The creator economy is growing fast — but the opportunities aren’t being shared equally.
Rachel Kisela, a freelance video editor from Seattle and MrBeast alum, noticed she was an anomaly as a woman in the field. That perception was confirmed by data she saw from the career site Zippia, which showed that 76% of video editors are men.
When creators began asking Kisela for recommendations for other female editors, she got an idea. In 2024, Kisela, 27, launched EditHers, a Discord community to match female editors with hirers.
She said the community has grown to nearly 200 editors and around 100 creators, including top players like Airrack and Smosh, as well as her former employer, where she was a lead video editor.
The top YouTube creators by subscriber count are overwhelmingly men.
“It can be kind of bro-y,” Kisela said of YouTube.
Editing is also technical work, and Kisela said she’d observed that it tended to draw more men than women. She said she’s had people assume she doesn’t know how to use Adobe Premiere, the industry’s standard editing tool.
“I started this community because there was no space like this, and to my knowledge, there still is no other space like this on the internet for women YouTube editors to talk about their experience,” Kisela said.
EditHers is part job board, part therapy group
EditHers, for now a passion project that Kisela manages in addition to her paid freelance work, is part job board, part guild, part therapy group, and part skill incubator. It’s become a place where, in addition to job opportunities, participants trade tips about pay and skills and share openly about sexism they’ve encountered.
Kisela said building a career in the creator economy takes a lot of initiative.
“I just started out cold emailing hundreds of creators when I was in college and just offering to help them out, build a YouTube,” she said. “A lot of jobs you don’t get by just applying, but just by intercepting the right creator at the right time.”
Tyler Allen, manager of the YouTube creator HopeScope, said EditHers has helped fill a need on the hiring end. HopeScope sponsored a panel discussion that Kisela put on in Los Angeles in October.
“There just aren’t as many women editors as male editors,” Allen said. “Editors are hard to find on the internet. If I’m looking for a video editor, they probably don’t have a LinkedIn. When I have four job listings, I would say 90+% that apply are men.”
Pay is always a big topic on EditHers.
“How do I raise my rates over time? I’ve been working with one creator for several years, and I want to raise my rates, but I’m not sure how to have that discussion,” Kisela said, ticking off common questions. “There’s not one standardized way to charge clients for video editing in the YouTube space. Very tight deadlines, insane hours. A lot of these companies don’t have the benefits of a traditional job, health insurance, stuff like that.”
Jillian Diblasio, a freelance editor and early member of EditHers, said the community had helped her not only find jobs but also learn what to charge and what’s expected in return.
“It helps women empower each other,” she said. “It’s a safe space where we can ask questions.”
Kisela’s takeaways from MrBeast
Kisela left North Carolina-based MrBeast in 2023 to return to the West Coast and have the freedom that freelancing affords. (In addition to EditHers, she runs an Etsy shop selling disco balls and plans to be a digital nomad.)
Kisela said she was impressed by the mission-driven content, an element of MrBeast’s programming, and by founder Jimmy Donaldson’s well-documented attention to detail.
She cited one video she worked on where MrBeast said he paid for cataract surgery to cure 1,000 people’s blindness.
“That stuff is real,” she said. “And that brought me a lot of purpose when I was working there, just knowing that I think a lot of people in his position would not be doing that type of work.”
As a self-described workaholic, Kisela is aware of the potential for burnout that comes with gig work. Her answer is to try to make money in as many ways as she can, such as consulting and her Etsy work. This helps diversify the type of work she does and limits her screen time.
Kisela said that a lot of people in her generation are working in the gig economy.
“I just try to embrace that and find as many ways to make money as I can,” she said. “That keeps my editing fun because I’m not editing 80 hours a week.”
