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, a legendary web series adds another record, a Gen Alpha favorite is slinging quesadillas, and a fast-growing YouTube channel is all about LeGolf.
The Guild has become the biggest Kickstarter film campaign of all time. When Felicia Day’s iconic web series returned with a crowdfunding campaign for a feature film, we knew Ren Faire’d would be a big deal. We didn’t know it would be this big. After raising over $5.8 million, The Guild‘s Kickstarter broke platform records. Take that, Veronica Mars!
‘Gangnam Style’ becomes the ninth YouTube video with six billion views. 14 years after Psy’s smash hit arrived, K-pop is still a titanic force in mainstream entertainment. Another Korean video, ‘Baby Shark’, is #1 in the YouTube rankings with 17.2 billion views. No one is catching up to that for a long time, but Crazy Frog’s ‘Axel F’ is on pace to become the next member of the six million club.
Sean Duffy is the latest Trump cabinet member with his own web series. First, RFK, Jr. cooked up healthy eats on YouTube. Now, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is traveling across the United States as part of The Great American Road Trip. The show was supposed to drop in June but is just arriving on YouTube now.
The “Salish Matter Order” has come to Chipotle. Matter, a 16-year-old with a sizable Gen Alpha fanbase on YouTube, has her own quesadilla (plus chips and chocolate) on the Chipotle menu. Matter is the youngest creator with a digital menu item at Chipotle, and fans who post about it can win a chance to meet her in Los Angeles.
Speaking of fast casual Mexican food, say hello to The Fat Grilled Burrito. Taco John’s wants to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to creator-inspired menu items, so it teamed up with Nic Flood, also known as The Fat Electrician. Flood is a longtime Taco John’s fan, so the collab was a match made in burrito heaven.
An 89-year-old’s matcha takes have made him a TikTok star. The New York Times published a profile of Werner Kalecinski, whose reviews of eateries have made him a TikTok favorite in his native Germany. Kalecinski is getting the hang of this social media thing, even if he doesn’t understand why matcha has become such a big deal.
A titan of basketball has become a titan of YouTube’s golf scene, too. A reunion of the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers gave LeBron James a choice piece of content for his new YouTube channel. LeBron only needed a few days to get millions of views on YouTube, so he clearly dominates golf vlogs the same way he dominated the aforementioned 2016 season.
En garde! Fencing is the latest sport courting creators. Creator content can provide a boost for any sport centered around individual personalities, and fencing certainly fits that bill. At an upcoming “creator showdown” in New York, Olympians will face off against influencers to see how the newbies fare in the world of physical chess. The creators know about sharing, but what about sabering?
Is YouTube going to pay over $1 billion for the NBA’s local broadcast rights? Recent reports suggest that YouTube is the frontrunner to land that package. The NBA has long had a huge presence on YouTube, so a broadcast deal of this nature would make sense, even if it would make NBA rights even more fractured.
Alex Cooper is switching up her representation. Fresh off a massive funding deal, the Call Her Daddy host is reportedly breaking up with her agent at UTA, according to Bloomberg. Though the details aren’t official, Cooper apparently has her eyes on a new team of reps at another major agency: CAA.
Eitan Bernath will expand his foodie empire alongside CAA. Bernath has shared approachable recipes across multiple platforms, with a particularly strong presence on Snapchat. He has appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show and has published a cookbook, and his deal with CAA will help him chase more offline ventures.
Also new to the CAA family: Kat and Déjà Clark. The mother-and-daughter duo are Australian natives, but after building a 20 million-strong social following, they moved to L.A. to level up their careers. To wit, they’ve now linked up with one of the biggest Hollywood agencies, with future retail opportunities on deck.
e.l.f. brings its pickle-inspired lip balms back to TikTok Shop. I guess, for some reason, that e.l.f.’s digital-native audience can’t get enough of pickle-flavored cosmetics, so a bizarre lip balm is back in stock. Is this the time for me to call the promotion a screaming good dill?
Taiwan is testing what life is like without the internet. With simulated internet blackouts, Taiwan is recognizing the vulnerability of its undersea internet cables. Taiwanese citizens got to experience life without TikTok, at least for a short while.
Instagram’s bench reviewer has delivered his first perfect ten. Sam Wilmot has sat on a lot of benches during the seven years he has run his Rate This Bench account. Now, the bench that played a role in his relationship has received his most glowing review ever. Let’s give the guy a sitting ovation.
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