Comedy Central has some new programming ready for exclusive release on Snapchat’s Discover content platform. The cable channel and entertainment brand launched its new original Snapchat series Swag-A-Saurus, hosted by comedian James Davis, on September 8, 2015.

According to Comedy Central’s release, Swag-A-Saurus will be “enlightening fans to what they’ve been pretending to know all along” about popular modern-day slang and phrases. In each week’s episodes, Davis will attempt to explain slang terms like “Bye Felicia” and “Looking Friday.” Snapchat viewers will even be able to make suggestions for slang terms for Davis to cover in future episodes of Swag-A-Saurus, which will be released every Monday.

In addition to Davis’ Swag-A-Saurus, Comedy Central has plans to launch four more Snapchat-only digital series. Quickie with Nikki will star comedienne Nikki Glaser talking candidly about sex-related topics. Yassir Lester will host a comedy news segment where he tears down everyone’s opinions but his own, and Michelle Wolf will star as a highly improper recruiter in the sketch comedy series Now Hiring. Finally, Comedy Central will also release Like It with Liza: Trust Me I’m Right where host and funny lady Liza Treyger tells viewers exactly what to consume, including the best YouTube videos to watch after you’ve partaken in one particular illegal substance and are riding high.

Comedy Central was an original launch partner for Snapchat’s Discover platform back in January 2015. And so far, the partnership seems to be going well for the entertainment brand. “Snapchat Discover has been an incredible partner for the Comedy Central brand, and our fans love the platform,” said Comedy Central President Michele Ganeless. “Creating original series specifically for Snapchat is the perfect next step in the evolution of our content.”

No release dates have been announced for Comedy Central’s upcoming four Snapchat series as of yet. And no word on whether or not the series will be shot to watch as a vertical video or in landscape mode. 

Filed under: Articles, Comedy Central, News, Snapchat by Bree Brouwer
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Forward-thinking brands continue to partner with digital media stars, and the stars continue to reward those brands by driving massive sales figures. The latest example of this trend comes from Down Under, where sunglasses company Quay Australia rapidly sold out one design from a new line branded by American YouTube star Amanda Steele.

The partnership between Quay and Steele produced two new sunglasses designs: Envy, which features prominent, bold frames, and Muse, which looks similar to a classic pair of Aviators. Both Envy and Muse are available in two colors, and out of those four choices, it was the Gold Muse sunglasses that sold out within two days of the line’s launch. Steele expressed her amazement on Twitter, where she also made sure to plug the other designs still available:

I CANT BELIEVE THIS! THE MUSE SUNGLASSES IN MY @quayaustralia LINE ARE ALREADY SOLD OUT???

— Amanda Steele (@MakeupbyMandy24) September 6, 2015

YOU BETTER GET ENVY BEFORE THOSE ARE GONE TOO!

— Amanda Steele (@MakeupbyMandy24) September 6, 2015

Steele, who releases beauty, fashion, and “haul” videos on a channel called MakeupByMandy24, is one of the youngest content creators to achieve YouTube stardom. She began making videos at age 10, and six years later, she has pulled together a strong following of more than 2.5 million subscribers. Her influence has opened up plenty of other branded opportunities for her as well; she is one of the YouTube beauty stars who has released her own makeup palette alongside BH Cosmetics.

“I am so excited to be launching an exclusive line of sunglasses with Quay Australia!” said Steele in a press release. “To me, eyewear is another great way to express oneself through fashion and to build confidence. I can’t wait for everyone to try a pair (or two!) and see a whole new side of themselves they have never seen before!”

Steele’s sunglasses line can be purchased on Quay’s website. It’s also available from Urban Outfitters, both online and in stores.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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YouTube is once again launching print, TV, digital, and billboard ads that promote its most popular homegrown content creators, and this time, it is focusing on a pair of its most marketable stars. Vloggers Lilly “Superwoman” Singh and Tyler Oakley will be the next two poster children for YouTube’s 17-month-old marketing campaign.

The first round YouTube’s creator-focused ads launched in April 2014, when Michelle Phan, Bethany Mota, and Rosanna Pansino appeared on billboards, in TV commercials, and across several other highly-visible locations. Since then, YouTube has expanded the campaign a number of times, with each expansion focusing on a new selection of content creators. The world’s biggest video site even brought the campaign overseas, where it featured British stars like Zoella and The Slow Mo Guys. In total, ten creators have been put in the spotlight.

This time, YouTube has opted to promote two of its most likeable personalities. Singh is an Indian-Canadian creator whose vlogs and sketches have attracted millions of fans. An upcoming tour documentary, A Trip To Unicorn Island, will detail the fervor and passion of Singh’s devotees, and by promoting her on billboards, taxis, subways, and many other visual media, YouTube hopes to spread her star even further.

Oakley, on the other hand, is a charismatic twentysomething known for his vlogs, his discussion of LGBT topics, and his charity work. Along the way, he’s made some powerful friends, including First Lady Michelle Obama and (it would seem) Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He’s also slated to co-host the upcoming Streamy Awards alongside Grace Helbig, who was herself featured in a previous YouTube ad campaign.

“Our creators are the foundation of YouTube and the passionate communities of fans they have each created spans the world,” said Anna Bateson, Director of Global Consumer Marketing at YouTube. “We have a very diverse group of people and voices, but one thing YouTube creators have in common is their authenticity and their ability to connect with their fans in an honest and personal way. Two of the most beloved personalities on YouTube today are Lilly Singh and Tyler Oakley, and we are so excited to spotlight their channels over the next few months.”

According to YouTube, stars featured in the ad campaigns have seen big jumps in recorded awareness as a result of these promotions. For some, YouTube says, the jump is as big as a 300% increase. Keep an eye out for the Oakley and Singh spots–and the resulting “bump” we expect to see.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Superwoman, Tyler Oakley, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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YouTube continues to expand around the world, and as part of its globetrotting plans, it has announced a ninth production facility catered to its community of homegrown content creators. The new YouTube Space will open in Paris, at Google’s French headquarters.

As with the other YouTube Spaces, the Parisian facility will give select creators the opportunity to film and edit videos within well-appointed studios. YouTube Space Paris will also serve as a meeting place for the local YouTube community; thanks to its central location in the ninth arrondissement, it is a convenient hub for creators.

The Hollywood Reporter notes a few specific French YouTube stars who could make use of the new facility. Trick shot artist Remi Gaillard is one of the country’s most popular creators, as is comedian and gamer Cyprien.

While the new Space is YouTube’s first foray into Parisian productions, it is not the first digital video studio in the city. Dailymotion, a notable online video platform with a primarily European audience, is based in Paris, and has operated a production facility in the sixth arrondissement since 2013.

Since opening its first creator-focused facility in London in 2012, YouTube has quickly expanded its Space concept by breaking ground on studios all over the world. The other cities with currently-operating or upcoming YouTube Spaces are Los Angeles, New York, Tokyo, São Paulo, Berlin, Mumbai, and Toronto.

While The Hollywood Reporter didn’t say exactly when the Paris Space would host its first projects, the trade publication said the new facility will open “in the coming weeks.”

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, YouTube Spaces by Sam Gutelle
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Back in February 2015, Rooster Teeth’s Achievement Hunter (aka AH) put on a live, in-person Let’s Play event. Now, the Austin-based and Fullscreen-owned production house will take fans on a behind-the-scenes look at how the event got off the ground. Rooster Teeth will release its Let’s Play Live: The Documentary on September 14, 2015.

Rooster Teeth’s new documentary reveals how AH came up with the idea for, organized, and performed its first-ever Let’s Play Live event in Austin. The trailer for Let’s Play Live: The Documentary hints at tension between the AH members as they prepare for the event, but also promises a whole lot of fun, strobe lights, and shenanigans. The gaming-centric Rooster Teeth documentary will be exclusive to sponsors (aka superfans who have signed up to support Rooster Teeth in exchange for limited and early access to things like this) on the company’s website.

Let’s Play Live: The Documentary will also take a look at how gaming and its communities are changing the way people view live concerts and performances on big stages, which the press release explains were “once reserved for only the biggest of rock stars,” but now can be easily packed by niche subcultures and their superstars. Rooster Teeth’s documentary will also attempt to explain how online gaming and internet culture are obsessed with Let’s Plays, a phenomenon Jimmy Kimmel recently poked fun of on his broadcast television show (and then consequently received backlash for from the gaming community).

If you’re a Rooster Teeth sponsor, you can watch Let’s Play Live: The Documentary on the company’s site starting September 14. You can sign up for a free 30-day sponsorship here.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, News, Rooster Teeth by Bree Brouwer
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Nicole Arbour has had a tumultuous weekend. On September 6, 2015, the YouTube vlogger and self-proclaimed  “Comedian, Recording Artist, Motivator, and emoji lover” had her channel temporarily shut down and all her videos removed after posting a controversial clip about obesity in America.

Arbour posted her “Dear Fat People” video to her channel on September 5. In a typical jump-cut-filled, direct-to-camera rant replete with attempted comedic asides, she questions whether or not obesity is actually a disease and ponders if fat-shaming is just something overweight people came up with to avoid addressing their bad habits . “That’s the ‘race card’ with no race,” Arbour explains in her video. “Are you going to tell the doctor they’re being ‘mean’ and ‘fat-shaming’ you when you have f***ing heart disease?”. Take a look: 

Arbour asserts towards the tail-end of the video that she’s expressing these polarizing points of view because she believes they’re what overweight individuals need to hear. “The truth is I will actually love you no matter what,” Arbour says. “But I really, really hope this bomb of truth exploding into your face will act as shrapnel that seeps into your soul, makes you want to be healthier so that we can enjoy you as human beings longer on this planet.” Not everyone who viewed the video agreed.  

Other video creators and prominent online video personalities created their own video responses to Arbour’s six-minute long “Dear Fat People” rant. Fellow YouTuber Meghan Tonjes shed some tears in her response, and My Big Fat Fabulous Life star Whitney Way Thore cautioned Arbour and viewers about assuming they understand what obese people are dealing with internally. Grace Helbig even responded to Arbour’s clip, giving her credit for her comedic timing, but saying, “The more you just kind of say whatever you want with disregard to people’s feelings, the less I as a viewer consider you a comedian.”

Arbour responded to the outcry with another video entitled The Most Offensive Video EVER, in which she accuses those who digitally expressed their offense to her last video of “killing comedy.” Take a look: 

Arbour disabled the comments on her “Dear Fat People” video, but wasn’t without her own supporters. She received an influx of positive and negative responses to the clip on other social media outlets and shared tweets from several self-described obese viewers thanking her for her honesty and expressing their agreement with her video. However, the YouTuber also noted how other viewers called her offensive names and told her to kill herself:

“It’s really mean what u said you cunt, bitch, whore, die, kill yourself.” #irony — Nicole Arbour (@NicoleArbour) September 6, 2015

Arbour’s “Dear Fat People” hit half a million views before being flagged and taken down by YouTube on September 6. The Canadian YouTube creator and early Periscope adopter told CNN she received an email from Google’s online video site, claiming her channel was in violation of YouTube’s terms of service. Arbour took to Twitter to express her disagreement with being censored based on her comedy choices:

Wow, I’m the first comedian in the history of @YouTube to be #censored There are graphic videos about murder and torture, but satire is 🙊🙅🏼 — Nicole Arbour (@NicoleArbour) September 6, 2015

By the evening of September 6, YouTube had restored Arbour’s channel, but the vlogger tweeted that all her videos were gone. Google’s online video site restored Arbour’s content, though, and as of this writing the channel seems to be gaining back all its videos in a kind of piecemeal process. 

Arbour left the comment thread open on her Most Offensive Video EVER, and despite the 37,000+ dislikes and seemingly disproportionate amount of unhappy viewers (you can see a screenshot of a few comments below), the channel is picking up subscribers at a very fast rate. Arbour’s channel ended September 3 with roughly 79,000 subscribers. Since then, it’s grown to more than 106,000 subscribers. That means the controversy has netted Arbour not only her most-viewed video, but roughly 6,700 new subscribers per day over the last four days (which aren’t PewDiePie numbers, but is still a very fast subscriber acquisition rate).

We reached out to YouTube for comment on the initial takedown of Arbour’s channel. We’ll update if we hear anything back.

Filed under: Articles, News, Nicole Arbour, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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Felix Kjellberg’s PewDiePie YouTube channel just achieved a new online video milestone. Yes, the twentysomething Swedish gamer’s online video destination obtains world records and crosses over significant digital thresholds all the time. (Dude just hit two last week.) But none of them are like this, because none of them have yet involved 11 figures.

As of September 6, 2015. PewDiePie is now the first and only YouTube channel to hit 10 billion views. To write that in a way that’s slightly more dramatic, that’s 10,000,000,000 views. Or in way that’s more exponential, that’s 10^10 views. Regardless of the way you express it on paper, it’s a big number. So let’s try to break it down.

Kjellberg started his PewDiePie channel way back on April 29, 2010, but the oldest video publicly available on the channel dates back to October 2, 2010, so let’s use that as our starting date. That means in the 1,801 days between October 2, 2010 and September 6, 2015, PewDiePie’s YouTube channel has seen roughly 5.5 million views per day, 231,350 views per hour, 3,855 views per minute, and 64 views per second.

Now, let’s look at quantifying the 10 billion number by way of videos. During those 1,801 days, Kjellberg uploaded roughly 2,475 videos. That’s about 1.37 videos per day for every day over the past five years. If we don’t count weekends and public holidays, that’s almost exactly 2 videos per day over the past five years, which makes Kjellberg an incredibly prolific creator to say the least.

Each of those 2,475 videos, on average, has received more than 4.04 million views. The least-viewed video I could find in the PewDiePie catalog dates back to February 28, 2011, is called Bulletstorm Highlights, and currently has 35,695 views. The most-viewed is from June 4, 2013, is called Funny Montage #1, and currently has more than 68.8 million views (partly because the video is great and partly because the video used to be PewDiePie’s channel trailer).

PewDiePie became the most-viewed YouTube channel of All-Time on July 19, 2014, when it passed Rihanna’s VEVO channel to claim the title. It hasn’t looked back since. The closest contender to unseat the leader of the Bro Army (that’s what PewDiePie calls his fans and subscribers) is FunToyzCollector (which used be known as DisneyCollectorBR). That channel is home to videos with uncanny view counts featuring adults unboxing and playing and currently has more than 7.8 billion views.

All those views have reportedly earned PewDiePie’s creator a substantial income. Kjellberg supposedly grossed more than $4 million from PewDiepie in 2013 and more than $7.4 million in 2014 (and those figures may not even include cash earned from merchandise, video game sales, and/or for the occasional branded video made by the creator).

All those views are also partially a result of Kjellberg’s tight relationship with his ever-growing fan base (that’s now more than 39 million subscribers strong). And Kjellberg hasn’t utilized that influence solely for personal viewership goals and financial gains. The YouTube superstar has used his audience and massive megaphone of a social media presence to help raise over $1 million for charitable initiatives, including more than $446,000 for charity:water back in July 2013 and over $342,000 for Save the Children in May 2014. 

Filed under: Articles, News, PewDiePie, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given timeframe. We’re starting things off simply with a Tubefilter Top 50 of the Most Viewed YouTube Chaniframenels This Week, but look for a lot more fun charts to come in the near future. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down to see the Tubefilter Chart.

It’s another installment of the weekly Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed U.S. YouTube Channels and a channel all about wrestling remains in the top spot.

Chart Toppers

WWEFanNation is yet again at the top of the US chart this week. The YouTube home of World Wrestling Entertainment saw a slight 3% uptick in views, keeping it just barely above the 100-million-views-a-week threshold to top out at nearly 104.7 million views. In the #2 spot is Taylor Swift. The international country-turned-pop star’s channel’s view count was up an impressive 34% to take home almost 87.8 million views on the week.

Up next in third place is BuzzFeedVideo. The main channel of the popular social website known for its listicles, animated GIFs, and hard news racked up more than 75.5 million views during the week. DisneyCollectorBR is next up in the #4 spot. The internet’s go-to destination for videos of adults unboxing and playing with children’s toys was down 8% on the week to bottom out just below 69.6 million views.

And rounding out the Top 5 is Justin Bieber. The young pop star’s first official video upload in 18 months helped his YouTube channel to more than 66.3 million views in the week.

Top Gainers

The honor of one of our Top Gainers in the U.S. this week goes to Jimmy Kimmel Live.

The YouTube home of Jimmy Kimmel’s eponymous late night ABC talk show had a particularly great week thanks to an undercover Miley Cyrus. Prior to hosting the 2015 MTV VMA awards, Cyrus took Kimmel’s cameras to the streets of Hollywood and asked random passersby what they thought of her while she was kinda sorta poorly disguised as an Australian news anchor. Some ilarity and views ensued, bringing the channel a 105% week-over-week increase in views, more than 42.7 million views on the week, and the #11 spot on the U.S. chart.

Channel Distribution

The top 50 most viewed U.S. YouTube channels this week amassed a total of 1,776,446,650 views. Here’s the distribution of a few of those channels by multi-channel network:

• VEVO: 14 channels in the U.S. Top 50, with Taylor Swift the highest-ranked channel of the network at at #2.
• Maker Studios: 4 channels in the Top 50, with DisneyCarToys at #6.
• BuzzFeed, Collective Digital Studio, Fullscreen, MovieClips: 2 channels each in the Top 50, with BuzzFeed’s BuzzFeed Video at #5, Collective Digital Studio’s Good Mythical Morning at #35, Fullscreen’s FamilyFunPack at #8, and MovieClips’ MovieClipsTrailers at #15. 

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all of our news at Tubefilter by subscribing to our newsletter, following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook, and watching our videos on YouTube.

OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 250,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.

Filed under: Articles, News, Statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Joshua Cohen
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[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

It’s another installment of the weekly Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide and wrestling continues to be very popular online.

Chart Toppers

WWEFanNation is yet again in the #1 spot on the chart this week. The YouTube home of clips of World Wrestling Entertainment cracked the nine-figure weekly view count barrier again to top out at nearly 104.7 million views on the week. Still in a somewhat distant second place is Littlebabybum. The place where your child’s favorite nursery rhymes come to online video life racked up almost 92.2 million views during the seven-day stretch.

Taylor Swift is back up in the #3 spot after a brief week-long hiatus outside the Top 5. The country-turned-pop star who took home at lot of MTV Video Music Awards witnessed an uptick of 34% in her channel’s view count to end up just shy of 87.7 million views in the week. ItsBabyBigMouth got bumped one spot to end up in fourth place this week. The Canadian YouTube channel dedicated to the little toys and whatnots you find inside inside Kinder Surprise Eggs stayed almost constant with nearly 82.7 million views.

And rounding out the Top 5 is TheDiamondMinecart. The top-ranked gamer on the chart was down 6% on the week to score just shy of 77.4 million views.

Top Gainers

The honor of one of our Top Gainers this week goes to Justin Bieber.

The YouTube home of the 21-year-old Canadian pop star who was very moved by his owm MTV VMA performance had a great week on YouTube thanks to a new lyric video and official music video release. What Do you Mean? is Bieber’s first music video to hit YouTube in 18 months and quickly amassed an eight-figure view count immediately after upload. That helped the young musician’s channel to a 315% week-over-week increase in views, more than 66.3 million views on the week, and the #10 spot on the worldwide chart.

Distribution

All in all, the top 50 most viewed YouTube channels accounted for 2,453,890,445 views last week. Here’s the distribution of a few of those channels by multi-channel network:

• Vevo: 8 channels each in the Top 50, with Taylor Swift at #3.
• Maker Studios: 7 channels in the Top 50, with TheDiamondMinecart at #5.
• BroadbandTV, BuzzFeed, Fullscreen, XMediaDigital: 2 channels each in the Top 50, with BroadbandTV’s Major Lazer at #36, BuzzFeed’s BuzzFeed Video at #6, Fullscreen’s FamilyFunPack at #21, and XMediaDigital’s mashamedvedtv at #8.

And here’s the distribution of the this week’s Top 50 YouTube channels by country of origin:

• United States: 23 channels in the Top 50.
• Great Britain: 5 channels in the Top 50.
• Canada: 4 channels in the Top 50.
• India: 3 channels in the Top 50.
• Japan, Russia, Spain, Thailand: 2 channels each in the Top 50.
• El Salvador, Ireland, Jamaica, Netherlands, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Sweden: 1 channel each in the Top 50.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all of our news at Tubefilter by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook, and watching our videos on YouTube.

OpenSlate is a video content analytics platform that tracks more than 225,000 YouTube video channels and measures their ability to attract, engage and influence an audience. By providing one consistent measure of quality – the SlateScore™ – OpenSlate helps marketers, producers and agencies hone their online video marketing strategy.

Filed under: Articles, News, Statistics, statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Joshua Cohen
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We receive a ton of tips every day from independent creators, unaffiliated with any major motion picture studios, television networks, new media studios, or other well-funded online video entities. The Indie Spotlight is where we’ll write about and shout out to a select few of them and bring you up to speed on the great (and sometimes not-so-great) attention-grabbing series you probably haven’t heard about until now.  Read previous installments here. 

Stephanie Jackson isn’t your typical indie web series creator. The Los Angeles-based actress tends to book roles as a mom in shows like Chuck and Up All Night. So when Jackson and her husband Zach tried to become pregnant in real life, the actress decided to turn the difficult and crazy process into a web series called Does This Baby Make Me Look Fat?

Jackson chronicled her and Zach’s year-and-a-half-long fertility issues and “trying” stories in the first two candid but comical seasons of Does This Baby Make Me Look Fat? This content garnered Jackson two Silver Telly Awards and three IndieFest Awards. Now, in season three of the over-the-top autobiographical series, Jackson is pregnant, and over the next few months she’ll introduce viewers to all the joys and frustrations of pregnancy, like that initial panic when she realizes she’s going to have a baby but still hasn’t lost those five pesky extra pounds she wanted to shed before she got knocked up.

Does This Baby Make Me Look Fat? is entertaining to watch not just for its laughs and well-edited content, but also for its unique perspective on baby-making and pregnancy. It’s not your typical video series created by mothers. You know, the ones with the pleasant, but candid mom talking to the camera about pre, during, and post-pregnancy trials, tidbits, and tips. The series steps out of this traditional format and delivers a great mashup of vlogging, documentary, and scripted content all in one.

Essentially, Jackson’s series is exactly the kind of poignant entertainment an expectant mother will want to turn on when she’s tired of watching yet another crib or stroller review (or when she just wants to laugh at the actual insanity of the entire pregnancy process).

OTHER UNDER-THE-RADAR SERIES TO CHECK OUT

• Om City. A New York City yoga teacher can teach others how to achieve inner peace, but has problems finding it in her own life.
• Rare Birds of Fashion. A plus-sized fashionista launches her own clothing line when she gets fed up with her lack of options.
• Bros For Hire. A bickering brother and stepbrother launch a freelance business where they’ll do literally anything for money.

Got a series you’d like to see featured in the Indie Spotlight? Be sure to contact us here. For best coverage, please include a full episode in your e-mail.

Filed under: Articles, Indie Spotlight, News by Bree Brouwer
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Out of all the podcasts led by YouTube stars, we’re particularly partial to Ear Biscuits, hosted by the inseparable duo of Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. Each week, we will bring you a recap of the latest Ear Biscuits episode, as well as an invitation to listen in and join the conversation.

Louis Cole has obtained a significant online video following (now more than 1.5 million YouTube subscribers strong) by vlogging his adventurous worldwide travels and posting them to his FunForLouis YouTube channel. The British vlogger has shared both joys and trials with his viewers, from camel surfing in India (yes, that’s kind of a thing) to having his laptop and passport stolen (the former being of much more importance to a YouTuber). With everything Cole’s experienced in life, it’s little surprise the YouTube star had plenty to talk about with Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. On a recent episode of the duo’s Ear Biscuits podcast, Cole dished on how he became a YouTube travel vlogger and how he hopes to inspire others to overcome their own fears.

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Cole’s early life was every bit as unique as his current-day travels. On the Ear Biscuits podcast, the 32-year-old creator told Rhett and Link some amazing stories from his past, including his two-year stint at living in a minivan, breaking up gang fights, and picking up homeless teens in a double-decker bus with an impressive sound system in an attempt to at least temporarily lift some of their spirits. Cole even had a YouTube channel before FunForLouis. Some of his early content consisted of him eating animals, like tarantulas and goldfish (the latter of which got him into legal trouble with the UK’s animal rights organization RSPCA).

After the goldfish-eating scandal, Cole told Rhett and Link he didn’t want to be remembered as a “psychopath”, a label the UK media was using to describe him. So, the video creator set out to make an entirely new channel where he vlogged his daily life and travels. Now, Cole says he aims to “inspire people when they watch my videos to help them face their fears.”

The British vlogger believes fear holds you back, and knows first-hand that he’s taught some of his viewers how to overcome their obstacles. “A girl yesterday said [to me] she never left her state but now she’s going from California to New York, and it was all from facing her fears,” Cole explained. “You can watch my life and see what I’m up to, but my hope is it’s a lot deeper than that. My heart behind it is embrace life and be passionate about what you do.”

Cole has fears of his own. The vlogger revealed a moment of complete honesty when he told Rhett and Link he has a fear of missing out on opportunities with brands, but doesn’t want to make deals simply based on money. “I could get absorbed in the world of making as much money as possible,” the world traveler said. “I’m monetizing my videos and I have dreams that require money. I want to build a forest and live like an Ewok. But we looked at the land and it was half a million dollars. But the thing is, I can work with brands if they work organically with my channel and my viewers are cool with that.”

Ultimately, Cole said one of his biggest fears is becoming unauthentic. “I don’t want to sell out. But I also don’t want to be on my high horse and not make money,” the vlogger explained. “Money shouldn’t be a motivation but it’s a brilliant tool that can free you to do awesome things.”

You can download the full episode of the Ear Biscuits episode with Cole on iTunes or SoundCloud.

Filed under: Articles, Ear Biscuits, FunForLouis, News by Bree Brouwer
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Machinima will soon have the opportunity to to gain a larger, more platform-diverse viewership, and will produce lots more original content, too. The self-described “many-2-many” (M2M) YouTube network centered on pop culture and fandom, has partnered with Verizon to bring a slate of original programming to the telecommunication giant’s upcoming over-the-top video service Go90. And to help boost content creation, Machinima is planning to launch its own digital production house dubbed Machinima Studios.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Machinima will provide Verizon’s Go90 service with 110 hours of original content, and another 40 hours of curated programming. Machinima joins previous Verizon content partners already on board with the telco giant’s OTT offering, including companies like AwesomenessTV, Vice, and HBO. The WSJ also reports Machinima will launch Machinima Studios in the near future to help the network further its content production efforts. The M2M network had previously announced its intentions to ramp up original content production at its Newfronts presentation in May 2015. 

Chad Gutstein, Machinima’s CEO, told WSJ Machinima has created its own programming through various departments in the past, but the content often failed to produce revenue. “We did really big things, but the economic model wasn’t there,” Gutstein explained. “The company lost a lot of money. Now we can make individual programming and make it profitable.”

Machinima recently released a solid lineup of original content over the last few months. The first episode of the DC Comics-based Justice League: Gods and Monsters Chronicles debuted in early June 2015. In the same month, Machinima released a new series called Real Fake History, a mockumentary series which treats pop culture anecdotes as historical facts. Finally, the YouTube network is working with toy manufacturer Hasbro to release a Transformers-themed web series.

Machinima also just settled a legal issue with the Federal Trade Commission, based on the fact that the network failed to disclose it had paid some of its video creators to promote Microsoft’s Xbox One console. Machinima told WSJ those FTC charges came before some recent management changes, and in the future the network is “deeply committed to ensuring transparency with all of its social influencer campaigns.”

Filed under: Articles, Machinima.com, News by Bree Brouwer
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