Is content creation a career worth pursuing full-time? If you're looking for a simple answer to that question on the title, that would be yes, and no. Content creation is a career worth pursuing full-time, but like any other work, there are certain stipulations that led to the question in the first place.
In addition to working part-time as a writer, this author also works part-time as an artist who enjoys working with colour and producing short videos of urban and natural settings, usually for social media. If you were to inquire why this writer hasn't followed artistic passion as a full-time job, he would respond as a content creator by saying that, in his own perspective, he has never been able to harness creativity to meet deadlines or call upon it when the employer requests ideas. It fluctuates at random, has a "feel-good" component, and is more of a hobby than a profession. The "creation" part of content creation only applies if you are creating content of your own volition and, not because it was assigned to you. And this is where the contradiction between passion and liability arises.
While the concept of an ideal career path is subjective, it is important to remember that an ideal job is not the same as one that is satisfactory. Content creation is an overly broad term that doesn't adequately describe the type of job you're looking for in this genre, and it comes with the risk of receiving a not-so-positive public response if any at all. While it is not an ideal 9-to-5 job, the creator's joy is almost entirely dependent on the reaction of his or her target audience in most cases.
It took Marques Brownlee (MKBHD on YouTube), one of the most popular technology-focused YouTubers in the world, five years and hundreds of videos to reach one million subscribers, whereas according to Statista, TikTok creator and Filipino-American singer Bella Poarch increased her audience by 5,915 per cent in the year 2020 alone! Although they use different platforms and types of media, it is clear from their content that MKBHD put far more effort and overall production into his. The bottom line is that when it comes to content creation, no matter how much passion or effort you put in, it all comes down to the audience.
"Content creation as a full-time job is not something realistic, especially in our country," Raisa Fatema, an Instagram content developer from IBA-DU, says. "The two main reasons for this are that our country's 'reach' to the public is rather limited in comparison to other nations, and that larger brands will always back the already successful models/actors for product promotion through their content, which is detrimental to the growth of smaller creators."
As a result, most content creators have little choice but to pursue their passion as a side job rather than full-time employment. In truth, the number of creators who left everything to focus on creating content from the beginning is quite small.
However, what about the traditional content creation that we all are familiar with? Content writing? Well, newspaper articles are swaying away from them being the mainstream media these days, if not already, so it is harder to get reach this way.
A fellow content writer who wishes to remain anonymous says:"Content writing is something that has always been a work of passion, but it is very different from what I expected when I actually started writing for a magazine. You have to put in a lot of research work and analysis into a single page of writing, which becomes tiresome if the topic is something you're not familiar with, or worse, something you're not interested in. Although it does not always come down to pay, I think that that also is not adequate in our country."
Arid, a nine-year-old YouTuber who goes by the username MintySparkz, says, "Creating videos makes me happy. Sometimes I laugh at my own videos even though I have watched them a million times while editing and uploading." When asked if he wants to be a content creator when he grows up, "astronaut" he says. Not to add, this nine-year-old has over 500 followers and a video that has had over 160,000 views till now.
Although the aforementioned assertions may conclude that content creation is not suitable as a full-time job, there are examples of people who started with nothing and went through this path to become the most popular creators. Take Felix Kjellberg, aka Pewdiepie, who dropped out of university and sold hot dogs before starting with nothing more than a computer and a cheap webcam. However, not everyone is capable of doing so. So, it all boils down to this: How far are you willing to risk it for your passion for content creation? Should you play it safe and keep it as a side gig, or dive in headfirst until you become the next Pewdiepie?
The writer is a third-year BBA student at IBA, Dhaka University.
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