Polished and perfect are out, and candid and messy are in. At least that’s what it appears consumers on social media are drawn to when connecting with creators in 2025.
Some influencers are pivoting away from meticulously curated profile pages, which peaked in the mid-2010s on Instagram. With TikTok‘s rise, spontaneous, quick-edited videos are proving more popular — not just because they stand out as islands of genuine humanity in a sea of glossy luxury and AI slop, but also because they align better with platforms’ current algorithms.
Lindsey Gamble, a creator economy marketing consultant, tells The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s kind of like if we were having a FaceTime or a Zoom call — that’s going to feel a lot more personal than watching someone being interviewed on traditional media.”
Since these videos require minimal editing, creators can produce more content quickly. “The speed that you can create and iterate and actually get results is so fast on social media,” Gamble notes.
Jake Kind, aka Goobi Gubbi on TikTok, whose comedic videos with his late grandmother helped him amass nearly 700,000 followers, says it’s vital “not to overproduce” his content. “For me,” he explains, “it has to be super candid, like camera shaking basically, not on purpose like the Gen Z shake” — when creators deliberately start recording before setting their phone on a stable surface to simulate spontaneity — “but literally just I’m filming in the moment.”
Social media consumers are accustomed to blurry, low-quality cellphone videos amassing millions of views, often outperforming polished content. However, Gamble notes the success of this approach can differ by platform. For instance, YouTube has shifted toward more studio-produced content, while TikTok incentivizes unfiltered, cellphone-shot videos.
Creators also must prioritize quantity. Not long ago, posting more than once a day was considered cringey or desperate. Today, consistency is key, leading to a scattershot aesthetic. Kind aimed to post at least one video daily, sometimes more — an approach Gamble encourages: “The more content you put out … the better you can understand what’s going to actually hit going forward” when finding your niche.
Some creators push the boundaries further. Victoria Paris, who has amassed 2 million TikTok followers, has openly shared her strategy of posting 10-plus videos daily to boost her visibility and grow her audience.
The spaghetti-at-the-wall method isn’t without risk. Gamble warns that hyper-prolific creators can become “too accessible” by oversharing personal details or risk spreading misinformation by “putting out content without any fact-checking.”
Kind also emphasizes balancing consistency with restraint, noting the importance of “giving people enough” without “becoming annoying.” He praises TikTok’s algorithm: “It doesn’t show everything that you post all at once” (unlike Instagram or YouTube), allowing content room to breathe.
As the social media space continues evolving, Gamble highlights the long-term importance of “building up an audience within a specific vertical,” especially for monetization and brand partnerships. “It’s not so much about having the most followers or subscribers,” he explains. “It’s having the right ones.”
This story appeared in the Oct. 15 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
