A few years ago, established publishers turned up their noses at bloggers. They were amateurs. Outsiders. “They’re not ‘proper’ content creators” huffed one major player in an industry meeting I was present at.

While ‘proper’ magazine companies continued business as usual (read: creating homogenous ad-pleasing fodder), bloggers were busy producing credible content which resonated with steadily growing audiences.

Fast forward to 2015 and the tables have turned. ‘Proper’ content creators are bleeding audiences, slashing staff and commonly sharing job roles.

While these legacy brands are rethinking their business models, business is booming for blogs. The outsiders are now in charge.

Meet the new establishment:

They All Hate Us

What started as a daily personal email about all things fashion is now an internationally recognised digital offering. (Hair brand Schwarzkopf recently teamed up with them for its ‘Australia’s Most Beautiful Hair’ campaign).

The duo behind the independent publication, Tash Sefton and Elle Ferguson, are now clocking up 350,000 unique visits a month and repped by PR Roxy Jacenko’s talent arm, Ministry of Talent.

Lauren Curtis

The twenty-something beauty vlogger has the number one Australian beauty channel on YouTube. Represented by a talent manager in the USA as well as locally, she told Fairfax Media in 2013 that her US manager receives 150 emails a day from companies wanting their products mentioned in her videos. Curtis is one of only 11 Aussies on YouTube with more than a million subscribers.