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290 Patricia G. Lange and Mizuko Itomay aspire to professionalization and large audiences, others see theircreative work as a serious but amateur hobby, pursued for the love of itand not for financial gain. Online distribution may be opening new avenuesto fame and professional careers for a small number of creators, but themore radical and broad-based changes are happening at the amateur layer.Unlike professional media production, amateur media can support a proliferatingnumber of creators buoyed by long-tail, small audiences. Theseniche audiences represent an opportunity for a growing number of youthto engage in media production in the context of public participation.ConclusionIn this chapter, we describe some of the specificities of how kids engage increative production and a wide range of practices that might fall under theumbrella of “online content creation.” Most of the content creation thatyouth engage in is a form of personal media creation that is focused ondocumenting their everyday lives and sharing with friends and family. Insome cases, this everyday personal media production serves as a jumpingoffpoint for developing other kinds of creative interests. In other cases,youth express interest in developing highly technical media skills from anearly age. Yet both commonplace and exceptional cases in media productionshare certain commonalities, and the boundary between “casual” andsocial media production and “serious” media production is difficult todefine. Although friendship-driven and hanging out genres of participationare generally associated with more casual forms of media creation,they can transition quickly to messing around and geeking out. Conversely,the relationships that youth foster in interest-driven creative productioncan become a source of new friendship and collegiality that is an alternativeto the kinds of friendships and status regimes that youth must inhabitat school. We can see this in the social energies that young people bringto online discussions with their interest-based friends as well as in conventionsand meet-ups where youth are sharing their lives as well as theircreative work.All these cases demonstrate the growing centrality of media creation inthe everyday social communication of youth. Whether it is everyday photographyor machinima, youth are using media they create as a way ofdocumenting their lives and as a means of self-expression. These cases also