Influencer, YouTuber, content creator. In recent years, these have been the top answers to the age-old question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
That dream might be losing some of its luster.
A recent survey of American teens and young adults found that medical and healthcare careers came out ever-so-slightly on top of becoming a creator and influencer.
Clothing brand PacSun and analytics company GlobalData surveyed more than 6,000 US teens and young adults ages 11 to 24. The survey asked which careers respondents were interested in pursuing, and they could choose multiple career paths.
Last year, PacSun's survey found that the influencer career was the top choice (22.2%), while medical careers came in second (19.4%). In 2026, however, influencer declined to 18.8%, slightly behind healthcare at 19%.
Healthcare careers are seeing broad growth. Jobs from nurse practitioners to psychiatric technicians could witness a boom in the next decade, according to a recent job projections report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Is the influencer dream fading?
Fancy trips, free things, and millions of fans — just for posting to social media? From the outside, the influencer lifestyle can seem like a dream come true.
However, being an influencer is ultimately a job, whether it's a full-time gig or a side hustle. Like many jobs in the current economy, there's plenty of uncertainty surrounding it.
For one, it's getting harder to make it big as a creator, as the virality jackpot grows more competitive in a saturated space. Influencers in the US are expected to earn over $21 billion from brand deals and platform revenue in 2026, according to Business Insider sister company EMARKETER. However, an influx of influencers at the lower end of the market has increased income inequality in the creator economy.
Meanwhile, platforms like YouTube are making it tougher to qualify for monetization programs and cash out. Then there's the looming threat of AI.
Social media, broadly, is also in the throes of a PR nightmare.
Headline-making child safety and teen addiction lawsuits are shaping how a generation views the social media apps many use every day. In 2025, Pew Research Center found that about half of teens (48%) said social media has a "mostly negative effect on people their age."
There's an even bigger anxiety hanging overhead for Gen Z and Gen Alpha — and that's the job market writ large. PacSun's survey showed a decline in interest across all job categories, including art, fashion, skilled trades, tech, and entrepreneurship.
The one category that had an uptick: "Not sure yet."
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Sydney Bradley has been covering media and tech for Business Insider since 2020. She breaks news and writes extensively about Instagram and Facebook, as well as new social media startups, dating apps, the creator economy, venture capital, and tech culture.She regularly contributes to BI's "After Hours" series, where our reporters dive into the social scenes shaping tech, media, and finance.Sydney's reporting on Instagram was nominated as a finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Press Club National Entertainment Journalism Awards.She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in American Studies. You can follow Sydney's work on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at @sydneykbradley.Have a tip? You can also contact her via encrypted messaging app Signal (@sydneykbradley.123), encrypted email ([email protected]), or standard email ([email protected]). Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.
