The Creator Rep
Agents, managers, and business-savvy creators! This newsletter will give you the top news, strategies, and interviews relevant to creator representatives from Phil Ranta, who has been a 'creator manager manager' for over a decade!
Featured Posts
How to Help Los Angeles
A lot is going on in the digital industry, but, to be honest, as a proud resident of Los Angeles who just saw a large portion of my city burn, it just doesn't seem like the right week. I'll talk about the TikTok ban in next week's edition (which is also a day after the ban will go into effect).
60 Best New(ish) Creator Economy Platforms
Creator economy start ups are springing up left and right these days, and, as any creator or rep can tell you, there's no way to properly vet every single one. So I went ahead and did it for you! From updates on the obvious to new entrants, here's the top 100 on my mind, not including any that don't have products you can sign up to right now (for example, we all know services companies are cool but not exactly something you can hop on and use right now). Please also note: I'm sure I'll miss plenty so if you work at a platform I missed, I mean no offense!
YouTube's 20th Birthday Celebration 🎉
This week marked YouTube's 20th birthday, from a video at a zoo talking about elephant trunks to multi-billion dollar businesses (if MrBeast's math is to be believed). Let's give some space to where YouTube is, where it's heading, and why it's still the best place to build a digital video career.
Archive
Roblox Reaches 1 Trillion Views 🤯
If every man, woman, and child on Earth spent their entire day watching 100 YouTube videos of Roblox, we'd still be 180b views short. Roblox isn't a game. It's a platform where kids (80% of users are under 18) socialize, monetize, and, yes, play games. Not to be confused with the very similar Minecraft, another platform that hit 1 trillion YouTube views back in 2021. What does this milestone teach us about how games should view the creator economy?
Charity is SO Hot Right Now 👼🏼
Ryan Trahan raised over $11m for St. Jude's by visiting 50 states in 50 days. MrBeast and Mark Rober announced #TeamWater to raise $40m to bring clean water to households. And don't sleep on creators like DrLupo and Jacksepticeye, gamers with yearly initiatives who have each raised tens of millions of dollars. Charity is hot right now, and I'll get a bit cynical and break down why now is the perfect time.
Sydney Sweeney is Not an Outlier 👖
A lot of ink was spilled this week about Sydney Sweeney's dominance as the 'it' influencer, following a drop of her American Eagle ad, which led to a 22% bump in the stock price, adding a projected $228 million in valuation to the company. Yes, this is influencer marketing. No, this is not an anomaly. I'll break down what happened.
Mia Zelu is Not Real 🤖
The real winner at Wimbledon: Mia Zelu's puppet master. Or puppet masters. At the time of this writing, it has not been released whether this AI model was created by a brand or a 14-year-old with a Midjourney subscription. Both feel equally plausible. So what does this 18-week-old account with millions of likes and enviable media virality say about the future of AI creators?
Is AI Welcome in Social Content? 🤖
YouTube has clarified its stance on its recent demonetization announcement. When they announced plans to demonetize 'repetitious content,' they actually meant 'inauthentic content,' which I find even more confusing. They also clarified that they still welcome AI content. Meanwhile, other platforms vary from a full embrace of AI to a full rebuttal, sometimes both on the same platform. So, where do the platforms currently stand with AI?
Are All Talent Managers the Same? 🤷🏻♂️
July 4 always makes for a slow news week as most execs are on some sort of yacht in some sort of amazing place. So I figured it would be a great time to reflect on talent management companies and ask the operative question creators are always asking each other: what's the difference? I'll cover a few things creators should know before they sign, and discuss how some of the top orgs are differentiating themselves.
Beast Breaks With AI Thumbs 👍🏼
MrBeast, the world's biggest YouTuber, has a YouTube analytics and optimization platform called ViewStats. He launches an AI thumbnail product (we've seen many of these) for $80 per month, where you can automate thumbnails just like MrBeast's. The product works, but the internet goes nuts because they hate AI. He shuts it down. So what does this mean for the future of AI products in the creator economy?
Streamer Prom Breaks Records 🏆
513 years. That's how many watch hours FunnyMike's Streamer Prom event drew last Wednesday. And it was a who's who of top streamers, catching the attention of huge celebrities including Kyrie Irving, who was looking to score an invitation. And transparency note: this event was brought to you by Fixated where I am the Chief Business Officer and Partner. So why now, and what does this mean for the future of streaming?
How to VidCon 🎉
VidCon is the biggest online video convention, and it's been my summer camp every year (sans COVID) since I attended in 2012 with a small, scrappy start-up called Fullscreen. Since then, through changes in ownership and incredible growth, the strategies to optimize your time at the Con have evolved as well. I'll break down the top three pieces of advice for creators, creator reps, and businesses or brands trying to do business within the creator economy.
Politicians Suck at Social 🤑
It's so often said that it's become boring: large companies are 10 years behind on trends, and when they do catch up to the trends, they're behind again. If that's true, I'd put most politicians 20 years behind social trends. Coming out of a presidential election where so much ink has been spilled about Trump's masterful podcast strategy and the Dems stumbling over themselves with their messaging, and since I had to write this newsletter a week ahead of time due to a family vacation, I wanted to share some thoughts everyone in the creator economy knows already, but they're missing every time.
What Brands Want to Hear 🔈👂
AI is slopping up creator inboxes, and the market knows it. This week I posted tips on how brands should reach out to creators to get a response and the post received 5x my regular reach and engagement. I'm going a bit deeper into this newsletter, discussing how brands can catch creators' attention in email, what creators should beware of, and how reps can respond to secure top rates for their clients.
AI's Frighteningly Good Video 🤖
Google's Veo 3 video AI model is insanely good. Generated videos of real-looking people and real-sounding speech in real-looking locations are flooding the internet. Did this week mark the end of on-location video as we know it? Probably not. But there needs to be a new level of skepticism around reality and the internet content, wherein society has already failed time and time again. I'll explain how to start with Veo 3 for your video workflows.