blu shift creative co-founders Tara Stevens and Ben Baldwin.
Agency Founders Appear Throughout Tinsel Magazine Feature on the Gifting Economy, the LIVE Fest Competitive Season, and the Art of Professional Streaming
Live streaming demands the same discipline as acting, news broadcasting, or ballet.”— Ben Baldwin, Co-Founder, blu shift creative
Tinsel Magazine has released "Roses Are Money: A Field Guide to TikTok's Battle Season," an article that explores TikTok LIVE’s gifting economy, the platform’s yearly competition season, and the agency framework that has grown around it. Ben Baldwin and Tara Stevens, who co-founded the creative agency blu shift creative, are highlighted throughout the report.
The narrative begins at 11:40 on a Tuesday night with a split screen. One side shows a woman operating a fully dressed diner set while taking orders from her chat. The other displays a man playing a funk bass line for a hundred thousand viewers. A timer appears, roses rise up the screen, and the totals beneath each participant begin to change.
That scenario is a battle. According to the magazine, viewers purchase coins and use them to send animated gifts—roses being among the least expensive—and creators convert those gifts back into cash. A battle is a timed, one-on-one livestream where each creator rallies their audience, and the gifts function as the score.
Tinsel Magazine details the size of this format, referencing an Ipsos study commissioned by TikTok. That research found that more than 60,000 American creators currently earn above the median part-time monthly income solely through LIVE gifting, and that a majority of TikTok users have sent a gift at least once.
The format operates on a competitive calendar. Creators qualify for LIVE Fest through months of streaming, the platform honors its top performers at the event, and audiences vote in real time by sending gifts while the competition is underway.
The feature puts a spotlight on blu shift creative, the agency that the two founders built for streamers working in this space. Tinsel Magazine reports that Baldwin grew up in England editing comedy sketches with two VHS decks, and that Stevens grew up in Virginia making her family watch tapes she recorded on a borrowed camcorder. The two met inside a new medium, going live on Instagram in 2019 when live video was still experimental, and started blu shift in 2022 with the belief that the people on those screens are performers who need an institution.
According to the publication, the agency became an official TikTok LIVE partner within its first year and received the top agency trophy at TikTok LIVE Fest US in 2025. The article also mentions appearances on TikTok’s own channels, panel spots at platform summits, and a weekly podcast, The Guide to LIVE, that working streamers use as professional development.
Baldwin addressed a frequent misconception about live performance—that switching on the camera and improvising is what makes it genuine. “Live streaming is a craft, like acting or news reading or ballet,” he said. “There is this idea that being authentic means you turn the camera on and wing it. Nobody says an actor is inauthentic for training. If your goal is to give the people watching you a good time, getting better at it is the most authentic thing you can do.”
Stevens built the agency’s community strategy and teaches a method she calls setting a spark. “A lot of people come in thinking about what the audience gives them,” she said. “We flip it. What are you going to ignite in the person watching you tonight? Somebody comes home from a job they hate, and they can put on the TV or they can come into your room. What are you doing for them? Set that intention first and everything else follows.”
The piece outlines the format’s economics, where a gift moves from viewer to creator with only the platform as an intermediary. “Spend $50 on a concert ticket and the artist might ultimately profit only around $5 of it after the fees, venues, advertising and cost of actually putting on the show and touring,” Baldwin said. “In live, someone who loves what you do supports you directly, in the moment you are doing it. That changes who gets to make a living as a performer.”
The article directly confronts the issue of viewer spending. According to Tinsel Magazine, stories circulate about viewers who spend beyond their means on people they have never met. “Any format where money moves carries that risk, and we talk about it directly,” Baldwin said. “We train streamers to build rooms people can afford to stay in. A viewer who sends a rose because you made their night is a fan, the same as someone buying a ticket. The trade has to stay fair, entertainment worth supporting, night after night. A professional pays attention to their room, and cares about it.”
The article describes the role as shift work. Streamers who endure keep schedules, plan their content, know their audience, and treat the stream as a stage with the lights up. “If you want to be taken seriously, you need to be serious about it,” Stevens said.
Baldwin, who spent 15 years in the music industry before launching this venture, told Tinsel that the format will matter far beyond a single app. “More and more of what we watch is going to be made by machines,” he said. “What is left is humans providing real experiences to each other. A great streamer is like a great bartender. You know the difference the second you sit down. We think that service is the future of entertainment, and we are training people for it.”
The piece concludes back at the battle: two professionals, mid-shift, each managing a room full of strangers.
The complete feature can be accessed now at https://tinselmag.com/roses-are-money-a-field-guide-to-tiktoks-battle-season/
—
Sources Referenced in the Tinsel Magazine Feature
Ipsos for TikTok, Creator Economy Redefined: How Interactive Livestream Gifting Is Transforming Entertainment: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/creator-economy-redefined-how-interactive-livestream-gifting-transforming-entertainment
—
About blu shift creative
blu shift creative is a creative agency and training house for live streamers, founded in 2022 by Ben Baldwin and Tara Stevens and operating across the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia. An official TikTok LIVE partner since its first year, the agency develops professional streamers through hands-on creative direction, training, and community, built on the philosophy that live streaming is a craft and the viewer is the client. blu shift received the top agency award at TikTok LIVE Fest US in 2025 and both Outstanding Content Awards at TikTok LIVE's 2024 U.S. Partner Summit. The agency publishes a weekly podcast, The Guide to LIVE.
Learn more: https://www.blushiftcreative.com/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@blushiftlive
—
About Tinsel Magazine
Tinsel Magazine is a digital culture publication covering entertainment, style, internet culture, and the people shaping contemporary life. Based in Los Angeles, Tinsel publishes original editorial with a focus on the creative figures, cultural movements, and industry shifts that define modern media. The magazine's Tinsel Exclusive series profiles creators, artists, and cultural figures whose work is redefining their respective fields. For more information, visit https://tinselmag.com/
Daniel Castellane
de Castellane Creative
email us here
Visit us on social media:
LinkedIn
Instagram
TikTok
