Influencing the Influencers: Impact on the Content Creation Industry

Benjamin Grubbs ’10 was a Syracuse University first-year student in the late 1990s when media organizations were grappling with what the internet would mean for their future. As a high school student, he had worked for newspapers and cable access television.

Growing up, Brooke Baevsky ’18 (WSM/NEW) taught healthy cooking classes to children and wanted to combine her interests in media, entrepreneurship and nutrition. When she enrolled at Syracuse in 2014, it was one of the only schools where she could study social media marketing and business. 

When John Spina ’27 arrived on campus in 2023, he already had tens of thousands ofTikTok followers. Students he’d never met recognized him from his videos. 

Despite their differing media backgrounds, Grubbs, Baevsky and Spina are each helping to shape the content we consume. They represent the impact of Whitman School students and alumni on the evolving content creation industry.

In on the Ground Floor

In the summer of 2000, Grubbs worked for Yahoo! in Singapore as part of Whitman’s study abroad program. He enjoyed the experience so much that he planned to return in the spring of his senior year and complete his last two required courses remotely. Instead, Yahoo!, which then was the largest online platform, offered him a full-time position. He put those last few credits on hold and moved to Singapore.

Ben Grubbs

Over the next decade, Grubbs built his career at Yahoo!, eBay, Turner Broadcasting and YouTube. At each company, he was on the ground floor of the burgeoning content industry. 

“What I saw was the early days of how entrepreneurs were building a business on top of a platform, in this case, eBay, people that were starting off as a casual seller then growing into a PowerSeller and, in effect, running a business and employing people all behind a single eBay account,” recalls Grubbs.

Grubbs believed the industry was moving toward the model of content originating with creators rather than the top-down approach of television networks and wanted to be at the forefront. This led him to YouTube, where he helped develop YouTube Kids. Around this time, with the motivation that comes with being a new parent, he also completed those last two courses and became a member of the Syracuse Class of 2010.

Grubbs eventually returned to the U.S. In 2018, he launched Next 10 Ventures, an incubator for content creators. Today, he is a partner at Creator Capital, which invests in content entrepreneurs. As an early player in the industry, Grubbs helped pave the way for creators like Baevsky and Spina.

The Next Generation

Brooke Baevsky was a dual major at Whitman and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, with minors in food science and psychology. After graduation, she worked in food product development for companies including Starbucks and Panera. She eventually began cooking and designing menus for professional athletes. That led to more celebrity clients and a move to Los Angeles, where she creates content around celebrity cheffing and nutrition on her “Chef Bae” website and social media including TikTok @chefbae.

Brooke Baevsky

Baevsky’s multifaceted interests are apparent on her channels. A video of her making lattes for actor Adam Sandler’s family while Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song” plays in the background appears near content about cooking for first responders fighting the Los Angeles wildfires. She hopes to someday develop her own line of food products.

John Spina began posting on TikTok during the pandemic and garnered a healthy following for his dance videos, a joyful riot of baggy jeans and a flying mop of curly hair. His videos have changed since then, and the University is now a character. In one video on his TikTok feed @johnspinaa, he and a friend say “pumpkin” with increasing volume in Bird Library (filmed at 2 a.m. in a deserted library, he is quick to clarify). Despite the frequent silliness, Spina considers content creation a business. Millions of viewers have watched his videos about using social media income to help pay tuition. He was surprised to hear from friends that professors discuss his content in class.

John Spina

In a constantly changing industry, Grubbs encourages up-and-coming creators like Spina to take the same proactive approach he embraced. “As a creative person, as a producer, as a business person, to have those options and opportunities is overall positive if you’re always looking at it from the evolution side of things,” says Grubbs.

“There are so many different facets of content creation and social media and so many different perspectives on the industry,” says Spina. “There’s so much that you can do.”