think longevity of business is something that I really look for when I try to highlight people who have been working in this space and building this culture. We're like, “Oh my God, suddenly it's a trend.” But actually people have been spending years and years to build something before it finally hits the mainstream.
Rebecca I think why none of us can think of a business that is exciting is because, like in this essay by Li Jin about how we need a creator middle-class, there is one, but it's not enough to live on. It's reflecting the economic disparities that we have in every other aspect of our lives. But as the gig economy, the creator economy comes for us all, it desperately needs more scaffolding around who gets what and who can build a business.
Another recurring issue on this beat is race, and giving credit to people behind some of the biggest trends. Recently, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon had to do some damage control when they had Addison Rae perform dances that were created by majority-POC TikTokkers, but didn't give them any credit. What can the media do to help here?
Taylor One thing that I think got missed in that conversation—this is really just me regurgitating this good TikTok that I saw on it—but I think first of all, the conversation around credit has progressed so much. A lot of the big creators know that they have to give dance credits and it's like, obviously like Jimmy Fallon's group, they were so stupid for not adding credits. Why not just add the handle of the creator? I think it just showed how out of touch they are with that conversation that's happening. But also I think it's like, Addison is not on there because she invented these dances, Addison is on there because she was promoting an album and she's in a movie and she has this level of fame. And now that there's more credit going around, I think there's still this frustration because the creators don't have fame. Fame doesn't always come from doing the best dance, right? Like the best dancers are not the most famous ones on TikTok. The most famous people on TikTok are still white girls that are conventionally attractive that people want to be and emulate. So I think that conversation still needs to progress a little bit. And I think we need to look at who's getting famous and why, and it's not just about crediting them.
Kat I see so much of this phenomenon as well in the beauty community, which is definitely my favorite niche. It's really frustrating that so many of the top beauty creators who get the most air time and who have the most discourse surrounding them are a lot of times these really awful white men. In general, the beauty community is unsettlingly white and creators of color have a really difficult time hitting the one million subscriber benchmark across platforms or getting major campaign appearances. Part of that is just because there's so much attention that gets drawn to these scandals and these problematic aspects of people like Jeffree Star and James Charles. So I kind of feel like there almost has to be a separation between like the celebrity tabloid-esque narratives that come out and then the people that we celebrate for their craft. I don't think that's restricted to any one community, but I definitely feel like there could be a lot more to be done to spotlight creators of color who oftentimes are just doing their art and not involving themselves in drama.
Zoë Both the media and creators have made such little progress since the internet had to fight for Jalaiah Harmon to do her own dance at the NBA All-Star weekend last year. The media already knows how to pluck kids from anonymity and make them viral stars—they’ve done it for white kids since Vine. In general, the media still looks at online creation like it’s a sideshow. Shifting the mindset to seeing these creators as artists themselves, I think, will dramatically change the way the media interacts with them. We’ll get there by supporting young people of color in the industry and as creatives, especially those who understand how online virality works and the power structures it depends on.
Michelle When we create narratives or tell stories where it centers individuals, that's missing the point. Now that a lot of people are so online, you get to kind of witness a trend become a trend, you witness things changing, you know that it's not because one person did it the loudest or they did it the best. It's everyone joining in on something and adopting it and making it mainstream or normal or accepted or just generally popular. And I think that a lot of what gets lost in the sauce is Jalaiah, yes she's given credit for creating the Renegade, but there is a whole world, multiple communities that normalized it, made it a trend. It's not that she woke up one day and she's like, "Ah, yes, I'm the genius in the ivory tower and I created this thing." So I feel like more than anything, I think audiences are mentally there to break away from the creator narrative, from the genius narrative, from the thing of “this one person made the thing.” It's never been any one person. I feel like that's where almost the sense of betrayal comes from where it's like, "Well, I've witnessed this slang term gain steam." It's not like one person woke up and said it and it got TM-ed.
Taylor I think it's important to recognize the creators in terms of monetization, right? Like if Fortnite is going to buy a dance, like sure they should give royalties to the person that created it. That's pretty uncontroversial. But I think when it comes to who performs a dance, like Michelle, you were saying, it's this focus on accountability at this individual level for this whole system of fame and virality that everyone participates in. It just kind of doesn't achieve anything really.
Rebecca The other day, I think [Atlantic writer] Kaitlyn Tiffany, who's a genius, she tweeted something that was like, It's amazing how you can't create anything or say anything without needing to monetize it now. And it's like, of course that's just a natural reaction to everything economic going on in the world right now. But these discussions about credit, I think Michelle, you made such a good point where it's like, you can't narrow something cultural down to one specific person most of the time, but because we are squeezing every dollar we can out of every interaction we have with each other and the internet, it's just becomes this race to be the one that blows up. And of course it's just going to end up being someone like Addison who people like, because they like her. Not because she's doing these little dances.
People—readers—also determine the popularity of things that we write. What do your audiences seem most interested in?
Michelle With Refinery29, our audience may not have been super online at the beginning of the pandemic, [but] they became super online. Something that really works for us is [covering] something that exists online, but aesthetically is very tangible. So it's like, you've seen it online, but you can have it in your home. You can touch it, feel it, smell it. Or also that is very sentimental. I wrote recently about Tumblr porn nostalgia and smutty fanfiction. And it's just one of those things that really tugs at your heartstrings. That was a very key coming-of-age experience.
Rebecca Drama. 100 percent. Me and my editor sometimes joke [about how] most of my work day is filled with longer-term projects, but once a month I will write, like, "this drama explained"—the last one was the shrimp tail guy—and [it's], "Okay, that's my traffic for the month."
Taylor That shrimp tail thing—in Slack, we were like, "Who's going to write it up?" Because whoever [did] was going to get, and did get, like a million page views. That's not how we determine coverage, but definitely search plays a role. Search has been really validating. I remember when I was at The Daily Beast several years ago, I was still trying to get editors to really understand that these people are valuable. Search was a good way to show that 'cause it was like, "Look, you haven't heard of this person, but look at all this traffic. This is actually someone we should be covering."
Look out for Part 2 of the Internet Reporters Summit tomorrow!