After serving as an advisor for several months, James Del joined Passionfruit as publisher in March 2022 with the aim of building an indispensable resource for creators of all kinds.
Despite the prominence of the creator community, a rapidly growing space connected to numerous multi-billion dollar industries, there has been a surprising lack of quality coverage serving that community. Passionfruit, operated by Fragment Media Group, has quickly established itself with the largest editorial staff dedicated to online creators, serving as a go-to hub for news and other resources by creators and for creators.
‘The emergence of the independent creator is one of the seminal developments of the internet age and yet the creator community is largely ignored and unserved by most of the media.’
Passionfruit stems from a larger strategy from the publication’s parent company, Fragment Media Group: serving the needs of underserved communities. Fragment and Passionfruit have identified that online creators are a prime example of a community whose needs have been dramatically underserved. Passionfruit seeks to change that.
“The emergence of the independent creator is one of the seminal developments of the internet age and yet the creator community is largely ignored and unserved by most of the media,” said Fragment Media Group CEO Nicholas White. “We hope to fill that void with Passionfruit, offering rigorous information services and a place for creators to gather where they can freely ‘talk shop’—a true home for creators.”
Passionfruit initially began as a Daily Dot newsletter in August 2021. To better serve the needs of the creator community, Passionfruit has grown and adapted to become its own publication.
Passionfruit’s features editor Grace Stanley—who has been at Passionfruit since it launched as an independent title—explained that the emergence of Passionfruit was met with great enthusiasm by the creator community. “The response from creators has been wonderful, and it’s awesome to see such a positive response from the community when we share their stories and highlight their work,” said Stanley.
As Passionfruit grew to become a valuable resource within the creator community, the publication carefully adapted as the team sought out voices within the creator community.
“Our approach has changed dramatically based on feedback from the creator community,” said Stanley. “Initially, Passionfruit was focused largely on the traditional ‘creator economy’—aka, we did a lot of coverage of creator-led businesses, social media companies, start-up founders, and industry leaders.
What creators from a multitude of niche communities really crave is connection, community, information on the resources and tools they actually need, and investigative work into the underrepresented issues they face.”
One way Passionfruit worked towards actualizing this pivot was by hiring Futurism and Gawker alum James Del.
Speaking on Del’s addition to Passionfruit, White had the following to say. “James has a rare combination of business acumen and editorial creativity that makes him perfect for our unique model, which is built on authentic communities so often ignored by the rest of the media. The fact that he’s also a creator himself (and sometimes a frustrated one) means he’s both frequently trusted by creators to help them turn their communities into businesses and the perfect person to lead Passionfruit.”
Del’s position within the creator-verse is a crucial component of setting up Passionfruit to fully commit to serving creators.
“I always felt like the vast majority of ‘creator economy’ coverage was too heavily focused on the ‘economy’ part…advertising trade press written from a hamfisted, brand-centric perspective for the exclusive benefit of marketers, advertisers, media execs and tech industry insiders,” said Del. “The creators—the wildly talented, smart, hardworking, and passionate people who underpin the entirety of that “economy”—are seldom served by any of the more traditional trade outlets.”Del is eager to work with creators. “Building a news source, a tool kit, and a community for the creator’s benefit, advocating for their needs and perspectives while showing them how it’s done…that’s an enormous opportunity that has the potential to inspire thousands or even millions of people to create something they’re passionate about.”
