The pendulum isn’t shifting. It’s shifted.
As we enter year two of the second Trump administration, mainstream brands are becoming more comfortable working with conservative creators and shifting ad dollars to apolitical creators. That’s what several experts on the creator economy told me at SXSW 2026.
Last year, Business Insider reported that blue-chip advertisers were embracing right-wing outlets like Fox News and The Daily Wire. Fox News told Business Insider at the time it had onboarded 125 new large advertisers following Trump’s election. The publication reported that companies feared that “avoiding conservative platforms [was] a risk to their brands,” while others wanted to avoid “signaling a political allegiance on either side of the aisle.”
Now, experts say the same shift is happening in the fast-growing creator economy, where advertisers spent an estimated $37 billion in 2025, according to IAB.
“There’s certainly a level of comfortability with conservatives, no doubt. Look at the mainstream brands who support all the channels today, right?” said Arthur Leopold, CEO and co-founder of Agentio, a programmatic creator advertising startup, in an interview at SXSW.
“If you even consider how much the pendulum has swung, five years ago, if you were a brand and you didn’t have the pride flag during June…” Leopold told me, “There would be little boycotts and national news would be covering that X, Y, Z brand doesn’t have a pride flag. But now you think back to last year, and you barely saw that, right? So there’s been a desensitization to politics and how brands respond to it on social. And because of that, brands care a little bit less about whether they are working with a Ben Shapiro or Meidas Touch.”
Conservative media is home to hundreds of proudly right-wing podcasters, YouTubers, and streamers. And let’s not forget about the right-leaning manosphere. While these creators have always received deals from conservative-aligned brands like Black Rifle Coffee, many are no longer off-limits to mainstream brands.
At the same time, that means proudly progressive creators are sometimes losing out on dollars they used to count on.
Creators often earn limited income from monetization programs on platforms like YouTube or TikTok. Typically, brand deals are essential to building a sustainable career as a creator. So, if progressive creators who are outspoken on LGBTQ+ rights or climate change can’t secure partnerships, their voices could disappear from your feed.
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“These are amazing, amazing people. Incredible freaking people, but there are brands that feel like they shouldn’t be supporting them. Whereas, two years ago, everyone did,” Leopold said.
Antonia Alakija, a creator economy strategist and Meta and TikTok alum, told Mashable she’s definitely seeing brands seek out more apolitical creators.
“I think before it was OK to have more of a social perspective or moral perspective. I’m seeing brands choose creators who don’t really speak to those topics and don’t have a brand aligned with either side, just because of the polarization and opinions going on right now. So, I would say, in terms of creator selection, I’m definitely seeing that,” Alakija said.
Brooke Berry, head of creator development at Snapchat, told Mashable that creators who are having a hard time finding deals because of their political beliefs shouldn’t feel like they need to silence themselves. Instead, they should find other formats and topics to create alongside their more outspoken content.
“I had one of my reality TV star creators say, you know, on another platform, it’s hard for him to sometimes find deals, because he does speak out a lot and has very specific views,” Berry said. “But that’s when I told him, you don’t have to necessarily stop what you’re speaking about, but you need to identify content formats within other areas. Like, he’s into fitness, he’s on the spectrum, he has high-functioning autism, and he talks a lot about those. Find the formats within that that brands can plug into.”
However, being too outspoken can still impact a creator’s ability to secure deals, as Mashable has reported before.
“Even sometimes when you do do the apolitical stuff, if you do even have a roster of any political stuff, that could get in the way of opportunities, in this era specifically,” Alakija warned.
Leopold told me there are, of course, hard lines for companies. Whether on the right or left, extreme opinions or controversies are often unattractive to brands, for obvious reasons.
“If there are creators who might be way too controversial or have said something that could be damaging for a brand, we have to be honest with that, and we wouldn’t onboard them. We are a closed platform, right?” Leopold told me. “And the brands can also say, ‘Hey, we want to work with creators that are more aligned to certain causes, political or otherwise. You know, we are a brand looking for a highly male audience and success on channels like Ben Shapiro’s. So, OK, well, there are similar channels, like maybe outdoor lifestyle channels or apolitical channels that have a similar audience.”
The trend to support apolitical and conservative creators is troubling for left-wing creators trying to carve out a living in the increasingly crowded creator economy.
However, that’s the thing about pendulums.
They always swing back eventually.
The quotes in this story have been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
