Instagram is rolling out a new global awards program to celebrate creators who push culture forward and break barriers. Twenty-five creators will be honored next week, each receiving a striking gold ring and a digital golden ring that appears around their profile.
A star-studded panel will select the winners, featuring Instagram head Adam Mosseri, director Spike Lee, designer Marc Jacobs, YouTuber Marques Brownlee, actress Yara Shahidi, and legendary makeup artist Pat McGrath, among others. The program aims to spotlight originality and impact across the platform.
Winners won’t receive a cash prize. Instead, they’ll get a custom physical ring designed by acclaimed fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner, plus a unique digital badge for their profile. They’ll also unlock the ability to create a custom Like button animation that appears when people tap Like on their feed posts.
This symbolic recognition arrives as the creator economy navigates tighter budgets and shifting incentives. Over the past few years, Meta has wound down several payout initiatives: it ended bonuses for Reels on both Instagram and Facebook in 2023, shut down affiliate marketing bonuses in 2022, and more recently closed a program that paid creators for ads shown in their profiles. At the same time, a survey from Kajabi reported a 52% drop in brand deals for creators in 2024, while Bank of America has noted a slowdown in sponsored partnerships and increasing concentration of paid deals among top-tier creators.
Against that backdrop, Instagram’s new program positions itself as an “Oscars for creators”—without an actual ceremony and without monetary rewards—focusing instead on prestige and visibility. As the company put it, the award is all about celebrating those who take creative risks, bring people together through their art, and deserve recognition for doing things their own way.
