The Garden Harvest: How to Work With Creators

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

FRESH CLIPPINGS

The 5 Rules For Working With Creators In 2026

For all the talk about “partnering with creators” in legacy media, the real question is: what does that actually look like in practice?

RJ Larese breaks down five rules that have consistently held up over time. And he would know, as U.S. President of Sixteenth, a leading 360° creator talent management company within the Whalar ecosystem.

Here they are:

1. Let creators lead the creative
The best work happens when creators are involved from day one, not handed a finished brief of what to do or say. Early ownership makes the work feel alive; late-stage involvement makes it feel forced. For legacy media, this is a reminder that digital talent shouldn’t be treated like distribution, but creative partners and early signalers of what actually resonates.

2. Cast against type (on purpose)
Unexpected creators work because surprise cuts through the infinite sameness of the algorithm. When brands or studios keep choosing the “safe” faces, expect get predictable results. Fresh audiences are often unlocked by unconventional casting and voices, not by repeating the same playbook. Think: hiring a gamer or athlete for something beauty-related vs. a typical beauty creator.

3. Build long-term partnerships, not one-offs
One appearance feels like an ad. Repeated collaboration builds belief. The same is true for IP incubation: trust compounds over time. For Hollywood, sustained creator relationships are a smarter way to test, nurture, and de-risk new ideas than constantly chasing new talent.

4. Reduce friction so creators can actually create
Boring products aren’t the problem, boring, over-controlled strategies are. Creators need clear goals and flexibility, not scripts disguised as “organic” content. Too many rules kill authenticity, speed, and cultural relevance, which are the exact things that make creators so special.

5. Treat creators like partners, not placements
The strongest brands invest beyond the contract: access, trust, and real relationships. That mindset shift matters for studios too. Creators remember who respects their voice, and those are the partners they choose when it’s time to build something bigger.

As RJ says, at the end of the day, “none of this is complicated.” However, it does require a change in how we think.

Protecting Creators From Legacy Culture

A little more on this, because as the convergence between creators and legacy media accelerates, cultural friction is inevitable.

Sean Atkins shared a sharp example in a recent post about Discovery’s acquisition of Revision3, one of the earliest creator-video deals by a legacy media company.

Revision3 had roughly 50 employees. Discovery had thousands.

Almost immediately, Revision3’s leadership was pulled into meetings with network presidents, marketing heads, and division leads, all eager to understand “the future.” The intention was positive, but the math did not work. A small leadership team suddenly lost the majority of its bandwidth.

The very qualities Discovery acquired Revision3 for, speed, instinct, and the ability to ship and iterate, were slowly suffocated by the demands of a much larger organization.

This is the cultural mismatch that quietly kills many creator acquisitions and partnerships. Creators operate on velocity. Corporations operate on planning. And as Sean notes, neither approach is inherently right or wrong, but they do not coexist easily.

His advice is simple and critical: this only works when “legacy media has the discipline to protect what it buys from its own culture. The companies that get this right do not just acquire creators. They build walls around them.”

The Inevitable Convergence Is Accelerating

We’re only a few weeks into 2026, and the signal is already loud.

On the Netflix front…

Alan Chikin Chow, the creator behing YouTube series Alan’s Universe, whose channel has over 99M subscribers, is doing a new scripted series set in the world of K-Pop.

The streamer has also just greenlit an untitled reality series with creator Alix Earle, which will feature her friends and family, including her sister Ashtin Earle.

And Pete Davidson will host a new video podcast (or should we just call it a talk show?) titled “The Pete Davidson Show.” Importantly, this marks Netflix’s first original video podcast, i.e. not licensed from somewhere else.

Last year, we wrote about how the Netflix vs. YouTube battle would intensify. We’re now watching that prediction play out in real time.

Across the pond, the BBC is making its own push as they are developing a new YouTube channel focused on showcasing perspectives and encouraging dialogue and debate for 16-24 year old audiences. Each producer will receive ~£1m to develop, produce and deliver at least 30 formatted episodes (each between 10 and 30 minutes long) within a 12-month period.

Just as important, the BBC and YouTube, with emphasis on the “and,” are jointly launching a creator skills and training initiative alongside the National Film and Television School. The program will bring together 150 media professionals across the UK to build YouTube-specific skills through a series of workshops and live events.

None of this is accidental. Legacy media isn’t just experimenting with creators anymore. It’s retooling its strategies around them.

GARDEN VIEW

If you haven’t been following the Iron Lung story, it’s a pretty fascinating case study on creator cinema. We’ll have proper breakdown next week once it opens, but it’s interesting to see the early inklings of creators demonstrating proof of demand to exhibitors and it actually working.

HARVEST QUOTE

“Legacy studios that treat YouTube as the front door, not the trailer, aren’t diluting premium…they’re future-proofing it.”

— David Freeman, Global Head of Digital at CAA

David was talking about Neal Mohan’s 2026 outlook, emphasizing that YouTube is no longer “nice to have.”

It’s worth reading his full take here.

Have a great weekend…

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