Your kid won't be an astronaut. Don't fight them about being an influencer
There are only 39 active astronauts. Time to start a TikTok
Kids want to be influencers, and we should help them figure out how to do it.
“American kids would much rather be YouTubers than astronauts!!” was the click-bait headline in the hype cycle of 2019 as parents like me tried to grapple with the reality that maybe all that iPad time was warping their kids’ career prospects.
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If you dig into the research from that pre-pandemic study, when asked what they would like to be when they grow up, about 3 in 10 American and British children replied that they wanted to be YouTubers or Vloggers—careers making videos on the Internet for fame and fortune. Lesser preferences included becoming a teacher, professional athlete, or musician. Becoming an astronaut ranked last, at 11%.
Since that time a number of things happened to accelerate interest in space science and exploration.
We landed and flew a drone on Mars!!!
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope launched and is already giving us a look at near-Earths that could potentially be inhabitable!
More than one billionaire launched a space tourism company that created “breaking news” moments as civilians traveled to near-space!
SpaceX has made American-based space travel to the International Space Station a routine occurrence again!
And at least one pretty big thing happened that accelerated interest in creating videos on the internet:
A global pandemic that kept everyone at home for more than a year watching their screens and consuming more and more content — accelerating the consumption of (and demand for) creator-based content.
👩🚀 So do kids want to be astronauts now? Nah, they want to be “content creators,” which is the 2023 word for “YouTubers.”
And you know what? Those are jobs that pay off in multiple ways.
According to the Washington Post this week: “In the United States, the video giant YouTube estimated that roughly 390,000 full-time jobs last year were supported by its creators' work - four times the number of people employed by General Motors, America's biggest automaker.
Not to mention “… the U.S. Census Bureau jobs index makes no mention of "social media," an oversight that misses one of the most monumental changes to have swept the United States' labor force in years.”
All those social media creator jobs of today will spawn more tomorrow. According to Pew Research, more than 70 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 said they follow an influencer on social media. Goldman Sachs reports 50 million people now work as creators around the world, and analysts say the addressable market will jump from $250 billion this year to $480 billion by 2027.
According to Taylor Lorenz: “The growth of the creator economy has reoriented children's ambitions: "Influencer" is now ranked one of the most popular career aspirations for American youth, above professional athlete and astronaut. Some stores sell "Influencer" T-shirts for kids.” (emphasis is mine)
For those of us as parents, we’re not surprised at all and see this in action daily:
Our kids spend their entertainment time following and emulating influencers like Mr. Beast, the king of YouTube.
They spend their allowance clearing out entire grocery aisles of Prime, an energy drink promoted by YouTubers and internet personalities Logan Paul and KSI.
They buy up viral cosmetics, $20 bags of freeze-dried Skittles, and yeah they want to do the Fruit Roll-Ups and Ice Cream trend their favorite influencer shared (ahem… #client).
One has to intentionally buy a phone that doesn’t have a great camera these days, and ring lights are now $5 impulse buys at the self-checkout line at Target. Editing apps are free (or baked into the platforms). Audiences are hungry for content and creativity. It’s almost a bad career move not to try to be an influencer.
The influencer market has really matured. Heck, Kid President turned 20 this week!
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🚀 But what about being an astronaut?
According to NASA, civilian astronaut salaries range from $104,898 to $161,141 per year. That’s good pay, but you also need a master’s degree in a STEM field or a doctor of medicine degree, plus completion of a recognized test pilot program and 1,000 hours of flight time piloting a jet craft. That ain’t cheap.
And the worst part? Even if you do all of that, you still have to compete, wait for an assignment to a mission, and get pretty close to launch before very many people are going to want to like and subscribe to your content.
But we have some bad news… as of March 2023, NASA has only 39 "active" astronauts consisting of 16 women and 23 men. And considering there are roughly 68.6 million Gen Zs living in the United States, there isn’t a lot of room for astronauts OR astronaut influencers, my friends. And you can post that.
🤳 Therefore it’s easier — and more realistic — to become an influencer than an astronaut. And will probably be more lucrative.
There’s money for influencers all over. Platforms need creators on their platforms, so they incentivize them with tools, dedicated funds, and monetization tools that may surprise you. Platforms have been dedicated to paying significant sums to influencers to create content on their platforms (note: these numbers are from 2022 and many are reduced now):
YouTube = $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over three years,
Meta = $1 billion in creators through 2022
TikTok = $1 billion in the U.S. through 2023
Snapchat = $130 million to creators (was $1M/day to stand up Snapchat Spotlight)
And that’s all outside of the brand partnerships, creator network deals, and 1:1 influencer contracts that are further fueling this creator economy.
Does everyone who sets out to be an influencer make bank?
Absolutely not. Just with any career aspiration, not everyone has the talent, skills, discipline, or privilege to succeed. A good example is probably being a professional athlete. But my point here is perhaps instead of bemoaning the lack of astronauts, we could consider the positive opportunities of trying. So let’s look at some.
👨👦 Some thoughts for parents whose kids want to choose influence over outer space:
Being an influencer builds a ton of real-world skills, even if your kiddo won’t be the next Mr. Beast:
Strategy (aka Science): A good influencer creates a hypothesis of what kind of channel to build, what people will like, how it will work, and then repeats iterations until finding success.
Content (aka Language Arts): A good influencer knows how to use modern tools to produce content and write captions that capture attention. Instead of writing a 10-page book report, and instead is truly communication in a modern way
Community (aka Social Studies): A good influencer keeps tabs on the comments and builds them into a really cohesive and energetic community that has its own character, attitude, cycles, and crises that need to be managed.
Analytics (aka Math): A good influencer keeps an active tab on engagement, clicks, subscribes, shares, and more. Today’s platforms will chart them, highlight which content performed best, and that can help inform the next idea.
Compensation & Sales (aka Economics): A good influencer has monetization turned on, knows the value of a “Link in Bio” caption, and is figuring out how to create affiliate sales attribution for recommended products. If they’re really successful, figure out how to pay taxes on that success. And if they’re not making any money, figuring out if all that effort is worth it. Supply & Demand.
And yes, there are lots of watch-outs here too:
Privacy and Safety: Unfortunately there is a very real risk to raising one’s visibility online, and especially with minors, it’s important for parents to monitor privacy settings, DMs, and comments, to proactively take measures to protect full names and addresses, and to use the block and report mechanisms within the platforms when merited.
Mental Health: It’s been well documented that there are complicated emotional impacts from social media. Just this week attorneys general from states ranging from California to Wisconsin filed federal lawsuits, accusing Meta of intentionally turning kids into social-media addicts.
And putting one’s work, personality, and whole self into the world for others to comment on can be heartbreaking. So let’s step into this space with empathy and help each other take a break when we need it and use the tools for good when possible.
Ultimately, our parenting approach with our own kids has been stepped up in phases:
Encourage content creation that never publishes online. Watch it on your iPad and maybe show a friend. We did this for years.
Share final content only with family via text and email. We also did this for years.
Publish content for only family via my Facebook and set to “Family” only in privacy settings. This lasted a year. I’ve since taken it all down.
Creating a private YouTube account where I keep the password and monitor the followers. This was about another year. Only 3 friends were allowed to follow.
Creating a private TikTok account where I keep the password and monitor the followers. This is the stage we’re in now, and it’s allowing freedom of creativity while offering some protections.
We’re not saying this is perfect, but it’s been working for us and maybe it will help you.
Kids want to be influencers, and we should help them figure out how to do it.
Instead of fighting culture and trends, it’s always been our POV to listen, learn and try to lead. What’s working for you? Would love to hear it in the comments, in email, or DMs!