Hey! Welcome back to the Creator Economy NYC newsletter, your weekly hit of insights and strategies to help you build, monetize, and scale as a creator.
There's a specific move that separates creators who build careers from creators who burn out chasing views: they create their own zeitgeist. They name something, they define a category, and then they own it for years.
This week: how Gabrielle Judge ("Miss Antiwork") turned a single TikTok into "Lazy Girl Jobs,” and built a 7-figure brand off the back of it in two years. Plus the 5-part breakdown of why it worked, and how to apply the same playbook to whatever you're building.
(We covered Gabby's full LEVER framework back in February - read that one here for the companion piece.)
Let's get into it.
Why some creators are getting PR opportunities that you aren't
PR opportunities don't go to the best creators, they often go to the ones who are easy to find, easy to trust, and easy to feature.
In ADPR's FREE webinar, Why Some Creators are Getting PR Opportunities That You Aren't (and How to Fix It In 90 Days), Amy Doary - Communications Strategist and Publicist of 20+ years - breaks down how to get press, partnerships, and visibility where it counts.
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How to build a zeitgeist around yourself
Here's a trap a lot of creators fall into: spending all their creative energy chasing other people's moments.
You make your version of whatever's hot this week, get a spike of views, and then start from zero again on Monday. The “trend treadmill.” It feels productive. It's actually exhausting, and it leaves you with nothing that compounds.
The smarter play? Stop responding to other people's moments and start creating one of your own.
People want more than templated day-in-my-life content from every creator. You need to give them a reason to follow you and get behind your mission.
That reason becomes your zeitgeist.
You give language to a feeling, a phrase, a category that people didn't have words for yet, and then they start using it themselves. The audience stops following because they liked one video. They follow because they want to be part of the world you're naming.
As Gabby put it: "You stop chasing trends and become one."
Three words that built a seven-figure business
In May 2023, Gabby posted a video coining the term "Lazy Girl Jobs" - remote roles with decent pay and minimal stress.
Within 24 hours, creators across TikTok were running with it. Some wanted lazy girl jobs. Some had them. Some were furious about the phrase (because it's the internet, and people love being furious).
Two and a half years later, Gabby is still building off that single video. Speaking gigs, brand deals, courses, a whole identity… all traceable back to three words she put into the world.
That's what a real concept does. It doesn't peak and die. It keeps pulling in attention long after the original post stops circulating.
You can see the same thing across the creators who've built lasting businesses:
Tim Ferriss owns "The 4-Hour Workweek."
Mel Robbins built hers around "Let Them."
Paris Hilton has been monetizing "that's hot" for two decades.
Each of them owns a phrase, and that phrase keeps working long after the original content stopped circulating.
Here's what made "Lazy Girl Jobs" stick, and what every zeitgeist needs.
The five components
1. It named a feeling
"Lazy Girl Jobs" landed because it gave language to something millions of people were already feeling but couldn't articulate.
Post-Great-Resignation exhaustion. Companies pulling back. Return-to-office mandates getting contentious. A lot of workers had quietly decided the loyalty deal was off, they just didn't have a phrase for it yet.
The feeling was already in the air. Gabby put three words to it.
Don't fuggedabout it: That's the move. Find the unspoken thing your audience is already carrying and make a phrase out of it. If people finish your sentences before you do, you've found it.
2. It flipped a loaded word
"Lazy" is an insult in workplace culture. Calling yourself lazy at work gets you fired.
Gabby put it in the title and meant it. That tension is what made the phrase travel, it felt slightly forbidden, like saying the quiet part out loud. Polite, neutral language doesn't give anyone a reason to talk. Flipped words do.
3. It created its own ecosystem
Once "Lazy Girl Jobs" caught, every related piece of content fed back to Gabby. Hashtag use drove discoverability. Imitators drove press. Press drove speaking gigs. Speaking gigs drove more imitators.
A viral video peaks and dies in a week. A zeitgeist keeps pulling in attention months and years after the original post. One phrase generated dozens of inbound channels on its own, she didn't have to chase each one.
4. It was adoptable
This one is underrated. Your concept has to work for other people, not just for you. They have to be able to use it about themselves.
"Lazy Girl Jobs" spread because anyone could say "I have one" or "I want one" or "I quit mine." The phrase did labor for the people using it, not only for Gabby.
Most creator content is built for one person to perform alone. That's why it doesn't compound. If your audience can't pick up what you're saying and use it in their own lives, you don't have a zeitgeist. You have content.
5. It became vocabulary
The clearest sign a zeitgeist has stuck: the phrase outgrows you. Reporters use "Lazy Girl Jobs" without naming Gabby. People debate it on LinkedIn without knowing where it came from. It has its own Wikipedia page.
Most creators panic about losing attribution. It's actually the marker of success.
When your phrase gets used without your name attached, you've built infrastructure. You become the founder of a category, which is a much better position than "creator who made a video that one time."
From content to intellectual property
Once you own a concept, you stop starting from zero every time you post. Everything you make can point back to the same idea, and the idea gets stronger every time you reinforce it.
Gabby's flywheel looks like this: one video became a brand identity (Miss Antiwork). The identity became a content engine. The content engine became products, like courses, downloads, speaking deals, partnerships.
Each layer feeds the last. The asset is the concept your content points to, not the content itself.
I've seen this play out in our own community. When I built Creator Economy NYC, I kept coming back to a single phrase: F*ck It, Create It. It started as something I said to myself whenever I was overthinking a next step.
Eventually I said it out loud at events. Then I heard other people say it back to me. Now it's what we named our core resource guide, what people tag us in on Instagram, what shows up in their captions unprompted.
I didn't plan for it to work that way. The phrase just named something real - the specific creative paralysis that stops most people before they start - and so it traveled on its own.
That's what you want: a concept that does its own marketing because it resonates.
The "Creator Economy NYC" name itself is part of this. We didn't call it "Brett's Creator Meetup." We named the category… and now when people think about the creator economy in New York, they think of us. That's not an accident. That's what owning a phrase does over time.
The 5-part zeitgeist test
Before you commit to your next big content push, run the idea through these five questions. If you can't answer yes to all five, keep iterating.
Does it name a feeling? Are you giving language to something your audience already feels but hasn't articulated?
Does it flip a loaded word? Is there a word with cultural weight you're using in an unexpected way?
Does it create its own ecosystem? Once it catches, does attention pull toward it on its own?
Is it adoptable? Can other people use the phrase about themselves, not just about you?
Could it become vocabulary? In five years, could someone use your phrase without remembering where it came from?
Five out of five = you've got a zeitgeist on your hands. Three out of five = you've got a strong content theme. One out of five = you've got work to do.
The question worth sitting with: what's the thing you want to own? Not what you want to post about tomorrow… what you want to be known for in five years.
That's the place to start.
Next event: coming soon…
Our next event is being planned for May, and you can rsvp now to apply to join us.
We’re bringing together NYC’s top creators, marketers, and founders for something a bit more laid-back this time.
Come through, grab a drink, catch up with the people you know, meet some new ones, and enjoy it.
And, we have 1 sponsor slot open for a brand who wants in.
Join the likes of Adobe Express and others in getting your brand in front of the most influential community in the creator economy. Inquire here.
You've been sitting on that idea long enough.
You know what you want to make. You've thought about it, planned it, maybe even started it. And somehow it's still not out in the world.
That's exactly what the F*ck It, Create It Workbook is built for.
It walks you through the exact mental blocks keeping you stuck, and doesn't let you leave until you've shipped something. A piece of content, a product, an event. Whatever you've been holding onto.
One-time purchase. $57. Companion videos included.
Two free tools top creators use to keep themselves moving
The Creator Goal Setting Guide (FREE): A simple but powerful document to help you declare who you want to BECOME in 2026. Get it here.
The Creator Accountability System (FREE): Your visual companion for consistent creation in 2026. Get it here.
Thanks for reading! I hope this week’s issue pushes you to question if you’re just following trends as a creator or actually creating a world around what you’re building. And if you’re not, you know what you need to work toward. See you next week.
F*ck it, create it,
Brett
