T.L.: You’re 100 percent right, I think it’s kind of a double-edged sword. These collab groups and houses can be a very supportive community for content creators who are looking for support, easy collaboration. It’s easier to grow together as a group, but it can also be very toxic, it can be a very high-pressure environment. Sometimes you have management companies getting involved, seeking to profit off these groups very early. A lot of times, they don’t end up owning a lot of their own content or seeing a lot of the upside. Also, just the interpersonal dynamics can be really tough because, of course, every one of these groups usually has like one or two breakout stars. For everyone else, it can be a little bit hard. For instance, with the Hype House, you had Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae break out, and for the rest of them, it maybe took a minute to find their way. You don’t want to be defined only by the group that you’re in.
E.S.: Why do you think stories like these are so often left out of sweeping histories?
T.L.: I think most of the narratives are these views that we’re fed that glorify entrepreneurialism and start-up founders and mostly men in Silicon Valley that have built these companies. And that’s because of the way our culture is set up. We have this obsession with “great men” who invent these technologies, and actually the history is a little more complicated than that, as you can read from my reporting. It’s the users themselves that shape it into what they are today.