The Reading Garden: 5/16/25
What We’re Reading, and Why It Matters to Legacy Media
Welcome back to the Reading Garden, where every Friday we spotlight three must-read pieces we're paying attention to and explore what they mean for legacy media.
Without further ado…
For reasons we’re all familiar with, Hollywood workers are struggling. But as Natalie Jarvey points out, the issue might lie in where people are looking. She highlights Scott Fisher, a longtime digital talent manager who’s bringing in publicists, agents, and other Hollywood pros to help manage the careers of top content creators.
And guess what? It’s working.
These are some of the folks turning digital personalities into full-fledged brands.
Still, we get it, there’s some stigma around going from prestige TV to helping a 22-year-old make TikToks, but as the creator economy keeps growing, that perception will most likely shift.
For Hollywood workers, the creator world might just be where the future opportunities (and white spaces) are waiting to be found.
And it’s not just people making the leap. Entire legacy media companies are buying their way in (Skybound also acquired digital talent firm Nine Four Entertainment this week).
Ben Silverman, chairman of Propagate Content, gets it. He says that “Digital creators have fundamentally transformed the media landscape and how audiences consume content.” But the thing is, he’s not just talking, he’s moving.
With this acquisition, Propagate is building a new kind of full-spectrum enterprise spanning Hollywood, literacy, publishing and the social platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Substack, and more — evolving the company beyond a single vertical and turning it into an entire wheelhouse.
It might sound revolutionary, but it’s simply meeting today’s audiences where they already are.
And yet, even with all of this happening right in front of us, much of Hollywood still struggles to see the creator economy as a peer—let alone a partner. Dhar Mann, who was featured just last week in a big Hollywood Reporter article for building his own studio, wrote about being brutally dismissed by a legacy media person.
That moment sums up a much bigger issue, one that we all need to overcome. For our own sake…
Because here’s the thing. Just because creators don’t look like Hollywood, doesn’t mean they’re not doing Hollywood-level work. As Mann puts it, they’re “building studios from scratch, creating original IP, hiring teams, employing actors, and generating real impact.”
We’ll leave you with how he ended his post. It’s the kind of truth that sticks:
“The next generation of power players won’t be found on the big 6 backlots… they’ll be online, building audiences and telling stories their way. The sooner Hollywood realizes that, the stronger we’ll all be.”
See you next week.