A little over a year ago, YouTube dropped its first original podcast, The Upload: The Rise of the Creator Economy.
Now, it’s debuting another creator-focused show—and this time, it’s got video components. Also, it’s hosted by MatPat.
Like & Describe is YouTube’s self-dubbed “official trends podcast,” and will “[bring] listeners the little-known stories behind the biggest YouTube trends,” the platform says.
The show’s first episode—uploaded today to YouTube’s own YouTube channel, plus on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other podcast-listening platforms—is a 20-minute dive into the rise of VTubers.
If you somehow haven’t seen VTubers basically everywhere yet, just know they’re becoming an integral part of the creator sphere—so integral that this year’s Streamy Awards added a VTuber category with noms for streamers CodeMiko, Ironmouse, Nyanners, Veibae, and Zentreya.
YouTube says VTubers now “collectively attract 1.5 billion views every month,” though it’s not clear if it means just on YouTube or if it’s counting data from other platforms. (We suspect it’s just YouTube.)
In the episode, MatPat is joined by VTubers Gawr Gura and Mori Calliope, some VTuber viewers, and industry experts like Earnest Pettie, YouTube’s culture and trends insights lead, and Makoto Maeoka, a “trend tracker” at YouTube, for a mishmash of perspectives on VTubers’ growing popularity.
Now, the reason we say Like & Describe has “video components” and not that it’s a video podcast is because it doesn’t have Joe Rogan-style footage. Instead, YouTube’s outfitting each episode with custom graphics introducing guest speakers and turning some topics (like the relationship between a creator and their VTuber model) into charts and displays.
We already knew YouTube is hype for video podcasts, so Like & Describe getting visual makes sense.
A new episode of Like & Describe will premiere on the first day of each month. YouTube says January’s episode will bring in its culture and trends team to track the top creators and videos of 2022.
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