Creators Are Done With Shoutouts — The Next Move Is Showing Up Live
BuzzStar, the live fan-access platform from creator company Creators Inc, is catching on fast as creators trade pre-recorded clips for real-time, paid connection with the people who follow them.
Published July 9 2026, 2:05 p.m. ET
For years, making money as a creator meant posting content, selling merch, recording the occasional shoutout, and hoping the algorithm cooperates. That playbook is changing fast, and live is where the money is moving.
At the center of it is BuzzStar, a platform from creator company Creators Inc that lets creators take paid requests from their fans, including live one-on-one video calls. Where a shoutout is a clip a fan watches once, a BuzzStar call sells something creators could never scale before: their real time and attention.
The company says creators have been signing up and going live every day, most of them finding the platform on their own, an early sign that the appetite for real-time access is bigger than anyone has been treating it.
The pull is easy to see. Cameo already proved fans will pay for a personal moment with someone they follow. BuzzStar pushes that further, swapping a pre-recorded clip for a live conversation that is worth more to the fan and worth more to the creator. What they are really selling is access.
For creators, it is also a different kind of business. Regular content gets ripped, reposted, and drowned out the moment it goes up. A live call only exists for the person paying for it, and that is exactly what lets creators charge a premium. In a market where everyone is fighting for attention on the same few platforms, selling direct access is a way to make more from the fans they already have.
It fits the bigger idea behind Creators Inc, which has built its name helping creators turn an audience into a real business instead of a following that fades with the next trend.
“Fans don’t just want a video anymore, they want the real thing,” said Andy Bachman, founder of Creators Inc. “BuzzStar lets a creator sell the one thing they can never make more of, their time.”
As the creator economy matures, the creators who win are the ones who own their relationship with their audience instead of renting it from an algorithm. It is the bet Creators Inc has been making all along, and with BuzzStar, the next wave of creator income looks like it will come from connection as much as content.