The recent rise of vloggers, YouTubers, Instagram influencers, and TikTok stars has enforced this belief that technology birthed content creators. In 2000, the title “content creator” couldn’t be found on any job postings, resumes, or company websites. However, two decades later, over 50 million people call themselves content creators or members of the creator economy. What lessons from the last two millennia of content creation can they tap?

It’s difficult to argue that major social media and tech platforms, like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have embedded content into our daily lives over the last couple of decades. But does that mean that content itself is new? Certainly, content existed before smartphones and social media.

At its core, today’s version of a content creator is influencing another person through original thought or artistic expression. When you break it down to that definition, you can realize that people have been creating content since the very first cave drawing.

The First Influencers in History

Let’s consider Martin Luther born in Germany in 1483. He was a generally unknown monk and scholar until 1517 when he published one of the most influential pieces of all time: The 95 Theses. You might say it was the first “blog” post that ever went viral.

Luther allegedly pinned his writing to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, and from there it spread like wildfire throughout Europe. You might say it was the first “blog” post that ever went viral.

The 95 Theses had two main points:

1. The Bible is the central religious authority.
2. Humans reach salvation only by their faith - not their actions.

Luther allegedly pinned his writing to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church, and from there it spread like wildfire throughout Europe. People copied and redistributed the paper until it influenced an entire generation, fractionalized the Catholic Church, created the Lutheran Church, and sparked the Protestant Reformation.

According to Ada Palmer, associate professor of early modern European history at the University of Chicago, Luther can be considered one of the first star bloggers: “Luther hit the right moment to be the first pamphlet star preacher, like being one of the first star bloggers, or star YouTubers, and he hit the right political situation for the governments of the region he was in to see him as a great excuse to do something they wanted to do anyway: get out of the giant papal prisoner's dilemma.”

Even before Luther, there was Socrates with his famous defense speech at the trial for his impiety and corruption in 399 BC. Captured and published by his student Plato in The Apology, members of the ancient world renowned his defense for stimulating a cooperative argument based on critical thinking, not emotion. Future generations called the Socratic Method and used it in many disciplines of science and communication. Even today, people use it as a way to objectively examine different beliefs, values, and motivations.

We could go even farther back in history to examine how people created and spread different influential works, but you probably get the point by now: content creation is nothing new. We’ve just developed innovative and more efficient methods of distribution.

Lessons Learned from 2,000 Years of Content Creation

Can we tap lessons from the long history of content creation? We think so! Sometimes, the best way to move forward is to peek into the past. Tap lessons from the last two millennia of content creation to accelerate your own creator career!

Here are some of the most valuable takeaways from the last 2,000 years:

1. Creative work can be a very lucrative career

We can owe the “starving artist” trope to the well-known cases of now-famous artists that died poor, such as Van Gogh, Kafka, Bach, and Monet. These representations of artists make people assume all art requires suffering and sacrifice – it’s something you do out of passion, not for a paycheck…right?

However, most of quality artists have actually done quite well throughout history as they figured out how to make a good living from their talent and passion - especially in the “golden periods” of content creation, such as during the Renaissance or Romanticism eras.

Most of quality artists have actually done quite well throughout history as they figured out how to make a good living from their talent and passion.

As an obvious example, Renaissance Florence, Italy, included Michelangelo, who could afford to live a luxurious lifestyle among the very upper class of Florence society. Of course, Michelangelo's work was funded by the Vatican and other various churches – he had one of the most affluent and influential audiences in the world. Michelangelo earned around 400 florins just for The David statue, which was about 40 times the average annual wage at that time.

Even in the modern day a large portion of career content creators and art professionals have figured out how to support themselves. Many fare better than the average population: the average annual income for full-time content creators is $52,800, which is $8,200 higher than the overall U.S. average. 88% of content creators have health insurance coverage, 63% own a home, their unemployment is rate similar to all U.S. workers, and the creator economy is growing faster than overall U.S. employment growth. Creators and artists also have a healthy representation in the top 10% and top 1% of the population and claim several superstar names, i.e., Mr. Beast, Jake Paul, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Ariana Grande, etc.

2. High-quality content is paid by recipients, often in advance

Nowadays, a lot of creators follow a classic playbook – create content first, excite the audience, monetize through ads and creator funds, try brand deals, maybe receive some donations. Rinse and repeat.

This is quite a difference from how quality content and art were funded in the past. In fact, the majority of creations (large and small) were paid for by the recipient, who could be an individual, an institution, or even a community. Often, these artists were paid before they even started working.

The majority of creations were paid for by the recipient, who could be an individual, an institution, or even a community. Often, these artists were paid before they even started working.

Many Renaissance creators were supported either by a patron or institution. They earned from the direct sale of their art. Take few examples:

• Michelangelo's painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508. Much of Michelangelo's work was funded by the Church throughout the early 1500s.
• Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was ordered by Italian merchant Francesco del Giocondo, who wanted a portrait of his wife.
• Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker was commissioned and paid for by the French Directorate of Fine Arts in 1880 as part of the Decorative Arts Museum plans.

3. Fans are directly involved in content or art creation, often co-designing or co-creating

Throughout history, audiences were not passively following their favorite creators. Rather, customers and recipients were directly involved and often helped with the design or production. To illustrate:

• Lorenzo Ghiberti, hired by the banker’s guild of Florence, was asked to design and build a statue of Saint Matthew. Not only did the guild specify many requirements for the artwork in the contract, but they participated in the actual design and build process.
• Bernardo de Lazarro signed a contract with a painter Pietro Calzetta for a fresco painting. Not only did the contract include detailed specifications, but also included a very detailed sketch design that the two collaborated on before the agreement was signed.

4. Skill and capability is developed through coaching and training

Popular belief is that successful content creators are either born with innate talent or get “lucky” in the algorithm. However, serious creators know it takes much more than that. A lot of hard work goes into building capabilities and experience. Today’s creators need a full range of skills and capabilities that rival the largest media houses.

Throughout the last two millennia, there were always places or communities for creators and artists to learn and receive coaching, helping to develop much-needed skills and forge best-practice capabilities. Take few examples:

• In Athens around 387 B.C., Plato established Academia to help develop skills in philosophers, authors, creators, or anyone interested to learn. Unlike Socrates who saw learning as a result of self-reflection, Plato was convinced that skills and knowledge could be learned through observation and practice, and therefore taught. So, he founded an informal community/society to engage in topics of shared interest. Academia produced several world-renowned authors and philosophers over the next 900 years, including Aristotle and Heraclides.
• Renaissance Europe had a sophisticated system of guilds and workshops for young or new artists. Even Michelangelo developed his early skills in these formal guilds – He was Ghirlandaio’s apprentice at age 13 and was later admitted to the Medici Platonic Academy, where his creative spirit was influenced by the most prominent creators, philosophers, and writers of the day.
• Michelangelo understood the value of learning and hard work. After completing the Sistine Chapel painting, arguably the most extensive and admired artwork ever created, he reportedly noted, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.

5. Focus and dedication build resilient careers and businesses

It’s difficult to be a meaningfully successful creator unless you are focused on your career full-time (or nearly full-time). A large part of creators and artists throughout history turned their passion into a successful business structure that allowed them to live comfortably – and they changed the world. Two examples to illustrate the point:

• Shakespeare didn’t focus on rich patrons, but instead turned to “the fans.” He and his colleagues established the paid theater model, where most middle-class and even lower-income people could afford to enjoy paid entertainment. Shakespeare’s Globe Theater was a model for today’s performing arts centers, concert halls, and even movie theaters. He mastered what we now call a tiered admission system. At the Globe Theater, the cheapest entry started at 1 penny, front row seats cost more, and balconies and boxes were the most expensive. There was even a special service option for Queen Elizabeth, who would pay 10 Pounds for a typical show (reportedly, she was a huge fan). Additional monetization strategies included food and drink, long-term memberships, souvenirs, and sponsorships by wealthy patrons.
• Today, a good example of this is how MrBeast built a business and influenced a generation. He has a wildly successful YouTube channel with nearly 100 million subscribers that earns him tens of millions of dollars per year. While that is impressive on its own, perhaps even more interesting is how he systematically built a business empire. Take the MrBeast Burger, Feastables (a new food company), and his investments in several tech and media startups. MrBeast is also an active philanthropist who has helped raise millions of dollars for the Arbor Day Foundation and Team Seas, and he started his own charity called Beast Philanthropy.

In many ways, the content creator industry hasn’t changed over the last 2,000 years. Still today we see creators and artists with lucrative careers, commissioned works, and workshops designed for creators who want to grow their skills. And MrBeast isn’t the only creator who turned their passion into a global empire.

Now that you know how long content creation has been around and how little the fundamentals have changed, it’s time to use these lessons to accelerate your own creator career or business. Start today.

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