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Welcome back to the land of the working!

Or, if you work with digital creators, welcome to month nine of talking about the TikTok ban every dang day.

Let’s dive into what’s happening on that front.

Also in this edition:

• Mavely Scores a $250m Exit to Later

• Mr. Beast’s ‘Beast Games’ is #1 on Amazon Prime

• Famous Birthdays Gets a Squad

• The Best TikTok Video Downloader

• Where TikTok Shop Creators Should/Can Go

• Jobs from YouTube, Amazon Prime, and TikTok

• …and another dank creator economy meme by yours truly!

Let’s get into it.

NEWS:

Tick Tock Goes The Doomsday Clock

Let’s face it: we can’t possibly know what’s happening behind closed doors for the TikTok ban.

Likely, conversations are happening beyond our comprehension with dark-cloaked figures who actually run the world.

Here’s all we know for sure:

• TikTok will be banned in the U.S. on January 20 unless it is sold to a US entity.

• The bill to ban TikTok was brought about as bi-partisan legislation then signed into law by Joe Biden in April 2024.

• A federal appeals court upheld the ban in early December.

• Incoming president Donald Trump has signaled that he would like to save TikTok, particularly because of his own high view count.

• The Supreme Court will hear arguments about the ban on January 10.

• A non-scientific survey conducted by yours truly over the past few months indicates that most creators do not believe a ban will take effect.

So where does that leave us now? Time to panic?

My hot take: TikTok may be banned in the US, but it will return quickly if it is.

I wrote about this a few weeks ago, but a ton has happened since then, and my prediction is still my prediction.

A few signals make me confident, but most notably, legal norms in the US are not having a moment.

Trump loves positive attention, and his TikTok feed gives him tons of it. I believe if there’s an easy path for him to ‘save’ TikTok, he will.

Also, the judiciary isn’t necessarily, let’s say, ‘moral’ these days. Lots of stories of bribes and kickbacks. And with this many billionaires in the mix, I’m guessing a lot of the justices will get some incredible vacations and/or generational wealth in overseas bank accounts if they lean TikTok’s way.

And finally, public opinion seems to be in TikTok’s favor, primarily because we were never given an apparent reason why TikTok poses a security risk beyond “because China.”

That means a lot.

So even if it does go away, I’d bet on Elon Musk making a bid to buy to save it.

Mavely Makes Bank for Creators, and Themselves

Popular influencer marketing and social management company Later purchased Mavely, a platform that makes influencer marketing easy and boasts 120,000 creators.

I’ve been on the Mavely platform for a while, and I find it most interesting that it not only provides flat-rate marketing campaigns like it’s predecessors Famebit or Fullscreen’s Creator+, but also provides a layer of gamification and always-on affiliate marketing campaigns.

So why did Later buy Mavely?

My hot take: Data, data, data.

It’s hard to get creators to join a platform.

And if you don’t want to get a bunch of scraped data or pay for third-party stuff, you need creators to authenticate their platforms and have ongoing engagement with your tech.

I can’t help but think 120,000 creators using trackable links on their social platform provides pretty incredible full-funnel data that could be exceptionally helpful for Later as they develop more intelligent influencer marketing.

I imagine there will continue to be a lot more M&A in the creator economy for any platforms that can attract creators, regardless of whether they can attract dollars.

Mr. Beast Goes Big…Again

Mr. Beast’s ‘Beast Games’ on Amazon Prime promised to be the biggest reality competition show of all time.

The most contestants, the biggest prize pools, and, of course, huge set pieces including hundreds of cameras, private islands, and tons of tech.

But it’s not without controversy. Mr. Beast has gotten skewered recently about his treatment of contestants, how he runs his company, and old videos recently surfacing showing racially insensitive language.

And pretty universally terrible reviews. I watched the show and it’s very in line with the competitions on his YouTube channel, which also gives me a bit of ‘ick’ factor seeing people subjecting themselves to awful situations in the hope for a cash prize.

But I’m not the audience. I feel that way about most competition reality shows.

That didn’t stop his show from going #1. It only slipped to #2 after the first episode dropped to the superstar movie ‘Red One’, only to return to the top spot when the next episode dropped.

So will this lead to more creator-led shows again like we saw in the early 2010’s?

My hot take: Absolutely!

Hollywood doesn’t lead. It follows.

Digital creators lead.

And much like when ‘The Office’ goes big, every comedy TV show has to pretend a camera crew is following them at all times complete with confessionals, lots of studios will say they want ‘the next Beast Games’.

The problem: Mr. Beast is SO BIG that it would be hard to imagine anyone else having this kind of impact.

Could Kai Cenat or Dude Perfect do it? Maybe. But it would be a further departure from their core content than Mr. Beast, whose show is a pretty loyal translation of his YouTube content.

So my longstanding plea to Hollywood still holds: look at the ‘true talent’ on social platforms that can translate to great content that stands on its own, don’t just chase numbers.

Fandom seldom converts in the way studios would hope.

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FAME & FORTUNE:

Squad and Famous Birthdays are joining forces to revolutionize influencer marketing (disclosure: I consulted for Squad in the past). Squad built incredible tech to expand the reach of creator campaigns by allowing each creator to build a ‘squad’ of fans and simliar creators to unlock more inventory. Famous Birthdays is one of the most trafficked websites in the creator space. Creators, it’s a good time to jump on the Squad train!

TikTok may go away in the US. I don’t think it will, but it may. If you have a lot of TikTok videos, you’d be crazy not to be prepared. I’ve tried a lot of technologies, but found Tokkit to be the cheapest and easiest way to download your entire catalogue of content without watermarks so you can build on another platform.

If you’re a TikTok Shop creator, don’t fret! Although TikTok Shop has had best-in-class creator revenue for shoppable videos, I’ve seen even greater success on LTK for women in fashion and Flip App for all other goods. And with other platforms looking to attract shoppable video creators, I assume Meta and YouTube will work hard on those shoppable video products!

New Year, New You! Get involved in the creator economy more deeply in 2025 by joining the Creators Guild of America, a creator advocacy group of which I’m an advisor. It’s a great crew with awesome events, so we’ll actually know each other when I see you at VidCon this year!

INDUSTRY HIRING:

Amazon Prime needs a Head of Social Media & Content, Prime Video Sports. So…. is Beast Games a sport now?

YouTube is looking for a Head of Studio and Sports Partnerships, YouTube. Playing one-on-one basketball weekly with whoever gets the Amazon job is a must.

TikTok wants a Partnerships Solution Media Lead, which may be the coolest two week job of your life.

MEME ZONE:

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this edition, give it a share and if you get someone to sign up, I’ll send you my ‘10 Rep-Friendly Ways to Monetize Today!’ deck!

Until next time, protect yo rep.