TOGETHER WITH

It's Friday and Google’s AI search results have some absolutely wild suggestions for your next pizza party. Our suggestion: skip the glue-topped slices and stick with pepperoni.

LOVE, EUGENE

Another Try Guy is leaving the group for good

The announcement: Eugene Lee Yang is saying goodbye to The Try Guys. The creator announced his departure in a video posted yesterday, which served as his “official sign-off from the internet for the last time as a Try Guy.”

• Over the course of that clip, Yang clarified that his departure was driven by two main factors—neither of which involved any kind of beef with fellow Try Guys Keith Habersberger and Zach Kornfeld.

The motivation: Instead, Yang noted that the number of projects he’s taken on has made it “untenable” to continue with The Try Guys. On top of that busy schedule, the creator added that digital content “simply isn’t the right space” for him anymore—which is why he plans to leave YouTube altogether following his final Try Guys season.

• Yang’s recent endeavors represent the industries he intends to focus on going forward: literature and film. The creator is currently developing a directorial debut with Killer Films, a graphic novel with Vault Comics, and a queer YA fantasy duology with Macmillan/Feiwel & Friend.

What’s next: The Try Guys previously underwent major evolutions in 2018 (when they left BuzzFeed) and 2022, when former member Ned Fulmer departed following a viral cheating scandal. Now, The Try Guys plan to rebrand yet again by launching a streaming service called 2ndtry.tv.

• As 2ndtry.tv goes live, Habersberger and Kornfeld are steering clear of the type of upset caused by fellow ex-Buzzfeeders Watcher (who initially attempted to replace free future content with a paywalled streaming service).
  
  

• Instead, like fellow content group Critical Role, the Try Guys will continue posting established series on YouTube for free, while offering exclusive, uncensored, and early access videos to 2ndtry.tv subscribers who pay $4.99/month.

🔆 GIVEAWAY 🔆

Ready to win two free tickets to VidCon? Check out Creator Logic’s 2024 sweepstakes:

Your opportunity to connect with industry leaders at one of the biggest creator events of the year is only one click away.

To mark VidCon’s June 26-29 return to Anaheim Convention Center, Creator Logic is giving away two Industry Track tickets to the big event. 🎉

Those free Industry Track tickets will give you and a pal access to all four days of VidCon 2024, including dedicated networking and peer-to-peer learning sessions.

And that’s only part of the prize: Creator Logic is also covering travel and accommodation with $1,000 cash—bringing the giveaway’s total value to a whopping $2,698.

Ready to take your shot?

Enter to win →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• TikTok has unveiled a new advertiser hub called TikTok One, an AI-driven tool named TikTok Symphony, and a fresh marketing optimization solution for TikTok Shop. (Tubefilter)
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• YouTube is rolling out new timestamps to show creators which parts of their restricted videos failed to meet the platform’s advertiser-friendly guidelines. (Tubefilter)

• TikTok says it will begin sharing public reports to “increase transparency” surrounding its ongoing efforts to “detect and disrupt covert influence operations.” (The Verge)
  

• X plans to make likes private to ensure that users are not “discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’” to “protect their public image.” (The Verge)

COLUMNS • STREAMERS ON THE RISE 📈

From Mental Health Mondays to interactive gaming streams, this creator is all about community

How it started: Even as a kid, Keiana Williams always loved video games—but she didn’t always have people to play video games with. At least, not until she discovered streaming.

• That discovery came as a happy accident. In fact, Williams (aka RealMamaEagle) didn’t even know Twitch existed until a few years ago, when one of her favorite YouTubers mentioned an upcoming livestream.
  
  

• Williams was curious, so she hit the link to check it out—and quickly found herself amidst a community of viewers who loved video games just as much as she did. Building up a gaming channel of her own seemed like the obvious next step.
  
  

• So, that’s what she did…at least, until the pandemic hit. Williams knew she wasn’t the only one feeling isolated in quarantine, so she pivoted: instead of sticking to games like The Sims, the creator began using her streams as an opportunity to check in with viewers about their mental health.

How it’s going: Four years later, those quarantine-era check-ins have evolved into weekly Mental Health Mondays and regular Just Chatting streams.

• Williams’s community now encompasses over 10,000 Twitch followers, and while she still treats those viewers to plenty of gaming content, her streams now focus primarily on connecting with her community:

What’s up next: Williams plans to “keep having conversations” like those for as long as possible, but that doesn’t mean she’ll be limiting herself to Twitch. As part of her return from a longtime YouTube hiatus, the streamer hopes to launch a channel dedicated to football-focused content.

CALLING ALL MEME LORDS

Biden’s re-election campaign is seeking a meme whisperer

The job posting: President Biden is venturing further into the most important battleground state of all: the internet. As part of its quest to woo netizens with dank memes and #relatable content, The Biden for President campaign (aka BFP) has shared a job posting for a full-time “Partner Manager” for “Content and Meme Pages.”

• In exchange for a salary of $62,000-$82,000, the chosen meme lord will be expected to “manage relationships with top digital media companies, podcasters, and meme pages across a number of social media platforms” while working from Wilmington, Delaware.
  
  

• BFP’s future Partner Manager will have a strong foundation of lore to build upon. According to Axios, merch inspired by the much-satirized “Dark Brandon” meme accounted for more than half of the campaign’s sales last August.

The context: BFP’s search for a meme whisperer comes only a few weeks after Biden signed a law that will force ByteDance to either divest TikTok or face a nationwide ban on the app. That timing might seem odd—especially given BFP’s ongoing presence on TikTok—but the very response of creators to the ban and concurrent policies serves as further proof of the effectiveness of platform-based campaigns.

• Creators have been vocal both online and in court regarding the Biden administration’s approach to social media regulation—a force TikTok itself has leveraged in its attempts to head off a potential ban. At the same time, hubs like Twitch and YouTube Shorts have emerged as key tools for the student-led protests that have erupted over Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

WATCH THIS 📺

Spotify’s latest remix has (almost) nothing to do with music

The big reveal: Spotify is sprucing up its in-app and desktop experiences with a new kind of remix. The platform has announced the launch of Spotify Mix, a “bespoke typeface” designed to mirror “the dynamic and evolving nature of audio culture over the years.”

• A Spotify-exclusive font wasn’t exactly on our bingo cards for 2024, but it’s hard to say no to a stylish typeface. At least it’s not Papyrus or Calibri Sans, right?

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Today's newsletter is from: James Hale, Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.