The Creator Economy Finally Got a Seat at the Table in Washington

For a long time, creators have occupied an odd place in the economy. Millions of people watch their work every day, brands spend billions working with them, and entire businesses have been built around the industry. Yet when conversations turn to labor policy, AI, healthcare, taxes, or intellectual property, creators are usually nowhere in the room.

That disconnect has become harder to ignore as the industry keeps growing. The creator economy already generates an estimated $250 billion annually and supports more than 11 million full-time creators in the United States. It’s no longer a niche part of the internet. It’s becoming a meaningful part of the American economy, even if public policy hasn’t quite caught up.

That was the backdrop for the first Creator Advocacy Day, where more than 35 creators, researchers, executives, labor advocates, and creator economy leaders representing a combined audience of more than 30 million followers spent the day meeting with members of Congress. Organized by Shira Lazar and Creators 4 Mental Health, the group included educators, journalists, comedians, entrepreneurs, AI experts, mental health advocates, and researchers, all trying to answer the same question: what does this industry actually need as it grows up?

One thing became obvious pretty quickly. The conversation has moved well beyond followers and viral videos.

As Lazar said afterward during a CNN interview with Elex Michaelson, “Creators were looked at as TikTok dancers or funny videos of animals online. But this is a legitimate business. We are small business owners now.”

That probably explains the day better than anything else. Most creators aren’t simply making content anymore. They’re negotiating contracts, hiring editors, paying taxes, buying equipment, managing payroll, building audiences, and trying to keep businesses running in an industry that changes almost weekly. It’s work that looks a lot more like running a startup than posting videos online.

The organizations involved reflected that shift. The morning began at the National Association of Broadcasters, where attendees learned about the Congressional Creators Caucus and received a briefing on the newly introduced CREATOR Act from Adobe Ambassador Fabiola Lara. From there, everyone headed to YouTube’s Washington office to hear from the company’s policy team before spending the afternoon walking between congressional offices on Capitol Hill. The day wrapped up with TikTok, which hosted an evening gathering after the meetings concluded.

Five years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine those organizations participating in the same conversation. Broadcasters, platforms, software companies, lawmakers, and independent creators have traditionally approached Washington separately. This time they showed up together, and that may have been the most meaningful part of the day.

Just as encouraging as the conversations themselves was the willingness of lawmakers to show up and engage. Representatives Beth Van Duyne, Ro Khanna, Debbie Dingell, Hank Johnson, Lauren Underwood, each made time to meet with the group, ask thoughtful questions, and hear directly from creators about an industry that’s growing faster than most people realize. In a political climate where common ground can be hard to find, it was refreshing to see genuine bipartisan interest in understanding the creator economy and the people building businesses within it.

Lazar has been working toward this for years through What’s Trending and later Creators 4 Mental Health. She said the goal wasn’t to push one specific piece of legislation but to create something creators have rarely had: direct access.

“The whole goal was to be heard, to share our lived experience and stories, to understand one another, create that bridge and literally have a seat at the table,” she said.

That feeling came up over and over throughout the day. For many attendees, it wasn’t about convincing lawmakers that social media exists. It was about explaining what life actually looks like when your livelihood depends on an industry that’s evolving faster than the rules governing it.

As someone who has spent nearly two decades working around creators, interviewing hundreds of them, and watching this industry grow from YouTubers filming in their bedrooms to businesses employing thousands of people, I never expected to find myself walking the halls of Congress talking about creator rights.

Yet there I was alongside people I’ve admired for years, researchers, creators, labor advocates, and lawmakers from both parties, all trying to solve real problems for an industry that still feels like it’s just getting started, even if some of us have been in it nearly twenty years.

Whatever legislation eventually comes from these conversations, being in that room felt like a milestone. It was a reminder that the creator economy isn’t asking for special treatment anymore. It’s asking to be recognized for what it has already become.