Social Media And Entertainment At Variety’s Power Of Young Hollywood

As the entertainment industry moves swiftly ahead into another packed awards season, it’s always interesting, at this juncture, to take stock of how this world has and continues to evolve. And what better way to understand that change than via the perspectives of Hollywood’s biggest young stars on the rise?

A few months ago, Variety hosted their 2024 Power of Young Hollywood event, an in-person celebration paired with their annual Power of Young Hollywood magazine issue. The event was a glittering invite-only ceremony gathering an impressive who’s who of young stars and celebrating all they offer to the industry. In attendance were the likes of actress Isabela Merced (Madame Web), actress Chloe Coleman (My Spy), musician Grace Bowers, and so many more.

I attended the event myself and, in interviewing stars on the carpet, heard a common topic on the minds of many of the young artists here: that the rise of entertainment content on social media specifically has changed what it means to be successful in this space.

And that insight began with the night’s host himself, comedian and celebrity impressionist Matt Friend, who told me how the pervasive popularity of digital content has presented a challenge for Hollywood that they are likely struggling to come to terms with.

“I think it’s probably a confusing time for Hollywood, because I got here from my phone, like with the same thing. I bought a lav mic and I had my phone, and I actually didn’t even have a tripod. And I was at the Golden Globes doing content,” Friend said.

Many of the event’s attendees described to me their belief how, in the past, there were greater barriers blocking young people aspiring to enter this world. And how, in a way, the old Hollywood system had gotten used to and thrived from that setup. But with social media now allowing really anyone with talent and a work ethic to put themselves out there, new and talented faces are emerging at an exponential rate. And while that, to Friend’s point, is challenging the assumptions of how Hollywood is supposed to work, it’s also creating a level of opportunity for people that maybe never existed before.

DJ and digital creator Xandra Pohl told me on the carpet how she likely wouldn’t have had a career twenty years ago. But now, with how much of a force social media can exert on mainstream entertainment, everything is different.

“You can literally start from anywhere. You can be at your house. You can be anywhere in the world. And you can make this into a career if you try hard enough, and you are a good person, and you open up to the internet,” Pohl said.

One of the greatest examples of this might be with the careers of Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, both of whom were on the carpet. The musical artistic duo first found success on TikTok where viewers fell in love with their original, Bridgerton-inspired music. From there, the women followed up this success by writing an entire unofficial Bridgerton musical which, in an incredible turn of events, went on to win the 2022 Grammy for Best Musical Album.

And now, the duo is stepping up to take Lin Manuel Miranda’s place in writing the music for the highly anticipated Disney sequel Moana 2. Bear and Barlow’s rise is an incredible story to see, and one that, by their own description, would not have been possible in the pre-social media age.

“I feel like before, 20 years ago, there was an illusion of this glass wall in front of celebrities. Like, they’re untouchable. You can’t get there. They can’t get to you. And now I feel like, with the dawn of social media and how it’s made everything so much more powerful, that the glass wall is coming down,” said Emily Bear.

The fact that so many internet stars were at this event, and social media’s power was so top of mind, is of course no accident. That is, when asked about the significance of digital creators in an event about Young Hollywood, co-editor-in-chief of Variety Ramin Setoodeh made it clear that you could no longer speak about one without also including the other.

“Content creation is a huge business and it’s also a big part of the entertainment industry now. We couldn’t publish a Young Hollywood issue without recognizing this important sector,” Setoodeh told me.

The night celebrated many young stars and specifically recognized a number of artists via the issue’s Impact Report. Variety also particularly highlighted the issue’s three cover stars, young artists who have all recently become household names and who have played an outsized impact on national pop culture.

This year, Variety chose to honor actress Sadie Sink (Stranger Things), musician Sabrina Carpenter, and comedian Marcello Hernandez.

On the carpet, Hernandez told me how blessed and grateful he felt to be recognized. But when I asked him too how the industry has changed, he again noted something similar to others.

“People putting their effort into the internet has paid dividends for a lot of people. So I think that’s something that’s new, and I think that there will be more of that. Finding out what your digital footprint is is more important every day. I think that’s the biggest difference,” Hernandez told me.

Actress Sadie Sink described how being recognized tonight was an incredible and surreal moment in her long career. And from there she reflected also on how this space has changed, and how many talented performers are coming up all around her now.

“There’s just this huge influx of talent coming in. Maybe it has something to do with social media and the way that people are able to kind of showcase their talents a bit more and kind of get seen, I guess. Which is so amazing,” Sink said.

I took a moment, also, to ask the stars here what they might predict for the future of Hollywood. And while the decades ahead are always hazy, some did have thoughts on what would, and should, come next.

Actress Christina Kirkman described to me how Hollywood really has no choice, at this point, but to take cues from what social media is doing and learn from it in order to understand what audiences now want.

Internet personality and host Morgan Riddle told me that one of those key lessons for Hollywood would be learning from how transparent, open, and candid digital creators can be with their audiences, and how Hollywood stars might benefit from presenting themselves equally as openly.

But when I asked the young actor Gavin Leatherwood (It’s What’s Inside) for his thoughts on how things will change in the future, he smiled and asked how much time I might have for a response. Because, according to him, the ways in which this space is changing are plentiful, rapidly arriving, and wholly unpredictable.

“The changes are probably going to be even more dramatic, even sooner. So I don’t know if I could give you a strong answer in terms of where we’re headed. But you know, things change and we keep adapting. We’re resilient human beings, brother,” Leatherwood said.

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