MeganPlays has been on YouTube for 13 years. Heres what shes learned.

When MeganPlays started uploading gaming videos to YouTube in 2013, being a " creator " wasn't exactly a conventional career path.

She wasn't thinking about brand deals, TikTok algorithms, audience retention, or the creator economy .

A college freshman who had been gaming practically her entire life, Megan saw people uploading videos of themselves playing The Sims and had a simple thought: I could do that.

So she did.

"I just downloaded a capture thing and just talked into it and threw it up on the internet," Megan told Mashable at VidCon in June.

"It was really raw.

Not a lot of great content there, but it was a really fun start." More than a decade later, MeganPlays has built an online career spanning YouTube, Roblox , and an audience of millions across platforms.

She's also been doing this long enough to watch practically every supposed rule of content creation change.

SEE ALSO: How MeganPlays has adapted through every era of YouTube YouTube went from raw and relatable to highly produced and back again.

Long-form gave way to short-form, only for longer videos to begin creeping onto vertical platforms.

Games rise and fall in popularity.

Algorithms change so quickly that, as Megan puts it, "what you knew two weeks ago is no longer relevant." Her career has changed with them — sometimes successfully, sometimes painfully.

She's burned herself out running too many channels, learned the risks of sharing too much personal information, struggled to escape the niche that made her famous, and discovered that millions of views on one platform don't necessarily translate into a sustainable business.

For Mashable's Creator Playbook , MeganPlays shares what 13 years online have taught her about building an audience, surviving the algorithm, knowing your worth, and why sometimes the best creator advice is the simplest: Just start.