Cameo, which lets fans pay for shoutout videos from celebs, has become a gig economy for celebs during the pandemic as some use it to compensate for income loss
On March 20, Steven Galanis, the CEO and co-founder of Cameo, took a call from Akon, the R&B singer behind the 2006 hit “Smack That.” Tweets: @thesskate , @jessicagolds , @zzzzaaaacccchhh , @noiseymusic , @zzzzaaaacccchhh , and @mvzelenks Tweets: Kate Dries / @thesskate : “Throughout the entire month of March, Cameo added 1,031 new talent, which represents a 77.8% month-over-month increase, Galanis said. And the site generated 65,000 Cameo videos that month, a 30% increase.” https://www.vice.com/... Jessica Goldstein / @jessicagolds : “While many entertainers—like the rest of us—are grappling with a loss of income, never in the modern history of the United States has the celebrity class been so collectively and desperately bored.” https://www.vice.com/... Zach Schonfeld / @zzzzaaaacccchhh : I have a new feature up at @VICE this week. It's about Cameo—the site that lets you pay celebs to film personalized video messages—and how it has suddenly become a lifeline for B-list celebrities under quarantine: https://www.vice.com/... Noisey / @noiseymusic : While many entertainers are grappling with a loss of income, never in the modern history of the U.S. has the celebrity class been so bored. https://www.vice.com/... Zach Schonfeld / @zzzzaaaacccchhh : I wrote about one of the few companies that is absolutely thriving right now: Cameo. I spent the past few weeks interviewing niche celebrities who've flocked to Cameo while bored under quarantine. For @VICE: https://www.vice.com/... Michael Zelenko / @mvzelenks : “We've had people that have been telling us no for two or three years suddenly saying yes” Coronavirus Is Driving Celebrities to Cameo in Droves https://www.vice.com/... via @vice
Context & Ripple Effects
A month after a profile of Cameo's growth noted the company had scaled from 20 to 125 employees in 15 months, the pandemic turned its marketplace into an income-replacement channel: CEO Steven Galanis says March brought 1,031 new talent (up 77.8% month-over-month) and 65,000 videos (up 30%), with performers like Akon joining as live entertainment income dried up.
The surge is the peak of an arc that later coverage traces in reverse — a 2023 retrospective on Cameo's fall, and a July 2023 report that staff was cut to fewer than 50 people, down nearly 90% from peak headcount.
First-order effects
- Celebrities losing touring and appearance income immediately gain a new revenue line: signing up converts idle time into per-video earnings without leaving home.
- Cameo's two-sided marketplace gets both sides at once — a 77.8% jump in talent supply meets rising fan demand, with Galanis reporting 65,000 videos in March alone.
Second-order effects
- Adjacent platforms follow the same playbook: within weeks, coverage groups Cameo with Substack as ways for prominent media figures to monetize smaller audiences directly, pressuring traditional employers of those figures.
- Cameo extends the format itself, launching Cameo Live in June 2020 so fans can book 10-minute video calls instead of prerecorded shoutouts — a move up the price ladder as supply floods in.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, celebrity gig platforms become permanent income-smoothing infrastructure for mid-tier entertainers; the later record suggests otherwise — big-star recruitment faltered and headcount collapsed nearly 90%, indicating demand was partly a shutdown artifact rather than a durable market.
- The structural lesson for the category is that personalized-fan-monetization platforms concentrate value at the top of the talent curve, leaving volume-driven supply vulnerable once live entertainment returns.
The trend: Pandemic-era creator monetization platforms like Cameo spiked as celebrity income replacement during shutdowns, then contracted sharply once live entertainment resumed.