The TikTok ban went into effect on Saturday, shutting down the app for millions of Americans, due to national security concerns. By Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump — who takes office on Monday — vowed to bring it back.
So what do local creators think about the TikTok shake up?
Crossing Broad’s Kyle Pagan said: “I’m not worried about it. I was bartending and just making videos and I got a full-time job off of it. So you just adapt or die, honestly.”
Local influencer and rapper LayzztheGod shared a similar sentiment: “In my eyes, I’m only saying this ’cause I know the structure that we got and I know how determined we are to get where we need to be at. It won’t stop us, but it’ll be a huge interference with our culture.”
Rise of the Philly influencer
In 2019 the term “influencer” was added to the Merriam Webster dictionary as online personalities began affecting mainstream discourse and creating their own economy. Despite influencers being a major component to online life dating back to the 2010s, Philadelphia lagged behind other major cities in embracing local content creators.
In Los Angeles and New York influencers created content houses, developed products and brands like Prime Hydration, Feastables, and Chamberlain Coffee — however no such ecosystem existed in Philly up until very recently.
Across TikTok and Instagram Reels, you can currently find a number of polished and professionally produced influencers and content creators from Philadelphia. Creators like Conrad Benner, Brandon “Bran Flakezz” Edelman, Gillie Da King, and Tanara “Everybody’s So Creative” Mallory have become mainstay personalities on the TikTok “for you page.” Slowly but surely, Philly has created a content ecosystem that is visible to a national audience and validated by their hometown.
“The influencer and creator economy has definitely taken off in the last three and four years,” explains local influencer Brandon “Bran Flakezz” Edelman, “just so many people are able to do it as a job and that’s definitely changed things.”
Edelman is one of Philly’s most recognizable personalities, he hosts the “Between Us Girlies Podcast” alongside influencers Bailey Witherspoon, Casey Corradin and Lindsay Anderson.
Corradin credits her co-host with helping to build the current landscape for Philly influencers “I think that you (Brandon Edelman) kind of started like a kind of an influencer movement… in my eyes you’re the first real Philly influencer who’s kind of broken through that threshold of lifestyle, food, fun, sort of just that all around influencer that you see with a lot of the New York and LA creators.”
To Corradin’s point; Bran Flakezz is Philly’s best example of a traditional influencer. He’s done brand deals, collabs with other influencers, and has more than 700,000 TikTok followers.
Game on
There are different pockets of the internet and it isn’t surprising that Philly has found its representation in the competitive world of digital sports media. Companies like Bleacher Report and Barstool are multi-million dollar organizations that exist solely to produce sports content on the internet.
In Philadelphia there is a smaller but burgeoning economy of content creators in this field, most notably is Crossing Broad and their man-on-the-street frontman, Kyle Pagan. Pagan, from Bucks County and a Temple University alumni, has turned his sports fandom into a full-time career as a content creator.
“I’m just gonna go down and go to the tailgates and see what I can, what I can grab. Then it kind of took off from there, like an immediate, like 10, 15, 20,000 followers on TikTok,” Pagan explains. During the Eagles 2021 season, his man-on-the-street took off and found an audience.
Entertainment or journalism?
Man-on-the-street style content featuring a minimalist production crew of a cameraperson and a host with a microphone has proven to be one of the most economic and efficient ways to produce internet content. Long form videos are clipped into social media clips, all of which are monetized and can be re-used whenever relevant. Streamers on platforms like Twitch, Rumble, and Kick, as well as a number of popular YouTube channels follow this model. There is debate on whether or not man-on-the-street content is entertainment or journalism.
In the case of Kyle Pagan and Crossing Broad “some people call it journalism. I wouldn’t call it journalism. I think it’s just kind of giving a voice to people who might not get their shine, you know.”
After any given Eagles game, a deluge of content hits the TikTok algorithm — mixed in between highlights and post-game press conference clips are thousands of fan made videos from the tailgate, in the stadium, and from creators like Kyle.
All of these creators have gained followings on TikTok, which was banned by the government and became inactive on Saturday. “It’s depressing because, you know, that’s like one of my biggest platforms at the moment,” explains influencer and rapper LayzzTheGod. Layzz, aka 24 year old Jalen Nesmith, has been under the mentorship of fellow content creator and Southwest Philly community activist Ant Brown.
Brown hosts events in schools across the country educating about non-violence, content creation, and promoting creative expression. Layzz, Brown, and many dance-focused creators like them have introduced a style of dancing specific to Philly called “tangin.”
“Philly Club is the music and the dancing is tangin.” Brown states “we’re trying to make tangin a national movement.” Philly’s next generation of hip-hop stars like D-Sturdy, Lay Bankz, and 2Raree make music that listeners can ‘tang’ to and can be seen making tangin content themselves.
Brown and Layzz both mentioned the generation of Black Philly content creators that came before them such as Wallo267, Fis Banga, PeanutLive215, and Tizz215.
“They were our influencers in a sense, they were what we were watching,” said Brown.
In 2025 Philly has a blossoming economy for content creators. It’s not quite where LA and New York are, but the business is growing.
“The number one question I always get asked is, are you gonna move to New York? Are you gonna move to LA? And I’m always like, hard: No, never!” said Bran Flakezz.
Whether you’re dancing, hosting a podcast, trying to be an influencer, or making videos about the Eagles, you can make it in Philadelphia as a content creator, a sentiment that was not entirely true ten years ago.