What's Trending Hits Seven Figures After 15 Years

What's Trending, the creator-led digital media brand Shira Lazar launched in 2011, has grown into a seven-figure revenue business — fifteen years after a single erroneous tweet cost it its partnership with CBS News.

Lazar built the brand on a gap she spotted in the early 2010s: as viral stars like Michelle Phan and Jenna Marbles took off on social media, few outlets were making video content about them. What's Trending filled that void, launching in 2011 as a creator-driven show covering internet culture, with Lazar as its face and CBS News as its distribution partner.

The partnership collapsed after Lazar posted an erroneous tweet reporting Steve Jobs' death. CBS News cut ties with the show. "It was really a heartbreak for me," Lazar said.

She kept building. The show ran first for YouTube, then adapted for each new platform as audiences shifted. Today it operates across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, covering creators, celebrities, AI scammers and video games.

The trajectory matters for practitioners because it tracks a structural shift in publishing. When Lazar started, creator-led media was a niche bet. Now CNN, Bustle and The Washington Post are building their own creator networks, pursuing the format What's Trending pioneered.

For publishers weighing creator-led strategies, the model's durability is the signal: a multi-platform distribution footprint — five major platforms in this case — has kept a single-face brand viable through more than a decade of algorithm and audience migrations. Lazar is now focused on scaling the business further and strengthening the support and protections available to creators, suggesting the next phase of growth depends on creator sustainability as much as content output.

The full story of how What's Trending reached seven figures, including its revenue mechanics, is available on Digiday.