Creators are now the new mainstream media

A couple of days ago, during one of my billboard surfing sessions, I saw something in Nairobi that genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

A large billboard.
An well-known consumer brand — Ajab maize and wheat flour.
And front and centre on that billboard… Dennis Ombachi.

Not “former Kenya 7s rugby star Dennis Ombachi”.

But Dennis Ombachi as most people today know him.

The Roaming Chef.

And in that moment, something clicked very clearly for me.

We have crossed a line.

Not slowly.
Not conceptually.
But visibly, commercially, and culturally.

Content creators are no longer competing with mainstream media.

They are becoming mainstream media.

From elite athlete to media platform

Dennis Ombachi’s journey is already well documented.

A former international rugby sevens player who represented Kenya at the highest level — including the Rio 2016 Olympics — and later reinvented himself as a self-taught chef and content creator.

But what is far more important today is not his personal reinvention story.

It is what his audience now represents.

• Over 1.5 million followers on Instagram
• Over 2.5 million followers on TikTok
• Global recognition for his high-energy, outdoor, open-fire cooking videos
• His unmistakable signature: plate down… camera close… “Done!”

He was named TikTok’s Top Creator in Africa in 2022.

This is no longer “influencer marketing”.

This is distribution at scale.
This is programming.
This is audience ownership.

Dennis is not simply a content creator.

Dennis is a media channel.

And the fact that Ajab — a mass-market, household brand — chose to place him on a billboard traditionally reserved for TV celebrities, athletes and corporate brand ambassadors tells us exactly how seriously this shift is now being taken.

In many ways, his identity today as The Roaming Chef has eclipsed his previous celebrity status as one of Kenya’s most recognizable rugby players.

That is an extraordinary signal.

The creator is no longer the add-on to the campaign

For decades, the structure of advertising and media was very predictable:

• TV carried the campaign
• Radio amplified it
• Outdoor reinforced it
• Digital supported it

Creators or influencers were brought in at the edges.

Today, that logic is quietly reversing.

Creators are increasingly becoming:

• the lead distribution channel
• the primary storytelling vehicle
• and in many cases, the creative platform itself

Ajab is not borrowing Dennis’s popularity.

They are borrowing his audience relationship.

That distinction matters.

The Roaming Chef is not competing with TV — he is replacing it in specific contexts

What makes this even more powerful is how Dennis operates.

He creates, shoots and edits his own content.

He controls the pacing.
The format.
The tone.
The story.

And most importantly:

He understands the algorithmic rhythms of modern attention better than most traditional broadcasters ever could.

This is not accidental media.

It is highly optimised, deeply personal, platform-native storytelling.

Globally, the same pattern is accelerating — at breathtaking speed

Look at what is happening outside Kenya.

MrBeast’s Beast Games recently became:

• Amazon Prime Video’s most-watched unscripted series ever
• 50 million viewers in just 25 days
• Number one in over 80 countries
• Roughly half of the audience outside the United States
• Already renewed for two additional seasons

Let that sink in.

The biggest unscripted show on one of the world’s largest streaming platforms is built on a creator brand.

Not a studio franchise.
Not a legacy production house.
Not a TV network.

A YouTuber.

And then there is Khaby Lame

Last week, another line was crossed.

Khaby Lame — the most followed creator on TikTok — sold the commercial rights to his core social media business in a deal valued at nearly US$1 billion.

Not a movie studio.

Not a production company.

Not a streaming service.

A creator-led company.

This is no longer creator economy hype.

This is institutional capital recognising creator-owned distribution as an asset class.

IShowSpeed in Africa made the shift impossible to ignore

Closer to home, the arrival of IShowSpeed across Africa in January 2026 made the same point — but in a far more culturally revealing way.

When he toured multiple African countries and streamed his experiences live, something very interesting happened in my own home.

Every evening.

After school.

During dinner.

My family would tune in to his YouTube channel.

Live.

Just like we used to tune in to TV.

For days, his channel became our family’s evening programming.

And that is when it really hit me.

We were not watching YouTube.

We were watching a channel.

A creator-owned, real-time, globally distributed broadcast channel.

When he crossed 50 million subscribers while streaming from Nigeria, it was not just a milestone.

It was confirmation.

Creator-led media is no longer niche youth culture.

It is shared household media.

The Roaming Chef is Kenya’s version of this global shift

Dennis Ombachi on an Ajab billboard may look like a simple brand partnership.

It is not.

It is a local manifestation of a global structural change in how media is created, distributed and monetized.

The Roaming Chef today functions very similarly to:

• MrBeast as an entertainment network
• Khaby Lame as a global commercial IP
• IShowSpeed as a live broadcast platform

The difference is not scale.

The difference is market.

The operating model is the same.

Audience first.
Platform native.
Direct relationship.
Creator-controlled storytelling.

Creators now sit at the centre of the media value chain

What has fundamentally changed is control.

Traditional media works like this:

production → platform → audience → advertiser

Creator-led media increasingly works like this:

creator → audience → platform → brand

The platform is becoming infrastructure.

The creator is becoming the publisher.

And the audience relationship is the true asset.

Why this matters deeply for brands in Kenya and across Africa

For Kenyan brands in particular, this should trigger some uncomfortable but necessary questions.

Because the next generation of consumers is not forming its relationship with brands through TV schedules, print placements or radio drive time.

They are forming it through:

• daily short-form content
• live streams
• parasocial creator relationships
• algorithmic discovery

If your brand is not present in the creator ecosystems your audience lives in, you are increasingly invisible — regardless of how large your media budget may be.

Dennis Ombachi’s billboard is a signal — not a tactic

That Ajab billboard is not just good creative.

It is strategic foresight.

It recognises that:

The Roaming Chef is not just a personality.

He is a mainstream media platform in his own right.

One built on trust.
On consistency.
On storytelling rhythm.
On community.

And most importantly:

On a direct relationship with millions of people — locally and globally.

We have officially entered the era of creator-led media

What we are witnessing is not the decline of traditional media.

It is the decentralization of it.

Media is no longer owned primarily by institutions.

It is increasingly owned by individuals who know how to build attention, trust and culture at scale.

Dennis Ombachi on a Nairobi billboard simply made the shift impossible to ignore.

The Roaming Chef is no longer just cooking.

He is programming.

Done! (See what I did there)