By Kirk Ram­per­sad

Across the glob­al dig­i­tal land­scape, a seis­mic shift is re­shap­ing how peo­ple cre­ate, con­nect and cap­i­talise on con­tent: the rise of the cre­ator econ­o­my. With over 300 mil­lion con­tent cre­ators world­wide, this boom­ing sec­tor is pro­ject­ed to sur­pass US$480 bil­lion by 2027. Yet amid this glob­al trans­for­ma­tion, the Caribbean re­mains a large­ly un­tapped reser­voir of cul­tur­al bril­liance and en­tre­pre­neur­ial po­ten­tial.

Now, with smart­phone pen­e­tra­tion ex­ceed­ing 85 per cent in T&T and a new gen­er­a­tion of tech-savvy cul­tur­al­ly root­ed in­no­va­tors, the re­gion stands at the thresh­old of a dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion. How­ev­er, true suc­cess de­mands more than vi­ral videos and in­flu­encer deals; it re­quires struc­tured mon­eti­sa­tion mod­els, cre­ator ed­u­ca­tion and in­sti­tu­tion­al sup­port to build sus­tain­able ca­reers.

This ar­ti­cle ex­plores what the cre­ator econ­o­my means for Trinidad and To­ba­go and how cre­ators, pol­i­cy­mak­ers and pri­vate en­ter­pris­es can shape a fu­ture where cre­ativ­i­ty evolves from a side hus­tle in­to a pow­er­ful eco­nom­ic sec­tor.

What is the cre­ator econ­o­my?

The cre­ator econ­o­my refers to the fast-grow­ing class of in­de­pen­dent con­tent cre­ators who lever­age dig­i­tal plat­forms to mon­e­tise their skills, knowl­edge and in­flu­ence. This in­cludes:

* YouTu­bers, pod­cast­ers, livestream­ers;

* Artists, mu­si­cians, pho­tog­ra­phers;

* Ed­u­ca­tors, con­sul­tants, sub­ject-mat­ter ex­perts;

* Meme-mak­ers, gamers, Tik­Tok sto­ry­tellers;

* So­cial me­dia in­flu­encers and niche mi­cro-brands;

Cre­ators earn rev­enue through ad­ver­tis­ing, spon­sor­ships, af­fil­i­ate mar­ket­ing, dig­i­tal prod­ucts, sub­scrip­tions and live events. Plat­forms like Pa­tre­on, Shopi­fy, Sub­stack and Twitch have em­pow­ered cre­ators to gen­er­ate in­come di­rect­ly from their au­di­ence by by­pass­ing tra­di­tion­al me­dia gate­keep­ers.

In essence, the cre­ator econ­o­my turns pas­sion in­to pay­cheques and in­creas­ing­ly in­to scal­able busi­ness­es.

The Caribbean re­al­i­ty: Cre­ativ­i­ty with­out a mon­eti­sa­tion frame­work

From ca­lyp­so to car­ni­val, steel­pan to spo­ken word, Caribbean cre­ativ­i­ty has al­ways been world-class. The chal­lenge lies not in tal­ent but in cre­at­ing an ecosys­tem that mon­e­tis­es this cre­ativ­i­ty ef­fec­tive­ly.

A 2024 Caribbean Dig­i­tal Fu­tures sur­vey re­vealed that 68 per cent of re­gion­al cre­ators have not earned sig­nif­i­cant in­come from their on­line con­tent. The road­blocks are glar­ing:

*Lim­it­ed lo­cal brand part­ner­ships;

* Lack of cre­ator ed­u­ca­tion in busi­ness, fi­nance and IP rights;

* In­suf­fi­cient in­fra­struc­ture for dig­i­tal mon­eti­sa­tion;

* Out­dat­ed in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty laws; and

* Slow dig­i­tal adop­tion by in­sti­tu­tions and SMEs

This dis­con­nect has led to a para­dox where the Caribbean is a net ex­porter of con­tent and cul­ture but a min­i­mal par­tic­i­pant in its eco­nom­ic gains.

Emerg­ing Op­por­tu­ni­ties for Caribbean Cre­ators

De­spite sys­temic gaps, the re­gion is wit­ness­ing promis­ing shifts:

— T&T Tik­Tok­ers are grow­ing niche au­di­ences in food, fash­ion, folk­lore and fit­ness.

— Re­gion­al pod­casts are gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty with di­as­po­ra lis­ten­ers seek­ing au­then­tic Caribbean per­spec­tives.

— Lo­cal graph­ic de­sign­ers, an­i­ma­tors and voice-over artists are se­cur­ing in­ter­na­tion­al projects via plat­forms like Fiverr and Be­hance.

— Mi­cro-in­flu­encers are col­lab­o­rat­ing with tourism, well­ness and cul­tur­al brands cre­at­ing con­tent that res­onates glob­al­ly.

The task ahead is to tran­si­tion these ac­tiv­i­ties from pas­sion projects to struc­tured scal­able cre­ator en­ter­pris­es.

Four key shifts fu­elling the lo­cal cre­ator boom

1. The fall of tra­di­tion­al gate­keep­ers—Cre­ators no longer need me­dia com­pa­nies, record la­bels or pub­lish­ers. Dig­i­tal plat­forms have de­moc­ra­tised ac­cess al­low­ing tal­ent to reach glob­al au­di­ences di­rect­ly;

2. De­mand for lo­cal rel­e­vance—Caribbean au­di­ences are in­creas­ing­ly fa­tigued by glob­alised con­tent and crave con­tent that re­flects their ac­cents, sto­ries and re­al­i­ties;

3. Di­as­po­ra as an eco­nom­ic en­gine—With over 5 mil­lion Caribbean na­tion­als liv­ing abroad, there is a ready-made mar­ket for dig­i­tal con­tent, cul­tur­al prod­ucts and ex­pe­ri­ences;

4. Plat­form In­cen­tivi­sa­tion (With Lim­i­ta­tions)—Plat­forms like Meta, YouTube and Tik­Tok are ex­pand­ing mon­eti­sa­tion tools but Caribbean ac­cess re­mains in­con­sis­tent. Re­gion­al ad­vo­ca­cy is es­sen­tial to lev­el this dig­i­tal play­ing field.

Mon­eti­sa­tion—Mov­ing be­yond likes and fol­lows.

For Caribbean cre­ators to build vi­able busi­ness­es, they must di­ver­si­fy their rev­enue streams:

* Brand part­ner­ships and spon­sored con­tent—Au­then­tic col­lab­o­ra­tions with aligned brands of­fer sus­tain­able in­come be­yond one-off in­flu­encer deals;

* Mer­chan­dise and prod­uct de­vel­op­ment—Cre­ators can turn their ideas in­to tan­gi­ble prod­ucts such as Car­ni­val-themed fash­ion, e-books or well­ness kits.

* Sub­scrip­tion com­mu­ni­ties plat­forms like Pa­tre­on and Ko-fi al­low cre­ators to of­fer ex­clu­sive con­tent and ex­pe­ri­ences to their most loy­al fans.

* On­line cours­es and work­shops sub­ject—mat­ter ex­perts in ar­eas like Caribbean cook­ing, folk­lore and crafts can mon­e­tise their ex­per­tise via struc­tured cours­es.

* Live and vir­tu­al events—From on­line per­for­mances to in­ter­ac­tive work­shops and brand­ed mee­tups, events cre­ate both rev­enue and deep­er au­di­ence en­gage­ment.

* Af­fil­i­ate mar­ket­ing Ccre­ators can pro­mote prod­ucts they gen­uine­ly use and earn com­mis­sion-based in­come while build­ing trust and in­flu­ence.

Crit­i­cal ac­tions for a thriv­ing Caribbean cre­ator econ­o­my

To cap­i­talise on the cre­ator econ­o­my’s po­ten­tial, col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors is im­per­a­tive:

i) Ed­u­ca­tion­al re­form and up­skilling—In­te­grate cre­ator busi­ness mod­els, dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing, IP rights and fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy in­to cur­ric­u­la, par­tic­u­lar­ly through vo­ca­tion­al and ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions.

ii). Pol­i­cy mod­erni­sa­tion—Up­date in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty laws to pro­tect dig­i­tal cre­ators. Es­tab­lish small cre­ator grant funds. De­vel­op dig­i­tal ex­port in­cen­tives for con­tent-based en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

iii) Plat­form ac­cess and eq­ui­ty ad­vo­ca­cy—Re­gion­al gov­ern­ments and in­dus­try bod­ies must lob­by plat­forms like Meta, YouTube and Tik­Tok to un­lock mon­eti­sa­tion fea­tures for Caribbean­cre­ators.

iv) Cre­ator hubs and in­cu­ba­tors—Es­tab­lish col­lab­o­ra­tive spaces of­fer­ing edit­ing stu­dios, busi­ness men­tor­ship, le­gal as­sis­tance and co-cre­ation fa­cil­i­ties to nur­ture tal­ent in­to sus­tain­able busi­ness­es.

5. Cor­po­rate and SME en­gage­ment—Re­gion­al brands should in­vest in long-term cre­ator part­ner­ships co-cre­at­ing con­tent that is cul­tur­al­ly rel­e­vant and eco­nom­i­cal­ly im­pact­ful.

The Time is Now: Mon­etis­ing Caribbean Cre­ativ­i­ty

The fu­ture of Caribbean in­flu­ence is no longer con­fined to tourism ads or di­as­po­ra nos­tal­gia. It is be­ing writ­ten in re­al-time by cre­ators who are shar­ing our sto­ries, craft­ing dig­i­tal prod­ucts and build­ing glob­al au­di­ences.

Whether you are a Trin­bag­on­ian po­et host­ing a pod­cast, a Ja­maican herbal­ist shar­ing reme­dies on Tik­Tok or a Bar­ba­di­an artist sell­ing NFTs, you are part of an emerg­ing Caribbean cre­ator econ­o­my, an econ­o­my fu­elled by voice, vi­sion and val­ue.

But this op­por­tu­ni­ty comes with ur­gency. With­out strate­gic ac­tion, we risk a fu­ture where our cul­ture is com­mer­cialised by out­siders while our cre­ators re­main un­der­paid and un­der­val­ued.

The Caribbean’s cre­ator econ­o­my will not build it­self. It re­quires in­vest­ment, pol­i­cy sup­port, busi­ness acu­men and com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Let us fund cre­ators, pro­tect cre­ators and em­pow­er cre­ators be­cause in this dig­i­tal-first world, they are not just in­flu­encers. They are en­tre­pre­neurs, ed­u­ca­tors and eco­nom­ic cat­a­lysts for the Caribbean’s fu­ture pros­per­i­ty.

Kirk Ram­per­sad is an ex­ec­u­tive, busi­ness and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al with over 25 years of ex­pe­ri­ence dri­ving strate­gic trans­for­ma­tion and rev­enue growth. Hd can be reached at Email: kirkram@hot­mail.com 🔗 LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kirk-ram­per­sad-mba-5ab57926