Admission: I’ve gotten more meetings with major streamers this year than any year in my career.

Always weird for someone who has always considered himself to be digital-native to the core.

But with the success of ‘Beast Games’ on Amazon and Jake Paul pretending to punch Mike Tyson on Netflix, matched with Hollywood’s ‘follow what worked yesterday’ mentality, it makes sense.

Let’s cover some of the highlights of content creators jumping to Hollywood with eyes wide open to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and why.

Also in this edition:

🐭 Disney Does OpenAI Deal

💬 2/3 of Teens Talk to Chat Bots

🇦🇺 Australian Teens Get Around the Ban (duh…)

🥱 Jon Youshaei Handles Your Boring Stuff

💪🏼 Jobs from Edit Media Group, Trailer Park Group, and Fever

🎭 …and a dank meme from yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

TLDR:

Elephant in the room: most plays for creators to take over Hollywood have been, let’s just say, underwhelming.

Also a note of transparency: I’ve been involved with a lot of them. Sorry about that.

Let’s start with the lie that’s been in every pitch for creator content by every streamer and network. Let me know if you’ve heard this one:

“If this creator with 100 million followers gets just 10% of their audience to watch their show in primetime, you’ve got a top ten show.”

Wrong framing.

Followers have different reasons for following. Some have churned out. Others just liked one video, subscribed, then never watched their stuff again.

I just checked on TikTok and I don’t follow a lot of my favorite creators. They show up in my FYP anyways, so what’s the point?

Here’s the proof:

So I’ll posit a new framing:

Very, very few followers will seek out a creator on another platform.

Why would they? They already love what they’re doing on social media! And that’s free!

But followers provide potential marketing if the show pitch is strong. And that’s about the brand of the project more than the brand of the creator.

Nobody was begging for a Jake Paul reality show. Everyone wanted to see Jake Paul fight Mike Tyson. There’s a story there.

Grace Helbig and Lily Singh’s talk shows were marketed as continuations of their web presence. Not a strong pitch, as followers can already view huge catalogues of their content on their YouTube pages.

The biggest pops come from shows like ‘Beast Games’ that give fans a big pitch to extend what fans already love about them, but more, bigger, and better.

Or, like the Jake Paul fight, using their fame and brand to tell a new story.

One that can stand on its own.

Based on the viewership of that match, there’s no way this was just a bunch of Jake Paul fights.

It was a punk content creator that everyone was hoping would get put in his place by one of the greatest boxers of all time.

The story transcended Jake Paul’s brand. And though the event was underwhelming, the numbers speak for themselves.

So let’s talk ‘Rabbit Hole’, where the combined audiences of all participants is huge even when compared to MrBeast’s total following.

Will this succeed or fail?

They need to nail three things to win:

In other words, it’s not a slam dunk. But nothing is.

And I’m sure the pocket.watch team is smart enough to not project their success by saying, “If 10% of their audiences tune in to each episode, we’ll get 100 million views!”

Have you thought about selling your creator business?

RockWater advises owners in the creator economy on the sale of their business. We have the largest buyer network, and negotiate the best deals possible for our clients. We’re proud to be the industry’s top M&A advisor.

We recently advised on the sale of Feedfeed, a social media publisher and creator network, to People Inc., a publicly traded media co. We’ve also advised Click Management (sale to GameSquare), Lionize (an IM platform, sold to gen.video), Long Haul Mgmt (sold to Wasserman), Bottle Rocket Mgmt (sold to Night), Bounty (a UGC platform, sold to gen.video), and more deals are in the works.

If you want a POV on your company’s valuation and readiness for a sale, reach out to to chris@wearerockwater.com to setup an intro call.

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

🐭 Disney has signed a $1 billion licensing deal with OpenAI so users can generate content using its storied character library, including Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and Mickey. Will this make these characters even more over-exposed? In the case of Marvel, I don’t know if that’s possible!

💬 Pew Research released a study saying 3 in 10 teens talk to chatbots daily, mostly ChatGPT. Then why the heck aren’t teens as agreeable as ChatGPT?!

🇦🇺 Just a few days into the Australian teen social media ban, reports are already trickling out that it hasn’t impacted behavior much. It’s almost like every kid knows how to use VPNs or, you know, lie when signing up for platforms.

🥱 Jon Youshaei, popular ex-Meta and YouTube product manager turned social media pundit about social media helped launch Boring Stuff, a company to help creators with bookkeeping and taxes. As a lifelong COO-type, I can say: Godspeed, my friend. Much-needed but not a lot of fun (hence the perfect name).

Senior Content Creator, Edit Media Group

I’m always shocked how many people sleep on still imagery as a core part of their social strategy. Why? Don’t you see how many likes purely-aesthetic, image-driven Instagram pages get? Edit Media Group wants someone who knows video and photography, so the role will give you a more holistic view of what it takes to make valuable social media assets in all forms.

Content Creator, Mutiny, Trailer Park Group

An in-house content creator for a creative agency focused on some of the coolest gaming companies in the world? This would have been my dream job in my first decade in the business. Heck, it may be my dream job now.

Digital Content Creator, Fever

I feel like every event ticket I’ve gotten over the past few years that hasn’t been Ticketmaster has been through Fever, so they must be doing something right. They have a ton of cool events, so I imagine a digital content creator role would be ideal for someone who likes to make amazing content at events, so this one is probably best suited for social butterflies.