The glamor of Hollywood appears to be decaying. The rise of streaming services has revolutionized the entertainment industry and created new opportunities for aspiring actors. With the vast amount of platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max, young actors are redefining what it means to be successful in the industry.

The traditional metrics of success are being obliterated by streaming numbers, and social media followers while network ratings and box office earnings are losing their grip on measuring achievement. Many actors are forging their own unique paths to stardom. This could be using platforms such as Tik Tok or Film Hub to create their own shorts films, or creating an online persona to help facilitate their rise to stardom. Young actors are not only disregarding the old way of finding success, they are fully embracing this new age of possibilities.

1888 was the first moving picture ever created, only 2.11 seconds long. At the time of its creation, it was unknown how vast and popular the entertainment industry would turn into. Early on, it became clear that five production companies were going to dominate the landscape: Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures, and Columbia Pictures.

These powerhouse companies were able to paint a clear picture for all young people trying to break into the industry. As young actor Madison Thompson described them as such, saying that “actors used to have contracts to big studios just once, once you made it and you had a contract with the studio, you had consistent work.” There weren't many routes to find success as an actor, and although it wasn’t easy to break into these big studios, once you were there, you were set.

Warner Brother's Movie Theater, Warners Theatre, in the 1920's

Photo via US National Archives

“Increasingly streaming services are becoming like the new cable,” says actress Sophie Warshauer. As she begins to navigate her way through the entertainment industry after college, Washauser has begun to notice streaming's full replacement of cable. The previous yellow brick road that led actors from auditions to prominence through hit cable shows and blockbuster successes have been completely disrupted by streaming.

Warshauer continues to describe how there are many more fields that are being opened, especially short form content, that can lead aspiring actors and actresses into the same level of success that had previously only occurred through the older forms of entertainment broadcasting. The amount of doors opening for the youth in the forms of social media, short-films, and streaming are enticing them to redefine success for themselves.

It seems that streaming brings benefits for everyone with more jobs, more opportunities, and more chances of success, but that’s not necessarily true. The idea of ‘actor’ has grown to require so much more than pure talent. Veteran entertainment manager Danny Sherman says that “if you’re an actor, you may think about creating your own content,... you can’t just do one thing.”

Marketing yourself as multi-faceted has never been so important. When companies are looking for actors to hire, someone who has experience in things such as creating their own films or entering auditions with a large social media following is going to draw much more attention compared to those who arrive with only acting to rely on.

Since streaming has expanded the availability of work so vastly, the competition and need to stand out has risen dramatically. Kyla Drew Simmons, an actress who has worked since she was a child understands this new level of competition well. She says that if an actor’s goal is strictly to have work consistently than streaming is great, but “those actors who really want to make this a lifelong career... I could see if they would want to stick to a traditional norm.”

This increase of pathways towards success has resulted in dilution of the traditional movie star. The idealistic vision of becoming the next Brad Pitt or Meryl Streep is becoming less of a reality, due to the fact that it’s existence is dwindling.

Madison Thompson has noticed this hindrance. “Everybody is putting out content all the time, we're living in the age of television and it's such a spectacular medium, but at the same time, there's so much of it that even if you're the lead on a TV series does not mean that you're going to have that same level of fame and success because there's 400 TV shows like yours and there's so many ways to become famous these days that it's kind of diluted the field."

Despite these obvious setbacks, the younger generation is not deterred from entering the glitz and glam. The opportunities that have risen due to streaming could be lessening the power of the movie star, but an abundance of work is hard to view as a negative. When starting out in the industry, any work is amazing. KylaDrew commented "that the more streaming that there is, the more projects that are going to be developed and made, therefore, the more opportunities for actors, so... it will help in terms of increasing jobs for actors and the availability of them."

The fear of never becoming what old Hollywood expects actors to be seems to be prevalent, but it is not stopping these aspiring creators because the possibility of creating something even greater than before is so evidently possible. Not only are the pathways to success changing, but the metrics used to measure that success have broadened significantly.

Due to the wide variety of ways to find and measure success, young people are taking an approach to success in a very individualistic way. One actors idea of success might be completely different from the person sitting next to them in an audition, but they are objectively both correct.

Young actors and actresses have been forced to navigate this new landscape in ways they never have before. One of the ways they are doing this is by redefining what success means to them. Fame and celebrity status goes hand in hand with being a successful actress, but it isn’t all that they are looking for. Listen below to hear how these young actresses are naming success for themselves.

Success is being broadened across platforms, young artists are now finding new ways to find notoriety through a variety of different avenues. One of these ways is social media. It is a tool that allows you to grow your personal image, as well as networking and getting your work out there. After thirty years in the casting business, Jeff Olan has recognized the advantages of turning to social media to help grow your personal image, “whether it’s Instagram or Twitter... you could have a celebrity following you or you could have a producer seeing your work, your content.”

One of the most popular social media platforms that is launching many aspiring actors into success is Tik Tok. “Actors are spending more time on Tik Tok, that’s where the celebrity is coming from,” says Madison Thompson. The nature of the app allows nearly anyone who is consistently putting out content to go “viral.” Since its following has grown so large, content creators now have more opportunity to be a part of special events, movie premiers, and can rub noses with powerful people in any industry they want to enter.

There are many people who have found the rise to fame through this app. Emily Uribe, a 23 year old girl born in Salinas, California has amassed nearly a million followers on her Tik Tok account. Her fame began when she started creating videos of her pretending to be on a late night talk show to promote a movie; a movie that she was not a part of. These videos grew quickly and she began incorporating other videos of her acting, and through these videos she has reached a point in her life where she is attending movie premieres and meeting directors. This level of success is something that young actors strive for being able to do, and she was able to do it without ever acting.

These videos began to amass views and accumulate followers for her. Through the connections and fans she made on TikTok, she began to be invited to events such as movie premiers, special screenings, and she even attended award shows such as the Golden Globes, the American Music Awards, and the Oscars.

Beyond these successes, she was able to book a job on the television show Chicken Girls: College Years. In an interview with People Magazine, Uribe describes not knowing where or how to start her career in acting, but once she found TikTok she acknowledged that it “is really a great gateway to everything… you’re able to network, you’re able to get really great info.”

Uribe's TikTok's follow her story through some of the first videos she made imitating actors, to being on the carpet of the Golden Globes.

The previous measures of success, fame and the amount of blockbuster hits an actor could produce, are halting before our eyes. The need for securing a deal with the largest production companies is no longer necessary. It is seen as a positive that allows for more work, but also an attack on the traditional movie star.

There is no denying that streaming has opened doors that seemed unimaginable to those trying to break into the industry many years ago. The landscape is changing, expanding, evolving constantly. We are living through a massive shift in how we consume entertainment.

Currently, the Writer’s Guild of America, a union that represents writers in TV, film, radio and online media is protesting the unfair wages that they have been receiving. Many of these writers working on streaming services are working tireless hours with extremely little pay. This is going to halt the production of shows and films across all services and cable.

The ability to make a career off of the wages they make is virtually impossible, limiting the amount of new writers that are able to step into the shoes of previous generations. Without the ability to support and induct these new writers, the entire entertainment industry will crumble. Streaming is a new advancement that has changed the lives of everyone in the industry, and this strike proves that how to properly handle it is still being figured out. Navigating this ever changing field is becoming no longer a skill, but a necessity. Streaming is here to stay, and young actors are destined to play an integral role as to how we see this industry growing in the coming years. Success is no longer a uniform idea, and these young actors are reclaiming how to reach it.