A poll of gen alpha (aged 12-15) from 2024 asked about job aspirations:

  YouTuber (32%)
  TikTok creator (21%)
  Doctor/nurse (20%)
  Mobile app/video game developer (19%)
  Entrepreneur (17%)
  Artist (16%)
  Sports athlete (15%)
  Professional online streamer (15%)
  Musician (14%)
  Teacher (14%)

Something so grim should be accompanied by its citation, just so we can check it's not a windup

I didn't wanna cite the Fortune article I got it from because it cited research from a group called "Whop" that didn't have the full data available. But here's the article I read

https://fortune.com/article/gen-alpha-dream-careers-youtuber...

EDIT: now that I'm looking more into it, I think this YouGov poll was the original source https://today.yougov.com/technology/articles/39997-influence...

I do vaguely recall a more serious study showing a vast majority of kids thinking "influencer" was a viable career path and a very large portion beleiving it was the only viable career path for them. It also found that these percentages were higher in boys than in girls. That's the study I was trying to find but failed and found this instead

two decades ago it would have been:

  1. Movie Star / Actor
  2. TV Star / entertainer

Youtube / tiktok are just the equivalent for that age in this day & age.

One interesting difference is influencer is plausible for a significantly larger population of youth than their legacy equivalents ever were

This is probably true and I would be really interested to see a longer-running study with a consistent methodology taking this on

Consider a prompt like this to a Deep Research agent if you are interested:

How have youth career aspirations toward entertainment/fame-oriented careers changed over time (1960s-present), and does the rise of "influencer" represent a genuine shift or category substitution?

\"Specific sub-questions\":

1. What longitudinal or repeated cross-sectional surveys have asked children/teens about career aspirations with consistent methodology?

2. What were the historical rates for "actor/entertainer/movie star" type responses in surveys from 1970-2000?

3. How do current "influencer/YouTuber" rates compare when aggregated with traditional entertainment categories?

4. Are there international comparison studies showing different rates by country?

5. Is there evidence for changing perceived accessibility of fame careers (kids thinking it's actually achievable vs. fantasy)?

\"Priority sources\": Academic journals (Journal of Career Development, Journal of Vocational Behavior), Gallup historical archives, Pew Research, YouGov archives, OECD education reports, Harris polls historical data.

\"Methodological notes\": Flag when studies use different age ranges, different question framings (open-ended vs. multiple choice), and whether "entertainment" categories were offered or emerged organically.

I ran this for you and got some really interesting results[0] (TLDR: Young people have traded the stability of the "Company Man" for the autonomy of the "Personal Brand" in response to a labor market that no longer guarantees security.

[0]: https://gemini.google.com/share/3652b7910d8b

Youtuber is not a grim thing at all. Basically they are saying they aspire to share their hobbies and interests with others in a monetized way.

If you asked similar age groups this question in the 1990s you’d get stuff like rock star, actor/actress, and pro athlete.

Young kids usually have career aspirations that mirror what’s popular in their media world. It means little.

I’d argue those aren’t really because of the social aspects of Youtube or TikTok.

Anecdata—as one of the oldest millennials, I have seen a very steep drop off in social network usage amongst my peers. Too much IRL family stuff.

We are a major sized user cohort and using social platforms is just not worth the energy is my feeping also. Granted not family tradeoff in ky case, just I don't have free time to waste.

A "social network" is a concept that goes far beyond computing and the internet

Why? At least currently I don't feel this way about them.

I tend to agree — but is there any data on this?