Last week, 120 YouTubers gathered together for the platform’s fifth annual North American Creator Summit. The event is composed of a lineup of panels, events, and social gatherings meant to foster collabs, instill industry and business knowhow, and provide crucial feedback to YouTube executives from the biggest independent creators on the platform.
Among them were some of YouTube’s top movers and makers, like Casey Neistat (11.2 million subscribers), Lilly Singh (14.7 million), Lindsey Stirling (11.5 million), Marques Brownlee (8.5 million), the Eh Bee Family (8.4 million), and Andrew Siwicki, who’s not a YouTuber himself, but is Shane Dawson’s (21.5 million) longtime editor and now co-producer who has worked on all Dawson’s docuseries.
Speakers at the summit included YouTube execs like CEO Susan Wojcicki, chief product officer Neal Mohan, and chief business officer Robert Kyncl, along with digital marketing entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, the founder of VaynerMedia. (Vaynerchuk is also a YouTuber, and his channel boasts 2 million subscribers.) Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner was present as well — her second time joining in on a Creator Summit — and notably shared life advice with Singh.
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YouTube’s summits are invite-only and generally kept a bit hush-hush, but creators in attendance are able to tweet about their experiences — and tweet they did.
.@YouTube invited me to talk on a panel for #CreatorSummit. At the risk of sounding sappy: I’ve been watching YouTube for 12 years and have been inspired by so many creators. The idea of being asked to share my insight on making vids is pretty crazy. Thanks for having me! :’) pic.twitter.com/WRwxk27yP4
— Andrew Siwicki (@AndrewSiwicki) May 3, 2019
Thank you @YouTube for hosting such an inspiring group of Creators for the #CreatorSummit. We are grateful for your continued support, and are excited about the future! Tag your favorite YouTuber! pic.twitter.com/kEPbGONOvt
— Eh Bee Family (@EhBeeFamily) May 2, 2019
4 days, 120 amazingly talented creators, countless memories & learning experiences. YouTube #CreatorSummit 2019 was another one I’ll never forget. Thank you so much to @YouTube @YTCreators for inviting me & for all my newfound motivation & friendships. 💜 (can you spot me?) pic.twitter.com/wJX8P1yns2
— LaurenZside 💜 (@LaurenzSide) May 4, 2019
Verified
And the band is back together! #creatorsummit is off to a great start pic.twitter.com/Eh56yEpdNG— Lindsey Stirling (@LindseyStirling) May 2, 2019
REUNION with my @youtube girl gang at this year’s #CreatorSummit! 😍 I feel so lucky to have REAL friends in a world of fakeness! The truest version of you will lead you to the people who will love & support you most! 💖@IISuperwomanII @RosannaPansino @LindseyStirling @ijustine pic.twitter.com/cGk3k0XFUs
— ❤ Cassey Ho ❤ (@blogilates) May 1, 2019
Some also shared a glimpse into the swag bags YouTube gave creators.
Erika Costell will be attending YouTube’s Creator Summit 2019 I’m so excited to see what this amazing summit will have in store for our girl ily❤️ @erikacostell @YouTube #CreatorSummit pic.twitter.com/wSyUGwwqJc
— Demetra👑 #TNF (@costellslife2) April 30, 2019
However, creators weren’t alone on Twitter — Wojcicki and YouTube’s official accounts got in on the tweeting, too.
When you get 120 creators in one place, magic happens. #CreatorSummit pic.twitter.com/fdWy8lOu1M
— YouTube (@YouTube) May 3, 2019
In a chat with @CaseyNeistat, advice from @garyvee: Make videos that YOU care about, not videos that you think will be popular. #CreatorSummit pic.twitter.com/BKBZNmFjwg
— YouTube Creators (@YTCreators) May 1, 2019
Loved spending time yesterday with @YouTube creators at the North America #CreatorSummit. Thanks for the great conversation @MKBHD! pic.twitter.com/LSLculmrOM
— Susan Wojcicki (@SusanWojcicki) May 2, 2019
One of the summit’s key events was a joint talk from Wojcicki, Mohan, and Kyncl. After the presentation, YouTube asked a handful of creators to share their key takeaways from the execs’ insights.
“Just seeing them in person and hearing them speak — to me, it felt like they really do deeply care about the creators, fans, and advertisers,” Lily Hevesh (2.4 million) said. “And they’re trying their best to please all of them. While there are lots of issues with the site, they’re working as hard as they can to try and solve them.”
You can read the rest of YouTube’s interviews about the talk here.
