It’s a bit surreal to see Mira, who is sharing a screen with a logo of Silo, a not so genuine company, partially covered with her laptop in blankets. The name Silo is everywhere now, and Mira seems to remember those days, though the air feels different now. Creators used to post content just for the fun of it. Now there are expectations of workflows, meetings, and a whole lot more, even if you are in pajamas, it doesn’t matter. Perhaps this is the outcome of a hobby turning into something resembling business.

Mira recalls the shift as nearing the time when YouTube started integrating things other than pure views into the mix. Content creators need to rethink what good really means, and while everyone is redefining it alongside the crowded market, it all comes down to being unique and having additional dimensions to stand out. It no longer revolves around being omnipresent. It was perplexing, but meaningfully chasing virality does not feel as important as it was, even though people still consider it the golden ticket.

Self-media industry best practices suggest more than half of top self-media individuals have some sort of planning or use content calendars. It does not seem everyone uses the same benchmarks, but the ‘winging it’ approach is clearly ebbing. It has been suggested that nearly 75%, or a solid majority, have some structure to their workflow. Most creators seem to have moved away from the whimsical approach to uploading content if they want to remain relevant in the industry.

Mira has pointed out the notion of “going viral” no longer is sufficient on its own. It really does feel like, whether it’s YouTube or somewhere else, that popularity can get you only so far these days. It appears like the rationale for enduring the test of time does rely more on deeper content. Audiences and creators alike may have shifted, and this only reinforces the notion that flashy views and surface level engagement won’t cut it—real substance matters too. All of this makes it feel like the landscape is tougher than even a few years back.

Mira wonders, almost aloud, whether simply going viral is still effective in today’s world. Perhaps there was a time when it did work, but now, as we witness YouTube and other platforms shifting their paradigms, it’s easy to see how the focus isn’t only on big numbers. Sometimes, depth matters more. It’s even more telling how creators seem to be preoccupied with engagement strategies; the competition has gotten fiercer than it ever was. Interested in real-world examples? Discover them here.

There are some industries that seem oddly reluctant in trying to professionalize. As Mira highlights, such an unwillingness does not stem from nowhere. There could be a sense of nostalgia here for when work felt more side-project-y, or a combination of that with some vague idea that structure stifles creativity. The term professional poses conflict on its own; as far as tools and mindsets go, these are just two competing ideas and lacks consensus as definitions wander. For creators, more so in areas where trends move at a rapid pace and “rules” aren’t written down anywhere, the decision whether to adopt formal systems or keep things loose tends to get intertwined with too many questions and no answers.

Here’s the thing. There is always that weird strange give and take—making money versus staying “real.” Every now and again, one could come across someone trying to monetarily benefit from trends slumping, and wonder if anyone pays attention to their audience. Just below half of these people “work” like this, in silence, pondering where the boundary exists between marketing strategy and selling out.

At some point along the way, people went from having a good time posting videos online on a whim to, in a way, “constructing” them like one would a house. Not that there is ever a day one blueprint for buiding, but at least most people in the YouTube space have recently started discussing about depth, as opposed to solely the eye-catching parts. The space has gotten crowded; simple viral hits don’t stick the way they used to. There is a collective feeling that creating things systematically, even if there is no agreement on when this became the case, has somehow become more impactful than doing them unsystematically.

Maybe what Mira has noticed is that getting something to go “viral” is not as easy as it once was. It seems to Mira that there is a new form of ‘reward’ in platforms like YouTube. It’s not simply about “views” any more. People have started to rethink what “good” means in this enormous crowd.

Going “viral” is not as easy as it used to be and that is what Mira has been saying. Maybe in the past having just one hit video meant great exposure but nowadays YouTube alongside other platforms seems to try placing more importance on in-depth content. Instead of going after views, attention, and countless subscribership with every piece of work, content creators start to think about how to actually stand out in an increasingly competitive environment.rk, content creators start to think about how to actually stand out in an increasingly competitive environment.