Creator collectives are like employees at Big Tech companies: everyone says they’re excited about the company, but behind closed doors, they’re all planning their exit strategy.

Every N*SYNC has a Justin Timberlake. Every One Direction has a Harry Styles. And every creator collective has 100% Justin Timberlakes and Harry Styles (in their own minds).

But FaZe was different. They lasted 16 years. And the creators’ businesses always seemed strong, even though their business partners have several decisions that are tantamount to malpractice (don’t worry about them, they’re all doing fine).

Six months ago, right around Christmas 2025, the FaZe crew took to Twitter (X?) to quit one by one.

We later found out it was because their new ownership wanted to take 20% of their businesses, and the guys said:

And now they reformed as CORE, and all of the value built over 16 years of FaZe will be transitioned, since the power of the company was always the creators.

So after countless examples of creator collectives falling apart as the creators split, is it worth building these companies?

Also in this edition:

🤔 ‘Comment THIS for THAT’ Posting Works (Thoughts Are My Own)

🤖 Meta Wants to Build Humanoid Robots

👴🏻 Roblox Pays More for Adult Games

🎋 Vine is Back!

🎶 Spotify Only Verifies Human Creators

💪🏼 Jobs from Mattel Inc, 2K, and Dr. Squatch

🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

TLDR:

FaZe Clan was at its best as an aspirational group of guys appealing to gamer dudes.

They partied, they vaped, they were legitimately good at first-person shooters, and they were rich.

Very rich.

But it often felt like there were execs doing everything they can to corporatize the un-corporatizable.

Their esports teams were always strong performers, but the market was exceptionally difficult to make that profitable.

Their brand business was strong, but when you have that many millionaires in the group, it never felt like enough.

And going public? Yeesh. I don’t know a single person who didn’t have ‘FaZe Clan’ on their business card that thought that would work.

But when 49% owner of FaZe Matt Kalish said all members had to join his agency HardScope and give up 20% of their earnings or no longer be in the group, we all knew what was going to happen.

Maybe Matt didn’t. But he should have. Maybe…talk to me first?

And again as an industry we saw something happen we’ve seen a million times: the band broke up. They Team10ed. They Buzzfeeded. They O2Led. They Ur Mom’s Housed.

So here’s the question: understanding that the value of creator collectives online are usually about the creators, and creators leave when the economic incentive is clear when to do so, should you ever focus on creator collectives?

The answer is an unequivocal, 100%, no-doubt yes. More like a, “Hell Yes!”

The framing just needs to leave a Silicon Valley mindset and enter a Hollywood mindset.

Should a creator collective ever strive to be a publicly traded company? No. Never. Not in 100 years. If the value is the popularity of the creators, that’s simply too much risk on an ‘asset’ that has dreams, goals, and free will.

Can a creator collective make a ton of people a ton of money? Absolutely! And it has!

A lot of creators became famous in FaZe. Adapt was nothing before FaZe. Same for Rug. And CORE members JasonTheWeen, Silky, and Lacy who had explosive growth within FaZe.

If it’s truly a creator collective, just right-size expectations:

Build the brand, make a strong profit, use the brand to blow up more creators, monetize effectively.

That’s a roadmap for plenty of success.

If you want to build a unicorn, don’t build around creators. Build around formats.

SNL can last 50 years because it’s a format. Stars can come and go.

And Theorist, though views are down since Matt Pat retired, still shows a lot of life under their new leadership.

Never think of creators as a stable asset. They aren’t. People are people. They can’t be bought, sold, and traded like assets. So if the value isn’t in the brand alone, don’t pretend it is.

Engagement bait has evolved over the years, from YouTube’s early-days ‘reply girl’ celebrities to Twitch’s rampant ‘follow for a chance to win $50’ streamers.

But now there’s a format that appears to be immune to algorithmic hits: ‘Comment THIS and I’ll send you THAT’.

It’s immune to issues because a very popular company, ManyChat, was built on that model of automating DM links. They have a very cozy relationship with Instagram. Many shippable creators depend on it.

But now the format transcended Instagram fashionistas and made its way to LinkedIn, where mostly AI posts are offering to send people a roadmap or instructions to do a very hard thing, but only if they follow and comment.

I’ve commented on loads of these, and it’s very, very rare that they actually send anything. It’s usually just another engagement scam.

And here’s the rub: it works.

The way to accomplish this is extremely simple:

That’s it. You’re fifteen minutes away from generating a bunch of super viral posts, but LinkedIn appears to love this content. And many of the ones I’ve seen have thousands of comments.

Oh shoot. I jumped the gun on this one.

I should have said, “Comment PHIL IS AWESOME and I’ll DM you the way to make COMMENT THIS GET THAT posts easily using AI!”

What creators, brands, governments, and platforms are making waves this week in the name of fortune, fame, and fun?

🤖 Meta bought Assured Robot Intelligence to give the company a jump in the ‘humanoid robots doing chores’ market. Or, you know, you can get a human housekeeper for a fraction of the price…

👴🏻 Roblox will pay game designers 42% more to make games, as long as they’re appealing to an 18+ audience. This re-enforces a known trend that Roblox players are skewing older, but does nothing to address the ‘not safe for kids’ news that has plagued the company recently.

🎋 Vine has grown from the ashes, and is now back in public as diVine! Their positioning: no AI. Simple, beautiful, and aligns with the original branding.

🎶 Spotify found a new reason for their checkmark: to prove an artist is human. Now you will be able to distinguish AI music from human music through a verification system, but auto-tune is still cool.

Associate Manager, Digital Marketing - Social Creator, Mattel Inc.

Barbie needs marketing too! Working at a company like Mattel, a company that has been so digital video-forward that they often show up in my FYP just like any other creator, means you won’t have to convince anyone that digital matters. They know it. You just have to help them get better.

Senior Manager, Influencer, 2K

This job has been up for a bit, but the fact that they’re reposting means they haven’t found the right fit. C’mon, people! Bioshock! WWE! A bunch of sports stuff! Borderlands! This is any gamer’s dream if they want to break into the digital content world.

Senior Manager & Influencer Manager, Dr. Squatch

Dr. Squatch was doing brainrot before it was cool. WAY before it was cool. But they’ve also proven that they know, as much as any other challenger brand, how to get attention. I mean, they made a bath product named after Sydney Sweeney Bath Water. Who does that?!