Is Your Niche Holding You Back? Here’s What 1,000 Creators Taught Us
The creator economy is growing fast, but not all niches perform equally. If you’re a creator in 2025, understanding which content categories actually scale is critical for long-term success.
Through Vicarious Lab Insights, we track creator trends, analyze market shifts, and provide actionable intelligence that powers decision-making. Whether you’re a creator looking to scale, a brand seeking impact, or a platform optimizing engagement, our expertise helps you grow with clarity and confidence.
Arian, a product of Vicarious Lab, empowers creators to earn directly from their audience while making it easier to reward and engage loyal fans.
This report is part of our ongoing research to understand what works in the creator economy—and what doesn’t. Let’s dive into the data.
How We Collected & Analyzed the Data
We built a database of 1,000 content creators, tracking their performance across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Each creator was categorized by:
- Follower Size:
- Creators under 50K
- Creators between 50K – 500K
- Creators over 500K
- Primary and Secondary Niches:
- Based on the content they consistently produced.
- Growth Patterns:
- Identifying which niches had the highest concentration of successful creators.
This data-driven approach allows us to highlight which niches create the most opportunities and where creators face the biggest roadblocks.
The Creator Landscape: What the Data Reveals
- Comedy is the strongest-performing niche at every level.
- Drama becomes a high-growth category at scale, showing demand for storytelling.
- Lifestyle and vlogging work well mid-tier but require strong branding to scale.
- Fashion and food niches stay stable but don’t dominate.
- Gaming, politics, and movie reviews had low representation among successful creators.
Here’s the full break down.
Niche Breakdown: How Each Category Performed
Creators Under 50K Followers
At this stage, creators were experimenting with different formats. The most popular primary niches were:
- Comedic (23%)
- Vlogging (14%)
- Fashion (13%)
- Lifestyle (12%)
- Food (10%)
Key Takeaways for Small Creators:
- Comedy had the highest representation, showing early growth potential.
- Lifestyle, fashion, and food performed steadily but required consistency.
- Vlogging had traction but worked best when paired with another niche.
Creators Between 50K – 500K Followers
This group focused on optimizing content and monetization. The top primary niches were:
- Comedic (21%)
- Vlogging (14%)
- Lifestyle (12%)
- Fashion (11%)
- Food (9%)
Key Takeaways for Mid-Tier Creators:
- Comedy remained dominant, indicating its ability to scale.
- Lifestyle and vlogging were more refined at this stage.
- Fashion and food creators started seeing brand partnership opportunities.
Creators Over 500K Followers
At this level, creators had established audiences and strong monetization potential. Their top primary niches were:
- Comedic (29%)
- Drama (22%)
- Lifestyle (16%)
- Fashion (9%)
- Vlogging (7%)
Key Takeaways for Large Creators:
- Comedy and drama had the highest concentration of successful creators.
- Drama content had the biggest jump, suggesting higher engagement at scale.
- Lifestyle content requires strong personal branding to thrive.
Key Insights from the Data
1. The Most Popular Niches Across All Categories are Entertainment-Heavy
With 21–29% of creators in every category focusing on comedy, the data shows consistent growth across all follower ranges. The data proves that emotional engagement is key.
If your content can make people laugh, you’ll always have an audience. Drama skyrockets at higher levels as people love storytelling, conflict, and reaction-based content
2. Drama Content Becomes a Strong Growth Driver at 500K+ Followers
Drama was not a major niche among small creators (2%) but saw a significant increase among creators over 500K (22%). This suggests that as creators grow, they shift toward more storytelling-driven content.
3. Lifestyle and Vlogging Have High Mid-Tier Representation
Lifestyle (12-16%) and vlogging (7-14%) were strong at the mid-tier level. Lifestyle content works once you build an audience—audiences become invested in YOU, not just your content.
4. Fashion and Food Niches Stay Consistent, But Don’t Dominate
These niches maintained similar percentages across all levels (9-13%), indicating they are viable but require differentiation to stand out.
5. Gaming, Politics, and Movie Reviews Had the Lowest Representation
Certain content categories fail to gain traction at every level. Gaming (0-3%), politics (0-2%), and movie reviews (0-2%) had the smallest presence in successful creator groups.
Politics for instance is highly discussed but rarely drives creator growth as most political content goes viral through news sources, not individual creators. Whilst gaming is popular in streaming spaces but underperforms on short-form platforms.
6. Creators Start Prioritizing Entertainment as They Grow
At the under 50K follower level, most creators focus on practical, easy-to-create content like vlogs, educational videos, and product reviews.
However, these niches fade out as creators grow, and high-performing creators shift toward more engaging, personality-driven content like comedy, drama, lifestyle
Creators who scale successfully understand when to pivot from purely practical content to storytelling-based formats.
7. Niche Alone Won’t Make You Grow Faster—Engagement Style Matters
One of the biggest insights from the study: two creators in the same niche can have completely different growth rates depending on their content style.
A fashion creator who only posts aesthetic photos will grow slower than one who mixes comedy, storytelling, or personal experiences into their content.
A tech reviewer who adds humor, personal branding, or trending challenges will outperform one who just presents specs.
What Niche Is Best For Creators In 2025?
✔️ Even if comedy isn’t your primary niche, experiment with formats like reaction videos, meme-based storytelling, or personality-driven skits to increase shareability.
✔️ If you have an existing follower base, test reaction-based content, commentary on trending topics, or documentary-style storytelling to drive higher engagement.
✔️ As a creator or content consumer, sign up on Arian, our creator-first platform that enables creators no matter your follower size to monetize their audience while making it easy to gift and reward loyal fans.
✔️ Position yourself as a brand. The most successful lifestyle creators integrate educational, storytelling, or entertainment formats to keep audiences engaged long-term.
✔️ If you’re in fashion or food, don’t just focus on aesthetics. Add narrative, commentary, or a signature format to make your content distinct.
✔️️ Stay ahead of creator economy trends with VL Insights as we develop products and data backed services that help creators, brands, and platforms grow faster.
