Surat-based Shivani Kapila left her job at Google to pursue a full-time career around creating content. Quitting a stable job was certainly not an easy decision and took her a good six months to finally make the move. Kapila's first tryst with content creation was a small music campaign that fetched her about ₹5,000. Today, she creates content for short-video platform Josh besides running her own channel on YouTube. Kapila doesn't keep a count of the number of monthly videos she curates and publishes across platforms. "I don't live a normal life. I live a life in which every moment is a video moment for me. The level of satisfaction derived from making videos, interactions with fans and being present on social media is unparalleled. A nine to five job doesn't even come close," Kapila tells Fortune India. She earns way more than what her corporate job used to offer. When business is brisk, her monthly income can touch as much as ₹3-4 lakh.
India's knack for the digital has carved out a space for a budding local creator ecosystem. A rush of homegrown short-video platforms like Moj, Josh, Chingari has accommodated a growing league of creators. Global players YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels have only added to the buzz and broadened the growth of the ecosystem, making it easy for anybody to upload video content with a simple tap on their smartphones. Consumption of YouTube and Instagram are a staple for the country's young population and the apps are available on almost every other smartphone. They often come pre-loaded with handsets. Thanks to a deluge of cheap smartphones and affordable internet connectivity, creating content today is as easy as ordering food online. A spate of creators like Kapila build video content around diverse topics ranging from food, lifestyle and fashion to motivational talk. "I like entertaining people," says Moj creator Mohak Narang who ends up making some 40 videos for the platform per month. Narang who has about 2.9 million followers on Moj is pursuing a graduation degree in Mass Communication. Chinese short-video app TikTok, however, should be given its due, having popularised the concept of short-video content in India and taking them far and wide to the hinterlands. Famous TikTok creators were influencers of sorts. The ban on the app in 2020 facilitated the entry of new players in the market, fuelling their growth. In sectoral parlance, creators are often referred to as influencers, at least some of them, given their reach in the community that can often have a bearing on how a particular section of their followers arrive at varied decisions like purchasing a product or say adopting a prevalent trend. That creator economy is booming in India is evident from Josh parent VerSe Innovation's $805 million fundraise led by Canada Pension Plan Investment Board last week in an otherwise subdued funding environment marked by cautious investor sentiment. Sure, the deal has been in the works for sometime but it does capture the vote of investor confidence in the creator economy. Analysts say that the space will continue to see traction. If certain data pointers are to be believed, the space is indeed making a dent. A recent report by Oxford Economics that studied YouTube's creator ecosystem gives some sense about the space. It said that YouTube's creator ecosystem generated considerable economic value, contributing ₹6,800 crore to the Indian GDP and supporting asmany as 6,83,9001 full-time equivalent jobs in India in 2020.
"Today, anyone with an idea, an insight or inspiration can come to YouTube to tell their stories, reaching a global audience of 2 billion fans. With more than 40,000 channels with over 100,000 subscribers in India, seeing a 45% year on year growth, the creator economy in the country has the potential to emerge as a soft-power impacting economic growth, job creation, and even cultural influence," says Ajay Vidyasagar, Regional Director, APAC, YouTube Partnerships. Besides, short-form content is already incredibly popular. YouTube Shorts have now garnered over five trillion all-time views, adds Vidyasagar.
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