Living dream content creator? When TikTok bubbles burst and a real job would be a better alternative

What is currently happening on TikTok could be described as the first major disillusionment of an entire generation of content creators. Reach is collapsing, follower numbers are stagnating and complaints about the sudden loss of importance are increasing daily. What sounds like a catastrophe to those affected reads like a necessary correction from a different perspective. After all, the foundations on which many have built their digital careers were often less solid than a soap bubble in a storm. The whole thing started around March/April 2025 and even large companies that are used to their reach are still amazed at what is happening to their business accounts.

The figures speak for themselves. Videos that recently reached hundreds of thousands of views now often peter out at a few thousand views. Accounts with supposedly solid fan bases are losing their visibility overnight. TikTok itself remains silent on the matter, but it is obvious that the algorithm no longer favors the same content as it did a few months ago. Where pure mass and manipulative tricks used to be enough to generate reach, today the quality of interaction is decisive. Those who fail to keep their viewers engaged are mercilessly weeded out.

It is also noticeable that the accounts most affected are those that have attracted attention through purchased views or likes or are purely advertising or business accounts. Such signals are technically easy to recognize and it is obvious that TikTok is now systematically devaluing them. This is taking away the ground from the very people who spoke the loudest about their supposed relevance and considered themselves the hub of the (digital) world.

Examples prove the collapse and show what is still going well

In the German-speaking world, the monthly OMR-TikTok charts with Wecreate/Infludata are a good example of significant drops in visibility. Although the OMR charts show the average number of likes per clip and not the pure number of views, in practice they act as a reach proxy because they make the algorithmic playout and the resulting audience response visible in a monthly comparison. In the case of Mr. Lawyer, for example, a decline from an average of 252 k likes per clip in March 2025 to 210 k in April 2025 is significant, which corresponds to a reduction of around 16.7% and indicates weaker playout despite stable brand awareness. These values are documented in the respective monthly PDF of the OMR charts. Comedian Jamal Jamael (@karimjamal) was disproportionately affected, with his average falling from 219k to 104k likes per clip in the same period, i.e. by around 52.5%. This indicates changed signals in the first test playout and a significantly reduced scaling in the for-you recommendations.

Between March and April 2025, @selfiesandra recorded a drop from 153k to 95k likes per clip, which corresponds to around 37.9% and is also described in the body text of the OMR analysis as a drop of ten places. The slump follows a TV-driven interim run-up and suggests that trend and celebrity impulses are no longer automatically carried over into broad playout without consistently strong watch-time signals.

For the international category, Younes Zarou still shows 310 k likes per clip in March 2025, but only 72 k in April, a decline of around 76.8%. This is a striking example of the extent to which regional or thematic shifts and changes in the quality weighting of interactions can dampen reach within a month. Noelgoescrazy loses only moderately in the same international category from 359 k to 348 k likes per clip, i.e. around 3.1 percent. This illustrates that the effect by no means affects all top accounts equally, but apparently depends heavily on the respective content fit with the recommendation system and the stability of the qualitative interaction signals.

ZAH1DE, which grew strongly in spring 2025, nevertheless recorded a decline from 484 k to 381 k likes per clip between March and April, i.e. around 21.3%. Despite continued high basic momentum, this indicates a general reduction in organic playout or a stricter evaluation of interactions. The biography and single contexts also confirm the cultural and marketing effect that goes beyond TikTok, although this does not fully compensate for short-term dips in the algorithm.

For the context of the German-language charts in April 2025 and the methodological classification of the rank shifts, the underlying monthly report of the OMR data is decisive, which also describes the fast “elevator principle” using the example of @selfiesandra and confirms that the evaluation is based on average likes per clip. This provides identifiable names and a comprehensible database for “before/after”, which supports the slumps in reach described by creators.

Here is an overview of the slumps documented in the OMR charts, each with average likes per clip as a proxy for reach.

These figures illustrate the severity of the algorithmic correction: while individual accounts such as Noelgoescrazy only suffered slight losses, others – Younes Zarou or Jamal Jamael – fell by more than half. SelfieSandra also lost a place in the ranking, which further underlines the shift.

Mechanisms of filtering and social consequences

I did a little research on this and talked to people affected. The functional principle is relatively simple: new content is first played out to a small test group. Only if real interactions take place there – full playback, repetitions, comments, shares – is the video distributed on a larger scale. Purchased likes do not help in this scenario, they are too transparent and have no effect. As a result, many clips now remain invisible, even for subscribers who consciously follow the channel. Those who previously relied on artificially inflating their numbers are now realizing how thin the ice was under their own feet. The once-celebrated success stories are proving to be air structures that collapse at the first algorithmic headwind.

A deeper dimension is now revealed here: TikTok has long been the showcase of a culture that has elevated irrelevance to a virtue. Clips in which someone reenacts the same dance to an interchangeable pop song for the twentieth time. Videos in which young people synchronize lip movements to rap lyrics they barely understand, their eyes heavy with meaning. Pseudo-sketches that have neither humor nor depth, but are wiped through every second. All of this filled the feeds of millions who were looking for a brief distraction and were satisfied with fleeting entertainment.

From the point of view of serious journalists, producers and creatives, it seems like a grotesque imbalance that such trivialities were rewarded with millions of views for years, while carefully researched content or elaborately produced articles had to fight for visibility. The fact that the algorithm is now beginning to reduce this noise is almost comforting. It is as if a cultural order is being restored in which substance is at least given a chance to be heard.

Perhaps this collapse will even force some creators to question their self-image. After all, those who have made a living for years by reenacting trends or displaying banal everyday situations must now ask themselves what real value this activity had – for themselves, for viewers, for society. The mocking comment that one could return to “real work” is perhaps less polemical than it sounds.

Life in your own filter bubble

Since we were talking about examples earlier, I would like to mention another one that recently took place on an ARD television program and left me rather perplexed. A certain Levi Penell, a professional TikToker born in 2000, courted by ARD as a podcaster and equipped with over 600,000 followers and a stylish alpaca trend hairstyle, used the stage with Louis Klamroth on “Hart aber fair” to put forward a thesis that reveals everything about the self-perception of a young generation of creators. He seriously suggested discussing a social media ban for people over 60 because they are supposedly less able to recognize fake news or AI-generated content. The applause in the studio showed that such exaggerations fit in well with the ARD format and its target group, but also how frivolous and unworldly some of these new voices are arguing.

The conviction that young people are per se more media-savvy comes across as convenient self-aggrandizement. It ignores the fact that even twenty-year-olds fall for fake news, uncritically reinforce trends and share content that they have not understood. Age competence is not a law of nature, but a question of education, experience and critical thinking. Anyone who wants to exclude entire generations from the digital discourse reveals less media savvy than a narrow view of the world that defines itself through demarcation.

This is precisely what is typical: this type of statement is exemplary of a creator scene that confuses its own reach with social relevance. The fact that ARD offers such voices a stage says just as much about the broadcaster’s programmatic orientation as it does about Generation Z, which basks in its supposed digital superiority. Instead of a well-founded debate, what remains in the end is a cheap slogan that proves one thing above all: how detached from reality and social diversity some of the supposedly “important” TikTokers actually are.

At first glance, Levi Penell’s proposal to exclude people over 60 from social networks seems like a flippant provocation, but on closer inspection it reveals a deep contradiction. He argues with stereotypes that dismiss entire age groups as less competent and more susceptible to manipulation. In any other context, this would immediately be branded as age discrimination, and especially in a media environment that likes to subscribe to the “woke” self-image, such an exclusionary idea would normally be taboo.

What is therefore remarkable is not so much the thesis itself, but the way in which it was accepted and even applauded. While one would immediately sound the alarm at any form of generalization against minorities, genders or cultures, in this case it remains silent. The fact that an ARD talk show gives space to such statements shows how selectively its own moral standards are applied. Discrimination is problematized where it fits into the editorial world view, but it is ignored when it clashes with the image of a young, “hip” podcaster, who is gladly staged as a driving force for one’s own youth relevance. Penell’s attitude is therefore not only unworldly, it also fundamentally violates the principles that the public service milieu otherwise loudly defends. The contradiction is obvious: anyone who claims to uphold social diversity and inclusion must not simultaneously declare age groups to be problematic and fantasize about their exclusion. I just hope that TikTok will soon find even stricter filters for this kind of thing.

Influence and economic relevance

The development is also demystifying for the advertising industry. Brands that allowed themselves to be dazzled by gigantic reach figures are increasingly finding that millions of clicks on a trivial dance video hardly translate into sales. The supposed influence of many creators was more illusion than reality. Reach does not equal impact. In this light, the recent algorithm changes even appear to be a corrective measure in favor of brands and consumers. If TikTok begins to prioritize more qualitative content and devalue superficial reach, this could, in the long term, lead to budgets flowing back into producers who deliver credibility and substance. The wheat will be separated from the chaff, and perhaps those who have actually learned their job will regain weight.

At first glance, print and banner advertising seem to represent two opposing poles: the supposedly “old” medium of printed ads on the one hand, and the digitally optimized online space on the other. However, both forms of advertising can be clearly differentiated from TikTok and comparable platforms when it comes to advertising value and return on investment. Print advertising in large daily newspapers or magazines may no longer be able to keep up in terms of reach figures, but it has a decisive advantage: it reaches an audience that reads consciously, takes its time and actively perceives the context of the ad. An advertisement in a weekly newspaper with a readership in the millions may be expensive, but the effect is demonstrable. Brands that position themselves in print benefit from a transfer effect – they appear serious, established and consistent. Print also remains tactile: an ad on a double-page spread stays with the reader for minutes, while a TikTok clip is forgotten in a fraction of a second as it scrolls past.

Banner advertising in the online sector is often considered annoying, but it is measurable. Click figures, dwell time and conversion rates can be precisely recorded. A well-placed banner on a specialist site or news portal leads the user directly to the store or landing page. This may only generate a few percentage points click rate in individual cases, but these clicks are valuable because they come from a target group that is currently moving in the appropriate context. The return on investment may fluctuate here, but it is calculable.

If you contrast this with TikTok, a pattern emerges: reach is enormous, but it remains fleeting. A clip with one million views rarely delivers more than a few hundred concrete purchase interactions, if at all. A print ad in a trade magazine may only reach tens of thousands of readers, but it generates measurable buying impulses because it is placed in an environment in which the reader is already looking for guidance. Banner advertising, on the other hand, scores with precision: it can be tailored to user interests in real time, is embedded in sales funnels and thus provides directly usable data.

The advertising industry has therefore long since learned to see TikTok not as a substitute, but as a supplement. Print generates credibility, banners deliver measurable conversions, TikTok at best provides conversational value and image. If you bet everything on the supposed “youth platform”, you risk investing a lot of money in attention that doesn’t translate into sales. A viral dance video does not sell a car, but a high-quality print campaign in a car magazine combined with targeted banner advertising on the Internet does.

Classic banner advertising is anything but dead – on the contrary, it delivers measurable results. Here is an example from one of my own banners, which I am disclosing anonymously as an exception, as I do not normally publish internal data and it belongs more to the category of ads that are clicked on moderately. The analysis covers a period of twelve months and clearly shows that traffic fluctuates depending on the advertised product, but always leads directly to the respective store page. This means that the conversions are clearly traceable. The example chosen here is in the mid-range, with graphics card providers easily achieving three to four times as much with identical campaigns. Especially in comparison to fleeting reach on platforms such as TikTok, this example proves that classic banner advertising is still a solid and effective tool in the marketing mix.

In addition, here is a table with a rough classification of the typical costs per contact (CPM = cost per thousand contacts). The values are of course only rough averages, as they vary greatly depending on the industry and target group:

It is clear that although TikTok can have a similar cost structure to banner advertising, the ROI is weaker because reach rarely results in direct sales. Print is more expensive per contact, but more sustainable and image-building. Banner is in the middle: cheaper contacts, good measurability, but less emotional connection.

Conclusion

The loss of reach of many TikTok creators is not a misfortune that fell from the sky, but the logical consequence of a system that has been artificially inflated for years. Those who based their business model on irrelevant content and bought attention are now experiencing the collapse of an illusion. For serious creatives it may be a bitter satisfaction, for those affected it is a shock. But in the wider cultural context, this development perhaps marks the beginning of a correction in which content with substance regains importance.

It is the moment of truth: either creators will succeed in putting their work on a foundation that is more than just playing to empty trends, or they will have to look for alternatives – possibly even in the world they thought they had long left behind, the world of “real work”.