VISUAL CREATORS
For your artistic side.

🧠 Study Finds AI Creativity Has an Amateur Ceiling

The Story: A new study in the Journal of Creative Behaviour argues that generative AI is mathematically capped at amateur-level creativity. Researcher David H. Cropley's analysis shows that AI's probabilistic design creates a fundamental trade-off between effectiveness and novelty, preventing it from reaching the expert-level originality that defines professional creative work.

The Details:

• The study posits that for AI, increasing novelty (being surprising) inherently decreases effectiveness (being useful or correct).

• This trade-off creates a mathematical ceiling, capping AI's maximum creativity score at 0.25 on a zero-to-one scale.

• This 0.25 score aligns with the boundary between “little-c” (amateur) and “Pro-c” (professional) creativity in established psychological models.

• The limitation stems from the “next-token prediction” mechanism, which prioritizes statistically probable outputs over truly original ones.

• The author concludes that while AI can mimic average human output, a skilled artist can produce something truly original and effective, which an LLM never will.

Why It Matters: This research offers a powerful counter-narrative to AI hype, giving creatives a framework to articulate their value beyond mere generation. It suggests that professional expertise—the ability to combine high novelty with effectiveness—remains a uniquely human skill, positioning AI as a tool for routine tasks rather than a replacement for expert-level vision.

PRODUCTION MASTERY
The commercial aspects of creativity.

📰 How Gen Z Gets News From TikTok Creators

The Story: A recent survey and reporting from The Verge show Gen Z overwhelmingly gets news from TikTok and Instagram creators over traditional media. This shift is creating a new class of 'news influencers' who package information for a social-first audience, often with more personality and less perceived bias than legacy outlets.

@chummertok

The Rise of Dylan Page

The Details:

• A recent survey found nearly 75% of college students use social media as a top news source, with half trusting platforms like TikTok.

• Creators like Dylan Page, known as 'News Daddy,' have built massive followings by delivering news updates directly on TikTok.

• Content formats range from influencer-style breakdowns to meme-heavy explainers and even AI-generated talking fish delivering headlines.

• Many students use a 'TikTok-to-Google' pipeline to verify information, but often rely on comments or AI summaries for fact-checking.

• Students cite convenience and a distrust of traditional media as reasons for the shift, while paywalls also remain a major barrier.

Why It Matters: This isn't just a generational quirk; it's a fundamental change in information distribution. For creators and brands, reaching younger audiences now requires adopting new formats and tones native to social video. It also creates a massive opportunity for new media personalities to build trust and authority outside of legacy institutions.

CREATOR ECONOMY
Navigating the digital creative world.

🧠 How brain science reframes your creative career.

The Story: A new Cambridge University study, analyzing nearly 4,000 brain scans, has identified five distinct "eras" of brain development. It suggests our neural wiring undergoes major shifts at key turning points, with a significant transition into a stable "adult mode" occurring around age 32, impacting cognitive patterns throughout a creative career.

The Details:

• The study identifies four pivotal turning points in brain organization at approximately ages nine, 32, 66, and 83.

• The "adolescent" era, from age nine to 32, is defined by steadily increasing efficiency of connections across the entire brain.

• Around age 32, the brain enters its longest phase, a stable "adult mode" lasting over three decades, which corresponds with a plateau in intelligence and personality.

• This adult phase is characterized by increased "compartmentalization," where brain regions become more specialized.

• The research analyzed MRI scans from thousands of people to map how neural connections evolve over a lifetime.

Why It Matters: This framework challenges the idea of a single creative "peak." For freelancers and studio owners, it suggests the career phase before 32 is for rapid skill acquisition and exploration, while the stable 30s-60s era is ideal for deep specialization, mentorship, and building sustainable business systems based on refined expertise.

🔥 Press Worthy

📽️ VISUAL CREATORS

MoMA is celebrating the centennial of practical effects maestro Carlo Rambaldi, creator of 'Alien' and 'E.T.'. The two-week film series highlights his handmade craft, offering a timely tribute to physical artistry in an era dominated by digital and AI-driven effects.

Internal data reveals Meta's AI-generated "Vibes" video feed is struggling with user retention. Despite an initial novelty-driven surge in downloads, daily active users have fallen to around 2 million, suggesting a feed of purely AI content has trouble holding long-term audience attention.

📈 PRODUCTION MASTERY

A former MrBeast content strategist has launched Palo, an AI platform for short-form video creators. The tool analyzes channel performance to provide data-driven insights for ideation and scripting, aiming to help creators understand what content resonates with their audience.

Warner Music Group has partnered with AI music generator Suno, settling a previous lawsuit. The deal allows Suno to use voices and likenesses from opt-in WMG artists, creating a new licensed framework and revenue stream for musicians in the AI space.

🎭 CREATOR ECONOMY

🗺️ X Now Shows Where User Accounts Are Based. X rolled out a new 'About This Account' feature aiming to boost transparency. The controversial update quickly exposed numerous large political accounts posing as American while operating from overseas, sparking debates about authenticity and privacy.

TikTok Shop’s quarterly sales have reached $19 billion, nearly matching eBay’s $20.1 billion. The rapid growth positions the platform as a major e-commerce force for creators, achieving in just two years what took eBay decades to build.

📚 Learn & Grow

📽️ VISUAL CREATORS

• A filmmaker’s DIY workflow for a backyard zombie epic using AI and Unreal.

• A practical guide to identifying AI-generated art and music from human creators.

📈 PRODUCTION MASTERY

• A framework for creative relevance that shifts focus from supply to audience demand.

• A breakdown of the SEO playbook used by Epstein to manipulate Google search and public perception.

🎭 CREATOR ECONOMY

• A breakdown of the deal valuing Steven Bartlett's creator media company at $425M.

• Why The Record Sale Price For The Frida Kahlo Painting Is Nothing To Celebrate