The Garden Harvest: 8/15/25
Your weekly digest on the intersection of the Creator Economy and Legacy Media.
Welcome back to the Garden Harvest.
Each week, we gather and curate the freshest insights from the worlds of Creators and Legacy Media, so you can stay rooted in what matters and spot new opportunities where others can’t.
Let’s get into it…
FRESH CLIPPINGS
Cineverse jumps into short form
The Terrifier franchise distributor, along Lloyd Braun’s Banyan, are preparing to launch a micro-drama studio and streaming platform. They describe it as a purpose-built supplier of mobile-first series. In other words, micro-dramas.
A few weeks back, we highlighted a great post from Meta Valentic and her experience working in one of these projects. In that post, she reflected on a mindset change for legacy media: “The micro-drama business is still in its infancy, which provides opportunities for producers to grow it responsibly.”
Well, it seems that people are taking note. Erick Opeka, the president and chief strategy officer at Cineverse, said in conjunction with the announcement that, “By bringing Hollywood best practices to a global format that’s taken off in Asia – but hasn’t been cracked in the U.S. – we believe MicroCo is uniquely positioned to lead this space.”
This is the right attitude to take here. We’ll see if other legacy companies jump into the party.
The power of niche
By now we all know that the creator economy thrives on niches, and this week brought us a great example of it in action.
That example is Jonathan Katz-Moses, a woodworking creator with nearly 600,000 YouTube subscribers. On the surface, he’s a woodworker content creator, but underneath, he runs KM tools, where he’s on track to make $10 million this year.
He’s in the news as he was one of the first creators to receive funding from Slow Ventures’ new creator fund. The investment thesis is crystal clear: a strong, loyal following, and a stand-alone business tied directly to the content creation side, both of which fuel each other.
Jonathan said it best as it relates to niches: “I don’t need 50 million views. I need 100,000 loyal viewers and that’s it.”
Originality in the creator economy
Jen Topping asks a poignant question in her recent post: Does creator-land need an injection of originality and less copycat content?
Legacy media gets constantly attacked for recycling IP, but could the creator economy be falling into a similar pitfall? As Jen points out, the creator economy is moving into a new phase marked by growing professionalism, a greater emphasis on building businesses than just content channels, and an increased focus on quality. As more money floods the market, will the risks creators take diminish?
It’s something to keep in ming as creators become more and more institutionalized.
GARDEN VIEW
It’s always worth taking a step back and actually understanding how the tech we’re all talking about works. This video offers a clear, engaging breakdown of how generative AI creates images and videos. Whether you’re a casual user or building something in the space, it’s a smart primer that helps you see past the hype and into the mechanics driving the tools shaping so much of today’s creative landscape.
HARVEST QUOTE
“We are sitting on a shrinking iceberg and must be willing to look beyond our current employers.”
- Michele Mulroney, in her candidate statement to become the next president of the WGA.
Yup… It’s a tough pill to swallow, but at the end of the day, the writers have to go where the work is.
See you next week…