is the creator economy...broken?? Carla Lalli Music weighs in 🥫🛜🍇📱

A conversation with the iconic food author and video host on her experience navigating creator spaces — and quitting YouTube.

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Let’s take a moment to watch Richard Serra’s 1973 Television Delivers People.

This is a video piece by large-scale, often site-specific artist that serves as a manifesto about what television actually does. Like the radio before and the internet after, Serra bluntly reminds that, if something is free, then you are being sold out. “It is the consumer who is consumed,” his rolling screen declares. “You are the product of t.v.” The work goes on to speak about soft propaganda and being controlled which, in the year 2025, is something “we all know” but we forget to take seriously. See also: Barbara Kruger’s 1987 I Shop Therefore I Am, which people these days have taken as a challenge to consume instead of an indictment of the act. These are tangents, yes, but the concept of “You are the product.” has been running around like crazy these days because of our broligarch state. “If something is free, you’re not the customer; you’re the product,” Bruce Schneier wrote in 2015’s Data and Goliath. “We are unpaid manufacturers — cloud serfs whose daily self-directed toil enriches a tiny band of multibillionaires,” Yanis Varoufakis wrote in 2023’s Technofeudalism. Mad Men’s Don Draper even said it in 2008: “You are the product. You, feeling something.”

I say this as, twenty years into social media, more and more people are realizing that the spaces we inhabit use us as product instead of as people using a service. Our time, our attention, our money: we are what is being sold, as brands use our labor to further enrich themselves. Digital life is a constant negotiation of personal politics and digital ethics, whether to leave on Meta because of MAGA or leave Substack because of Nazis: we are always trafficking in pros and cons. I know you reading this are aware of these facts — but what about creators, those who rely upon and invest in these spaces for advancement? Things get sticky, particularly as any post by anyone is now an audition to be considered for the rags to riches Squid Game of life that Mr. Beast won the jackpot of. Again: in 2025, it is very obvious that the “American dream” of social media success doesn’t work. The creator model, like the user model, isn’t working anymore.

My conversation with creator and dancer Misako Envela a few weeks back got at this. “It's making me emotional because it's hard to not feel like you're getting left behind,” she explained to me, in tears, speaking of her decade in digital. “I just have to keep believing that, even if I'm just touching 10 people or one person, that it still matters. I just try to stay grounded in that.” This then crashes into so many other topical subjects — from TikTok villain-of-the-moment 5hahem musing on how the internet enables dehumanization to stories of Black creators making significantly less than their white counterparts to the rise in “all New York creators are the same” conversation — that all illustrate how creators occupy a space beyond just being “the product.” Our time and our money goes into these platforms in exchange for the idea of success, of liberation, that increasingly few receive: we have entered the Monstro Elisasue phase of the creator economy.

A great example of this is the story of author and video host

carla lalli music

of

Food Processing

. If you don’t know Carla, I assure you that you do: she was Bon Appétit’s Food Director before being a key figure in their Test Kitchen, which came to define food media in the late 2010s and early 2020s (before…you know). Carla has authored multiple books, worked in multiple kitchens, managed Shake Shack in the mid-aughts, and worked for Martha Stewart’s media empire: she has done it all. Post-Bon Appétit, she has pivoted to a one-person media company, working from Brooklyn to run a TikTok and Instagram and podcast and newsletter — but not YouTube. Not anymore, at least.

In one of the most candid stories of the creator experience, Carla detailed at length with ample receipts why this model doesn’t work and that, as a result, she quit YouTube with 230K+ subscribers because she has been actively losing money by participating in the system. “Should I keep the channel going because it’s its own thing now, and I’ve built an audience on consistent, year-over-year weekly releases?” she mused. “I could, but not without thinking hard about my profit and loss statement. When it comes to YouTube, it’s mostly loss.” This is a bellwether: if Carla — a known public figure with a deep tie to YouTube success — has an issue making this system work, what does that mean for the rest of us? Woof.

To learn more, I spoke with Carla to get more of her story and to see how this fits into digital and political trends. We talked about the process of quitting a major platform, how social media and the internet mirrors larger trends of dehumanization, and why viewers are increasingly warped by the hyper-consumption of media.

KRF: When I first saw your story, I thought it was amazing because I feel like it's something I've heard echoed from so many other creators and friends and various people in and out of the creator space. Your story is so candid, so specific and honest. A lot of times you hear these complaints and critiques and it’s, like, “Well, you're whoever.” and they don’t have receipts to back it up. Your take was different in that way because you were so thorough in how things weren’t working and, arguably, because you have a decent following on that platform. That said a lot. Can you walk me through the realization and what that was like, that this isn't working? Because I think a lot of people have had that realization — but they don't change, or they feel like they have to keep going.

CLM: I tried to get across in the piece that it wasn't just one thing. I was really having these feelings around the two year mark. I don’t have a team: I have an accountant and we go over the P&Ls every month. As someone who has worked on the business side of restaurants, I know how to read and assess a budget and look at growth. I was the business person! Part of me was just like, “This is not a good business. Period.” If it was just YouTube, it wouldn't work at all. The reason it kept working is because YouTube is one of several revenue streams in my business, where other things supplement and support a money loser — which is YouTube.

At the time, when I started having those feelings, I was still enjoying the work. In the piece, I talk about the video team and how I love making videos. It was my favorite part of the cycle of how a recipe comes to creation: I get to develop it and then write it — but then I get to perform it. I love performing the recipes! I think that I had an amount of patience, in businesses taking an amount of time to grow so I believed in the growth model, that the more you do it, the bigger your library, the greater your reach and views.

What started happening was exactly the opposite of that: the longer I was on YouTube, the fewer views I was getting. That's very, very frustrating because we make great videos. I think the recipes — compared with other online creator recipes — are at a level of quality and service that does not exist in places, including media outlets. I kept waiting and waiting for the one that was going to “go big” or something. It just never happened and I was kind of struggling with the finances of it all. Then I signed the contract to write my third book last spring, almost exactly a year ago: once I had the book deal, something had to give. And this thing that doesn't earn me that much money? That takes half of my time? And emotional labor? It was hard. It’s hard to spend two hours giving notes on a video and then change gears and go into, like, writing an essay about whatever. It's a day killer! That's when I honestly noted that I was cranky on shoot days. I was starting to get frustrated — and that's how I knew: you're not having fun at your job anymore. Sustaining this part of the business that financially was fucked while writing my book — which is hugely important — was being compromised, emotionally and psychologically. Every time you have a video that doesn't do well, it's demoralizing. Like I said in the piece: my therapist was like, “Yeah, you're playing Russian roulette with your psyche every day.” You just don't know if you're going to have a winner or a loser.

Then I was going through my divorce. I was keeping it a secret because, you know, I didn't want to talk about it until he and I had an agreement because it was nobody's business. Coming out of a long relationship, where I was pretty unhappy in the last few years, I had to keep my personal life covered. I covered for my kids and the outside world — but the marriage was over. And I had to still project, like, goofy, cool auntie for videos.

KRF: That’s…a lot! And what you’re getting at with all this is a very accurate reflection of not just the creator economy but the economy in general. Something that I don’t think people really realize — and I've been thinking about this a lot, given my newsletter and working as a freelancer — is, at a certain point in your creative life, as a creative, as a creator, chef, designer, writer, painter: whatever you are. At a certain point, it's less about the output and “making” and is more about your business. You have to keep the business going! Creatives at a certain point become small business owners and I don't think people really understand that. These are the sort of decisions around finances, be it how you spend your time or money, that are really important because you could be doing other things. You could be working a job! You could be spending that time with your family, making friends: whatever else there is in life.

It's ironic that your videos are about showing people how to make food and how food is made — but the way people consume content and videos and culture doesn’t really think about that sausage. You have a life. You have people to support and who need you. All these things that we do are decisions that we have to make to make work, where we sacrifice life to “create” for our business. People don’t think about that for creators at a certain level. They think you’re a machine, that you’re Mr. Beast.

CLM: There's a certain sector of feedback that I've gotten, which is funny because I'm aware of who says what on which platform, but this is more of the TikTok response. People say, “Oh, Carla, you're spending way too much money. You just need to set up a tripod and, like…cook!” People don't don't care about the production quality. They just want to see you cooking. But how are you going to see the food? It’s so dumb and I think where that's coming from is people, for whatever reason, have this idea that in order to be on YouTube you have to be a one person show. Why is that what we think of when we think of being a YouTube creator? That was the model, maybe like 15 years ago. Look at the other food programming on YouTube, whether it’s the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen, Matty Matheson, Alison Roman, Josh Weissman: these people have crews that are very similar in size to mine. In fact, most people have sound people, which I did not have. It was hitting me too that, because I'm on YouTube, my entire job is…YouTube? I have a business! When I went to SXSW last year, people were asking for my title: what is your job? And I was really struggling with that. I ended up being like, “I own a small media company: I write, I publish books, I have a podcast, I do digital photography, social media, I do appearances, I'm talent, I'm talent for hire.” I never wanted to just make videos for YouTube.

KRF: And that energy from, say, “the institution” — a la, South by Southwest — trickles all the way to audiences, to the creator space, to YouTube itself, which is also parroting Hollywood. Having worked in Hollywood for a long time and reading experiences like yours, we on the inside, as professionals who have been forced to become multi-hyphenates, it is a lot of work and a sign of the industry’s problems. Audiences are so smart now but they still don't get what it takes to do all this while having “a job” to make money. Yes, I could pick up a tripod and do it myself — but you're not going to see the food getting cooked, or only from a specific view that is now antiquated as the system has evolved to require certain production values.

This also ties to something obvious: the idea that the creator economy isn't working, at least not producing breakouts as it had. I think the reason why is because the system no longer supports emerging success which means it’s now Hollywood, by another name, burning people constantly and keeping the masses enchanted by potential stardom. The creators who are established now…are it. Breakouts come and go, yes, but there’s a reason why Amelia Dimoldenberg and a handful of others are the only ones consistently working. The space is full, which also speaks to this idea of talent — people — being disposable. I keep getting this from legacy creators, like Tyler Oakley and Grace Helbig, who have to keep doing the same thing, but moving from YouTube to Twitch to wherever they can sustain themselves.

CLM: When I started making videos after BA, I had a Patreon. And, on Patreon, we used two iPhones. I have a friend who was the producer, editor, director and, when I went to YouTube, to promote my book, I was like, “This doesn't look good enough. The lighting isn't good enough. The food doesn't look good. I don't like how the room is lit.” I wanted to make it high quality. It's like someone being like, “You can't get a book deal. Why don't you just put out a pamphlet?” I don't want to make a pamphlet, right?

And now there is so much software that will cut video automatically. In fact, Substack, for their live videos, uses an AI tool that immediately makes social cuts. I got a comment that I almost put on blast, saying, “Use AI tools to edit. You don't need an editor.” And I was like…that's so insulting to the talents of human beings! But also to me! To be like, “You're doing it wrong. Use AI tools.” is wild. Maybe I’m naive about this shit: I don’t know. I was on Pinterest the other day and it took me a second to realize…I’m not looking at a real room. This isn't even a rendering! This is AI. I think people need to be very mindful about this, before we decide how stripped down and cheap our productions are. Are we now just going to use AI, which is like no one has explained how it works? And who owns it?

KRF: …when it’s destroying the planet?

CLM: Absolutely. A friend, who made videos with me, we caught up the other day and he told me that he was actually using AI sometimes for recipes. And I was like, “What?“ And he's like, “Yeah. And it's getting smarter. It kind of knows what I'm into.” So he'll type in, like, I have a pound of ground pork and I have this and I have that — what's something I can do in 15 minutes, with kind of stir fry or Asian flavors? And it spits out a recipe.

Carla makes an exasperated face. We both sigh, deeply.

KRF: I mean, sure, that can be useful — but also this all enables that disposability mindset. “We don’t need an editor. AI can be the editor.”: sure. But that feeling then translates all the way up to like, “Well, we don't need immigrants, trans people, whatever-whatever minority.” It’s subconscious but that’s the idea being expressed. It reminds me of something Maria Ressa said recently, who is a journalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago. She wrote How To Stop A Dictator. She was on PBS, talking about these things and how social media killed journalism. We know that, living through it, having worked in journalistic spaces where a team of journalists were laid off to pivot to video: that’s where the idea got serious. Now we have influencers in the White House instead of press. It’s the same thing that happens with, “I don't need an editor. I need AI.” Systems have collapsed. Knowledge is being thrown away! All because it's not as convenient or whatever. The result is people are disposable.

CLM: Your point is dehumanization. We are willingly deciding to dehumanize a creative process — and that is not cool. It’s hard to be in the feet of the creator or the artist. When I started writing my book, it was hard to write so I had to build myself up after losing the confidence. Being able to say I’m a writer or I’m an artist, because I create things, is hard to do even when you’re doing it — and then to have it be devalued, disposable, to hear that we don’t need people. That’s upsetting.

The blowing up of journalism and big media: there are positives, because of the democratization. I follow so many journalists on Substack and I don’t trust big media companies. There’s something positive in that but…the downside is legacy food media is now gone. As the head of the food department at Bon Appétit, I was responsible for making sure every single writer’s recipe was tested and tasted and signed off on, that it worked and was copy edited. If we had more than three comments saying the same thing went wrong, we would remake it. Do you know that woman Olivia Tied?

KRF: I don’t think so…?

CLM: She got 4.4 million followers in, like, 10 months. She has a lot of personality! She's funny. She’s punk rock and she worked in restaurants and is giving the finger. She’s a private chef and…I watch her videos and I watched her blow up and: there's no service at all.

KRF: Things like this are fun to watch, but it also brings up a good point: it’s this sort of behavior, this presentation online, that is divisive that plays into the algorithm. What becomes trendy is what’s divisive. We know, for a fact, that platforms like Meta reward this behavior. So does YouTube, in a way! They want people to have strong reactions and creators will play into that, rage baiting. As I am a subscriber to your channel and know your point of view, which was never about what was “on trend” but more what’s inherently good, you didn’t play into the trendy or divisive. Do you think that played into performance? It relates to disposability and economics, that people go toward and reward what makes them mad. What are your feelings on this? I think that’s a huge underline of this situation.

CLM: The big picture question that you're asking is: does it serve us to play into what we think the algorithm wants in order to propel our careers? How do you measure that? Is it because you have a lot of followers on Instagram that makes you successful? That right there is the endless trap that the platform set up for us, which is that you will never figure it out. You will always be chasing it. Most of the time, you will be wrong — and they do not pay for your experiments along the way of figuring what's going to hit. You're gonna get used.

The only way that I could attempt to try to manufacture “that” was by creating something new, right? The things that take off are the “Oh, I've never seen that before.” things like the teardrop cake. The “No one's done this before.” thing. Like the woman who does the felting animation: nobody's seen that. I was like…how can we do something that's gonna feel so creatively unique? We had many conversations on set where I was like, Omega, if you if none of the rules of food existed, what would we make? But the platforms…they want people on longer, touching and looking, engaging with more accounts, to give them more data, which they sell because they’re a tech company. It’s not free! Like everybody says: be very skeptical of these platforms that give you so much for free. It's not free: they're tracking your fucking pupil. And creators are told, “Oh, create more and more and more — and then it'll be more and more.” but instead we’re in this hamster wheel of trying to create all this content that will “reward” us — and it never does. It’s just you getting used.

KRF: And, at this point, we're hearing this happen enough via legacy creators and people who have a following who are just like, “This doesn't work anymore.” and you realize: it’s a false promise. Again: you have the Mr. Beasts now so platforms don't need all the little wannabe people. They don't really need 7000 Mr. Beasts. They already have seven other pretty good Mr. Beasts. So there's no use for you, little Tommy who lives in Tennessee, to keep doing it because we already have enough. It’s a content problem, it’s the AI problem, it’s the too much stuff problem: blah, blah, blah. It’s all dehumanizing.

CLM: Poor Tommy in Tennessee! It’s happening to some of the legacy accounts too. Look at my views: you can see from the beginning of the channel to where we ended, there is a huge drop off. Much bigger accounts than mine — Claire Saffitz, for example — was getting 900,000 to a million. She was on the trending page! She still gets way more than I did now — but it's like a third. Babish? Same thing. Matty Matheson: same thing.

KRF: Babish? Really??

CLM: Go look! My question is: if YouTube loved food creators so much — coming out of the BA Test Kitchen and that era, when it was very rewarding, but now it's not — did somebody decide something? What does YouTube want for food content? Or does it not want it to exist?

KRF: That’s a literal multi-million dollar question that is probably being debated somewhere. Or here!

CLM: If we're going to be successful, it's going to be as human beings: I like to believe that. Even though I've been very dedicated to the service side of what I do — and I provide a ton of service as far as usability, teaching, advice, testing, clearly explanations — I think now what is working is to lean into the emotional connection. People have parasocial relationships with me, or whatever, and I get so much from that as well. I want my work to focus more on connecting with someone emotionally the way I have connected with books and memoirs that have meant so much to me. If I can do that in a tiny way, that’d be great. That’s my goal is just not what it was.

KRF: I feel like I've heard that feeling from multiple people, in multiple ways. I do think there's going to be a larger shift in that direction. When we think about, say, what's “the next wave of creators,” it probably will be something like this because we’ll move away from the idea that “tech companies are very bad” to decentering them and their platforms. There will always be, you know, the aspiring Elons or whatever — but a good amount of the people are turning away from that. What does that mean for you? What’s next? How do you invest in emotional connection? I assume the memoir?

CLM: I'm working on that: it’s due in 41 days.

KRF: You got this!

CLM: It has more essays, more personal writing than I've ever put into any of my books. I've taken a long break in between book two and book three and, usually, they want a book to come out every other year. But I didn't have anything — and then my marriage ended. I spent that first year realizing that the connection that I had to food and cooking, as both a way to comfort myself but also as a creative act that helps me not do something else that was really not fun and painful, like doing financial worksheets for lawyers, I was like: thank God I have this thing that I can do three times a day that is important and necessary and is literally feeding me. Then I was like: oh, this is what I want the book to be about.

So the book starts where the marriage is already over: I'm not talking about divorce. I'm talking about this arc of sadness, grief, resilience, and joy and taking care of other people — and the food I cooked throughout it all. It’s really scary but I’m so happy I'm doing it. It’s either divorce, friend breakups, death: it’s backing into a parking spot too fast, deinting somebody else's fender — it’s the shit that happens every day and we might need a moment to make ourselves feel better. For me, food is there. That’s what it’s about. It’s celebratory and I want to rethink what comfort food means. It doesn't mean getting in bed with a bag of bonbons — unless that's what you want to do.

KRF: I love that. I feel like that totally makes sense and I feel like that will be perfectly timed for what the world needs.

CLM: I hope.

KRF: I think it will. It's already in conversation with what is starting to be a conversation. It will only continue to feed the people, at the right time.

CLM: I hope so! I’m previewing recipes when I can reveal the cover and title, I usually do that on Instagram — but I’m going to do that on Substack. And my long term goal? I would like to not be on social media…except Facebook Marketplace, which is very important since it replaced the doomscroll in a lot of ways because now I’m finding six foot stuffed cactuses in someone’s living room and am sending them to my sister, like “This is important. Someone needs to buy this!”

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carla lalli music

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