How to Become Even More Niche

Everyone Becomes a Pseudo-Celebrity

The story of influence starts with distance. The original “influencers” were celebrities, untouchable figures you accessed through TV, radio, and movies. Their power came from scarcity and separation. Then creators replaced them, primarily because they were closer. They were relatable, accessible, and built trust by feeling like someone you could actually know. Today, pretty much everybody can say they know a creator personally, or at least feel they do. And because of that, the psychological barrier to becoming one is nearing its end. Even if someone never intends to “be a creator,” they still curate a presence or a “personal brand,” if you will. Profiles are curated, personalities are designed, and personal branding is becoming a default behavior. This is leading to a new normal where everyday people become pseudo-celebrities, not even with the intention of chasing fame, but by living in a world where visibility itself is treated like potential value. This is the rise of “the micro influencer with a mysterious source of income”.

Ambient Commerce Turns Visibility Into Money

That shift accelerates as platforms keep moving toward freemium economics, more access subsidized by more advertising, and as commerce becomes increasingly frictionless. In the next phase, ads will become embedded in life (Ik, creepy, right, but let me keep going bc we kind of already do this). Everything becomes linkable, tagged, and shoppable: an outfit, a coffee shop, a lamp in the background of a photo, a product in a video. We currently do this to express status; we want to signal that we know what is cool and what new trends will be, and to show that we participate in the cool trends. I just saw a new app called Reco Social, and the whole point is that you can post a video/picture of yourself or a place you went to and get paid a commission based on who uses your link. This is already very similar to affiliate marketing or what you see on TikTok when people promote items, but this approach is slightly more natural than a full-out sales pitch. What begins as a manual behavior, apps where regular people post a fit and link where every piece came from, becomes the early version of a much more automatic system. When image recognition and wearable interfaces mature, you won’t need a creator to tell you what something is. You’ll see it, scan it, and buy it. And once that loop becomes normal, people themselves become monetizable surfaces. This is where I think Meta Glasses will come in, allowing you to “scan” people’s outfits in an “Amazon Storefront” type of manner. This leads to taste starting to function like a form of passive affiliate marketing, where being seen in the right context can trigger purchases. The reward mechanism doesn’t have to be direct payment; companies can get creative with discounts, cashback, perks, status, or access. But in a consumer society optimized for conversion, the line between self-expression and sales dissolves.

Creators Evolve Into Faces, Brands, and Event Anchors

In that same world, current creators don’t disappear; their role just changes. They still participate in ambient commerce like everyone else, but their advantage can’t remain “I post, and people buy,” because distribution gets cheaper and more crowded. If everyone is shoppable, being shoppable stops being special. So creators move up the value chain by using their audience differently than they do today. The first evolution is toward product and brand identity: creators become long-term faces of companies, shaping branding, marketing, and cultural direction without necessarily running the operational machine. They won’t all be founders or CEOs; many will be closer to a Ryan Reynolds/Shaq model, a public-facing partner whose real job is trust and taste. Which is different from a sponsored celebrity. For the non-business people, a sponsored celebrity is paid by the company and given the product. What I’m suggesting here is that they would be owners of the company, so they would have a real incentive to help the company's overall growth, which is what Ryan Reynold and Shaq are currently doing. The second evolution pushes out of the feed and into physical space. Creators become event anchors: hosts and curators whose niche becomes a gathering format, whether that’s parties, workouts, dinners, or community experiences. Once again, they may not personally handle logistics, but they define the vibe, the narrative, and the social presence that makes the event matter.

So this is my prediction: as normal people become pseudo-celebrities because systems monetize visibility, creators will survive by pivoting into niche-specific brand strategists. Becoming the faces and direction-setters for the companies and events their audiences already care about.