Read This: The Writers Guild contemplates bringing YouTubers, "content creators" into the fold

Per THR, “multiple candidates” vying for spots on the WGA board are proposing ways to organize with new media, which could include online creators but also writers on podcasts and video games. Michele Mulroney, who is running unopposed to become the union’s president wrote in her candidate statement, “We are sitting on a shrinking iceberg and must be willing to look beyond our current employers.” Adam Ruins Everything‘s Adam Conover (an incumbent board member) also focused on it in his own candidate statement, writing that “Like it or not,” YouTube “is the future of television.” Incumbent board member Molly Nussbaum wrote in her statement, “I cannot count how many folks are currently working on vertical shorts, video games, podcasts or writing influencer content.”

Broadening scope would mark a change in strategy, particularly for the WGA West, which has focused more on the traditional film and television business even as the industry experienced rapid change. Members of a 2021 caucus to explore the video game space told THR that they “did not feel much interest from leadership” in genuinely expanding the union to bring in video game writers at the time. “We’re always willing to be surprised, but we’re not holding our breaths as to whether the WGA will actually commit to organizing game writers,” writers Nick and Max Folkman told the outlet.

There are also challenges to such expansion, including that online content “is such a hyper-individualized space,” as Brooke Erin Duffy, a Cornell University associate professor who studies labor in social media, puts it. To convince “individual creators to see the power they have as a class—not just with each other, but with other entertainers and artists—is going to be what makes an inflection point.” You can read the full piece here.