Have you heard? Hasan Piker has words for Charlie Kirk, Glitch Productions has a new show, and Gary Vee gets Stan

Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry.

This week, Hasan Piker gets an op-ed, Owl House maker Dana Terrace is behind Glitch Productions’ new show, and Gary Vee is launching a mentorship program.

Creator commotion

Hasan Piker didn’t get a chance to debate Charlie Kirk. But he knows what he would’ve said, if he’d been able to.

The folks behind The Amazing Digital Circus and The Owl House have a new show out. Knights of Guinevere is Glitch Productions’ first foray into 2D animation–a psychological thriller from creator Dana Terrace that’s set in a theme park where everything is not as seems. The debut episode just dropped on YouTube, and fans can expect more installments (all free) to roll out from Glitch’s channel in the coming months.

Ashley Alexander is making millions with the matcha craze. The YouTuber who goes by urmomashley got herself 1.8 million subscribers by vlogging her life–and when she noticed viewers were really into her matcha videos, she used that to launch her own brand, Nami Matcha. Since its July 2024 debut, she’s sold $2.5 million worth of products, and is currently expanding her team with new hires. Now that’s tea.

Family vlogger Missy Lanning is making bookshelves sweet. Her first book, Once Upon a Chocolate Chip Cookie, is the first release from Lanning and husband Bryan’s self-publishing company Bake-Along Books, and combines storytelling with a recipe for parents and kids to make together. Lanning raised ~$30,000 on Kickstarter to make Once Upon a Chocolate Chip Cookie happen, and will start shipping preorders in November.

Rebecca Zamolo and Matt Slays are asking big cash for their big house. The creator couple listed their 7,100+ square foot house in Los Angeles for $7.5 million. The reason they’re moving? The arrival of their second baby, a son named Zander.

Platform headlines

Newsletter builder Beehiiv is now integrated with YouTube. Cofounder/CEO Tyler Denk hyped the move as a way for creators to loop their audience traffic from newsletter to video and back and bee-yond (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves).

Zigazoo is partnering with pocket.watch. The family-and-kids social network now has official channels for creators like Toys and Colors and Love, Diana. “For the first time, kids will not only watch their favorite pocket.watch stars, but also interact, create, and have two-way conversations with them through Zigazoo’s challenge-based, video-first format,” Zigazoo and pocket.watch said.

The biz

Gary Vaynerchuk goes Stan. Vee has invested in creator storefront company Stan Store, and as part of the deal, is starting “The GaryVee Stan Challenge”–an eight-week mentorship program. 15 creators who take part will be chosen to visit the VaynerMedia offices for half a day and “get the opportunity to meet with Vaynerchuk.”

Epidemic Sound goes AI. The royalty-free, creator-aimed music platform has introduced Adapt, which will let creators use generative “AI” to edit artist’s tracks to their likings. We’re not sure artists will be keen on having their work fed into the machine learning meat grinder, and are also not surprised Epidemic, like basically every other platform and company right now, is pushing AI into its product. That being said, Epidemic Sound CEO Oscar Höglund says Adapt is “a tool to amplify artistry, not replace it.” He also notes the company is expanding its “compensation model with a new bonus pool where artists are paid each time their track is adapted.”

The internet is a strange place

LimeWire is still around, and it just bought Fyre Fest. Not a string of words we thought we’d ever see, but here we are. LimeWire (yes, that LimeWire) paid $250K for the Fyre Festival brand, which creator Billy McFarland sold after (a) getting out of jail and (b) failing to get Fyre Fest 2.0 off the ground.