YouTube’s NextUp Collaborators Hang Out At YouTube Space LA

Back in December, YouTube’s NextUp announced one of its most expansive projects yet, a search for 30 partners who could show enough zest for collaborative videos to warrant a Google-sized investment. After a few months of searching, the two-and-a-half dozen winners have been announced, with a wide variety of channels represented.

The 30 creators introduce themselves in a video released by YouTube’s creator channel. The most notable of the involved channels is Cracked, the YouTube hub of the popular humor website. One wonders how it qualified as an ‘up-and-comer’. Still, all of the winners seem positively ecstatic about getting the chance to work with their fellow creators.

I must admit a misconception from my initial piece on the competition; I figured that creators who submitted in the requisite pair would also be accepted as a pair, but this does not seem to be the case, as the initial video submissions only served as indicators of each contestant’s ability to work in a team. How YouTube decided which half of the team would be awarded the top prize is beyond me.

With the winners chosen, YouTube Space LA is now the locus for one of the site’s most exciting collaborative experiments. The 30 creators have already released a video chronicling the first few days of the “class” they are taking together. To me, it seems like a YouTube summer camp. The goal is to make lifelong friends and complete memorable artistic projects together. The NextUp competition is another example of YouTube’s empowering abilities, but more importantly, it is the first of the YouTube competitions to really take the new LA space and make it its own.