Robert Downey Jr. went on a podcast called Conversations for Our Daughters, where he shared his views on the current state of influencers with Bran Ferren. While everyone on X was being hypercritical of his comments (20 people sent me this clip), I was more interested in understanding why he felt the need to go on the podcast and voice his disdain for the current creator landscape and the traction it’s gained over the last five years. Everyone here has heard me say that I think the next generation of writers, directors, and producers are getting their start on YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch, but RDJ obviously doesn’t see it that way.
RDJ Is Just Trying To Make Sense Of It
If you watch the full interview like I did, you realize pretty quickly that RDJ actually understands the shift in attention better than a lot of traditional Hollywood stars do. He grew up in a world where becoming a star meant years of rejection, mastering your craft, working with directors, building artistic credibility, surviving public failure, and slowly earning cultural legitimacy over decades. To someone raised in that environment, the idea that celebrity can now come from turning on a camera and posting videos to TikTok has to be frustrating.
What RDJ rejects is the idea that attention alone automatically equals artistry or cultural significance. He says the stars of the future being influencers is horseshit, but that’s where he’s wrong. For kids who grew up primarily watching YouTube, a 40-minute survival video from Outdoor Boys is a form of art for our generation, and Kai Cenat’s Mafiathon is a mastered craft that took years to build toward. He may not agree with it, but what my generation, and the generations below me, view as entertainment and art includes YouTube videos, TikToks, and Twitch streams.
The Internet Picks Who’s Famous
A new path to becoming a writer or director has emerged, and it starts with making videos on social platforms. Just last week, we saw Curry Barker from That’s a Bad Idea get tapped to direct the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Another YouTube creator is getting a shot at directing, and I guarantee this won’t be the last time we see that happen. Whether people in Hollywood choose to accept that shift or not is up to them. Ten to fifteen years from now, I think most people who are famous, or working in whatever the film industry looks like by then, will be products of the internet.
Traditional Hollywood Will Be Split On The Issue
Not everyone in Hollywood feels the same way RDJ does. Kevin Hart recently had the opposite take, explaining how streamers like MrBeast and IShowSpeed are pulling millions of dollars of attention away from Hollywood. We’re starting to see a real divide emerge between people like Kevin Hart, who regularly streamed with Kai Cenat, and people like Robert Downey Jr., who doesn’t buy that influencers are the next generation of stars. As this shift continues this year, you’re going to see two schools of thought emerge: individuals who believe internet creators are the future of entertainment, and those who still see them as separate from traditional Hollywood talent.
The Big Takeaway
Hollywood is splitting into two different ways of thinking. One side still believes traditional actors, directors, and entertainers are in a completely different category from internet creators. The other sees creators as the next generation of entertainment talent, people who are already building audiences, mastering storytelling, and learning how to hold attention at scale. Whether Hollywood accepts it or not, the internet has become the starting point for the next generation of stars.
There’s this weird corner of the internet right now where people are filming themselves walking into Scientology buildings to see how far they can get before getting kicked out. It’s called Scientology speedrunning, a play on speedrunning, where people try to beat a video game as fast as possible. It’s gotten so popular that some locations have started removing door handles.
People Are Touching Grass More
Will the generation that comes after Alpha be the first to reject social media?
Twitch Takes A Hard Stance Against Bots
Interested to see how the viewer cap works.
YouTube Pumps Up Ad Sales 10.7% to $9.9 Billion in Q1
YouTube remains undefeated.
