Ask Lemmygrad

The way I see it, not necessarily.

The same way an Uber driver owns a car, a content creator owns a camera and a computer, but both are still subjected to the will of the corporation that owns the platform they use to make a living. If youtube decides to demonetize or strike a video, that person's income is directly effected and can even be at risk of losing their channel.

The vast majority of content creators just do it because they enjoy it and doesn't get paid enough, if at all, to make a living out of it. And even when they do get enough, there is no safety nets for them. What if a video doesn't get views? What if youtube is not promoting them? What if it gets age restricted? What if it gets demonetized? What if their camera breaks? What if the computer breaks? What if they get sick?

To me this looks like a really precarized work. Sure you're free to make the content that you want at the pace you want at first, but the moment it turns into a job that pays your bills you're gonna have to play by the rules of what makes money to maximize your chance of actually getting paid enough to continue doing it. This includes suspicious sponsorships, clickbaity titles and thumbnails, constantly uploading content, etc.

Of course there are really big content creators that earn a lot of money, specially through sponsorships, and that have writers, editors, etc, working for them. In this case yeah I think they would be a part of the petit-bourgeoisie.