The Garden Harvest: 11/7/25

Your weekly digest on the intersection of the Creator Economy and Legacy Media.

FRESH CLIPPINGS

Betting on creator filmmakers

Can creators turn their digital footprint into box office success? That’s the question Creator Camp, who we’re big fans of, is answering. And so far, the results look promising.

They’ve just signed a three-picture theatrical deal with Attend, a company that helps filmmakers book theaters directly, bypassing the traditional distribution maze. The model here is straightforward: creators bring their own audiences straight to the box office.

Their test case for the first picture, Baron Ryan’s Two Sleepy People, speaks volumes. At Creator Camp’s flagship Austin event, 1,000 attendees generated $150,000 in ticket sales. A four city tour that followed in Seattle, LA, San Francisco, and New York averaged more than $10,000 per screen.

Creator Camp founder and CEO Max Reisinger sums it up perfectly: “That direct connection solves a huge challenge in theatrical distribution. Instead of relying on outdated models that guess who will show up, our creators can bring fans to theaters they’ve already cultivated online, turning digital engagement into real-world box office success.”

We’re here for it.

YouTubers go pro

The PGA Tour recently announced the Good Good Championship, a creator-led tournament debuting in 2026 which will officially bring one of YouTube’s biggest golf collectives into the sport’s professional fold.

It’s a pretty awesome set up: the PGA Tour handles the competition infrastructure, while Good Good Golf brings millions of fans who discovered the game online. What started as casual videos and golf vlogs has evolved into a sports media empire. And now, an officially sanctioned tournament as well.

This partnership demonstrates an attitude that we’re seeing more of legacy sports (and legacy media in general) are finally taking creators seriously as partners, not just promoters. The PGA Tour gets younger audiences and dramatically increases its cultural relevance, while Good Good gets legitimacy and access.

The convergence of creator-driven fandom with established sports institutions feels inevitable (remember Jomboy Media x MLB?), and this might be the model everyone else in legacy will follow.

Creators vs Influencers

The distinction between creators and influencers is often blurred, but Jen Topping offers one of the clearest explanations yet.

She says…

An influencer is someone who builds an audience around their own personality, opinions, reviews, and recommendations, and whose primary goal is to share and promote products and services to their audiences.

A creator is someone whose primary purpose is to entertain or educate their audience in some way. Their content may be sponsored or have product placement, but it’s secondary.

Ok, but why does this matter for producers? Don’t worry, she answers that too.

• Even if a production company doesn’t have a product to sell today, there’s nothing stopping it from becoming a direct-to-consumer brand tomorrow.

• Creators and content channels are increasingly valuable not just for views, but as marketing real estate to upsell something else. The challenge is doing it authentically. “Merch” only works when the product actually resonates.

• As content, commerce, and community blur together, marketing itself is being rewritten. And if you think legacy media is in flux, the real disruption may be happening in how creators (and studios) learn to sell directly.

GARDEN VIEW

Even though this video utterly fails to hide its nature as an ad, creator Nicky Reardon’s argument is spot on.

In social platforms, short form has hit its peak. There’s never been more discovery, which means that it’s never been harder to build community. It’s always new new new stuff being pushed on us. All the time.

So how do you reward community and build loyalty? With long form content. But long form is tough as an individual creator without a team helping you out.

No easy answers here, just something to chew on.

HARVEST QUOTE

“No One Called—So I Made the Work Myself”

— Filmmaker and showrunner Mauro Mueller

This quote (and the title of his latest post) reads like a call to action. With the industry shifting fast and many in legacy media still wondering how to get their projects made or step into the creator economy somehow, this piece offers both the mindset and the confidence to start.

Highly recommend you read the whole thing.

Have a great weekend…

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