Creators Need Arenas

Where Skills and Mastery are Metrics and Algorithms

Dec 31, 2025

Imagine that the creator economy was a bit like Hip-Hop, Skateboarding, and BMX. Envision that, rather than being left at the mercy of abstractions like metrics and algorithms, creators could challenge each other to produce better works.

Not collabs. Battles.
Not networking. Crews.
No comment sections. Circles.
Not metrics. Moment of impact.

Battling Arts

In rap, there are beefs, diss-tracks, and various forms of battle rap: acapella, 16bars, etc. There are also producer beat battles. In graffiti, you challenge other writers through different aspects of the artform: murals, 3Ds, sketches, tagging, and calligraphy. In breaking, you battle with routines and freestyle, solo or with a crew. Turntablist championships have their categories from pure scratch to juggling, battle for supremacy, teams, etc.

Tricks Don’t Lie

Yet when it comes to displaying sheer mastery and technique, skateboarding and BMX might have an edge. Enter the so-called games of “bike,” “skate,” (or any other word).

Skate/bike games go like this: One rider shows a trick. If the other(s) cannot repeat it, they “become” the first letter of the word (skate/bike). If they can, it’s their turn to showthe next trick. The person who becomes all the letters of the word first is the one who performs the least number of tricks, and thus the one who loses the battle.

The beauty of the game of skate/bike is that it is just as effective across skill levels.

Beginners learning the basics,
Advanced and sponsored riders,
Legends in actual TV shows, like in The Battle of the Berrics.

Legends and Underdogs

People from different groups can play too! While that would be “highly unlikely,” a beginner can challenge a “super-advanced” or even legendary rider, and if they win, they win.

No, this is not as harsh as rappers “ending each other’s careers” (as they call it). Nonetheless, it proves a point, letting underdogs get their well-deserved credit, as techniques don’t lie.

Answering Questions

In Doug Pray‘s documentary Scratch, Steve Dee, the founder of beatjuggling, teaches existential lessons for creatives beyond music.

Steve shares that growing up in Harlem made him extremely tough. Unlike others, joining gangs, Steve made the pursuit of excellence his outlet. He remarks that if there were competitions for straight lines, he’d be doing his best to “draw the straightest line.”Duh!

Steve sees battling beyond mere challenges, noting that in such moments, Hip-Hop itself is “asking you a question... and if you don’t answer, you lose.” Esoterically, that’s the egregore (the collective of individuals carrying the culture) testing your worth. It’s also how reality answers for you, not your story about yourself.

Speaking of that, in the same documentary, Rob Swift, another icon, shares his two cents on personal narratives. Rob notes that battles are moments of truth.

Whatever you think of yourself, “someone’s going to come and prove you’re wrong...” Or you are going to prove them wrong.

Protection

Contrary to all this, in his bible of creativity, The Creative Act, Rick Rubin claims that:

“Wanting to outperform another artist or make work better than theirs rarely results in true greatness. Nor is it a mindset that has a healthy impact on the rest of our lives. (...) Besides, why would we want to create with the purpose of dimishing someone else?”
— p.238

But is this really the truth? And does it help in the current shape of the “creator economy?”

B-Boy Mentality

To give background, battling actually protected the lives of many. In the 70s and the 80s, in the Bronx, gangs like The Black Spades and the Savage Skulls replaced violence with battling, usually as breakers.

It’s how the term “B-boy/girl” mentality came into being. It transcends breaking, describing a mindset of constant readiness to use mastery to show what you are actually made of.

Positive Impact

Some of the biggest scratch innovators came from eras of permanent battling: Qbertand the Invisible Scratch Piklz, The Executioners, etc. In rap, your favorite rappers’, favorite rappers either came from direct battling and proving themselves through sheer technique and liricism, or survived numerous beefs. Think Rakim, Eminem, Joe Budden, Killer Mike, Cam’ron, etc. As they say, it’s what “puts one on the map.”

Study all those, and you’ll find that the same friction, “b-boy mentality,” and battling were what set them for success. So, it did influence their lives quite positively. Didn’t it?

Personal Experience

In my personal life, battling and winning a local DMC was the very reason that I got off drugs and alcohol, and started working on myself, self-teaching all the skills I have now. Hadn’t it been for those, I’d probably be in a very different place.

If we view things through an aetiological lens, this was the primary cause for all my subsequent growth. If we opt for teleology, this was the future goal/event that enable myself to step off the path of self-destruction.

But let’s get to the main point. How embracing battling can benefit creators, and why is that more essential than ever?

Problem-Solving

The biggest issue of the creator economy is not that there are not enough:

Smiles,
Amazing personalities,
People saying: “Hey Guys!,”
Whatever your favorite gurus say: discipline, consistency, and motivation. Yawn...

It is that the promise, a truly decentralised web, and thus a genuine global free market, was silently betrayed.

“Unlike in Hollywood, everybody is welcome on YouTube.”
“The internet doesn’t discriminate.”
“A stable wi-fi and English give you an equal start.”

Propagated by people like the Neistat Brothers, ThinkMediaTV, Gary Vee, and Adam Ivy, maybe such slogans carried some truth between the late 2000s and mid 2010s. Meanwhile, platforms quietly changed their algorithms. The internet went from “open range” to “walled gardens” to “casinos.”A dirty secret worse than Apple’s iPod battery.

Feeds and reach was netrual and chronological.
Geography didn’t prevent people from going global from their bedrooms.

Now, every major platform prioritizes local data. Posts and works are tested on people near the creator. If locals don’t engage, exposure is restricted. Algorithms show viewers what they believe is “engaging.” This means:

Renegades of Magick

New creators get no momentum.
Already successful creators keep winning.
Local clusters decide your “identity” before you do.

Not openly discriminative. Not written in policy. But functionally discriminatory.

By openly battling each other, small creators can prove themselves against the “top players” in the niche who are supposedly “the best.” Aren’t they?

The very act of challenging such “top players” will draw attention to creators whose work was incorrectly sorted (localized).
If the “top player” accepts, the objectively better content will inevitably stand out. Fingers crossed it will.
If the “top player” rejects the battle... well, that would speak volumes, too.
Like in any competition, rules and regulations will be essential: deadlines, AI or no AI, number of lenses, and pieces of software. Different formats too: articles, shorts, long-form, with or without a time duration. The sky is the limit!

David vs Goliath

From their dawn platforms promised that they offer a chance to small creators, that people without labels, and big machines behind them, can also make it. By localizing content and pushing narratives, they replicated the very thing they stood against. People based in cultural melting pots (cities) have all the leverage, while others have virtually none.

Gary Vee raves about how only US immigrants can truly appreciate what it is like to be in, say, Brooklyn with a wi-fi and a smartphone, or a MacBook. It could be that the people who really see the power of that are not even in the US.

Making battling part of the creator’s career is an attempt to integrate the ageless dynamic of David vs Goliath, which platforms claim they guard as sacred.

If not else, it will make the audience see whether they’ve been supporting a creator due to their actual craftsmanship and mastery, or merely because they have a lot of numbers, thanks to the algorithms (abstractions).

Different Strokes for Different Folks

While this won’t ruin anyone’s career, it will accomplish what algorithms fail to do: Open the eyes to a culture (demographic), for alternatives with superior quality which algos kept invisible.

Once knowing that, the audience would be able to decide. Many people like “wack rappers,” or “mumble rap.” Some may prefer watching Adam LZ instead of Dakota Roch riding BMX. Nothing wrong with either.

Battles are not about ego. They are a workaround for broken infrastructure, restoring merit where metrics failed.

Quality Control Across Genres

The creator economy is built on the neoliberal notion of “free markets,” which (on paper) is about innovating and building better products through competition. While niches like tech reviews, desksetups, design, and lifestyle undoubtedly embody that, others like fitness and nutrition, philosophy and esotericism, often directly contradict it.

Hence, the flood of pseudo-intellectuals and “creativity” gurus with zero technical skill.

The niche detail is that the more the niche (genre) embraces innovation and competition, the less battling is mandatory, as your chances are quite real when quality and delivery are on point. I think that platforms do have some solution here, the dynamic of CTR.

On the contrary, battling becomes more mandatory the further we move from that. Here are some examples.

Creator A has 150 000 subs and makes esoteric content while doodling on a piece of paper to explain sophisticated Qabalistic concepts. The sound, which is 50 percent of the video (as we know from ThinkMediaTV, is pretty bad to say the least. There’s no structure, nor chapters. No A-Roll, B-Roll, mo-graph, or even an attempt. F*ck, there’s not even a steady shot, as the creator holds their phone while doodling.
Meanwhile, creator B has 2000subs writes such videos as structured essays to which he adds visuals through motion graphics, A-roll, B-roll, and professional-grade sound.

At 150 000subs, and brand deals for book reviews, creator A likely doesn’t lack resources. They lack character, discipline, and respect for the audience.

Similarly...

Creator A has 30 000 subs because of telling people how to not be so obese, by eating OMAD. He does that with abysmal quality, even according to the mid 2000s standards, and never evolves.
Meanwhile, creator B has 1000 subs. They write extensive essays, which they turn into videos on how to use the OMAD plan as a multi-purpose self-development tool and a cornerstone in a holistic lifestyle.
While creator A is skinny fat, creator B has a close to magazine-cover physique.

Bringing battling into the picture invokes quality control where quality control is needed. It forces small and big creators to better themselves not just in numbers, but by pushing the boundaries of their crafts and genres, ultimately serving their audiences best. And while not providing an equal start, it gives further chances across countries, demographics, and niches.

Beyond Content

The creator economy isn’t just content. There are plenty of educational products in the form of digital downloads, courses, etc. One can easily prove their fitness or health program is better by merely challenging the other with their actual results in terms of the physique they maintain, one way or another.

There are many ways to prove and defend yourself, as long as you are willing to step into the arena (cypher) and not hide behind numbers. It’s part of the tribal mentality that kept humanity together. The same should never be taken from us, not by tech, let alone gurus.

Battles are not about ego. They are a workaround for broken infrastructure.

— POTB