TOGETHER WITH

It's Wednesday and Roblox is growing up. The gaming platform will now allow creators to explore “more mature themes” by offering “experiences for people 17 and older.”

KICKING THINGS UP A NOTCH

Kick just scored 1 million sign-ups (and poached 2 top Twitch stars in the process)

Kick is turning out to be a bigger rival than Twitch may have anticipated. Following the introduction of Twitch’s now-revoked branded content regulations and its relatively unpopular Partner Plus program, streamers have been showing more and more interest in the platform’s rising competitor.

A lot of that interest has been the result of Twitch’s own self-sabotage. (Its branded content policy announcement, for instance, triggered a record 24 hours of signups for Kick.) But now, Twitch’s up-and-coming rival is pulling out the big guns.

Over the last weekend, Kick announced a $100 million deal with xQc (who is Twitch‘s most-watched streamer), a reported $30-40 million deal with fellow streamer Amouranth, and the addition of more than a million new users.

xQc’s 2-year contract alone is worth more than LeBron James’ deal with the Lakers.

As non-exclusive partners, xQc (aka Felix Lengyel) and Amouranth will have the option to continue streaming on Twitch—and any other platforms—during the course of their deals with Kick. But whether they’ll actually choose to remain on Twitch is a whole different animal. Both creators have aired grievances about the platform in the past, with Lengyel criticizing its monetization policies and Amouranth accusing it of “squeezing” streamers:

The question now is whether those issues will be enough to propel other top streamers toward a decidedly smaller and less polished platform. Lengyel (who now has 600,000 followers on Kick) faced interruptions in service during his debut stream—a reminder that Kick still has a long way to go before it can accommodate Twitch levels of traffic.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Candle Media is joining forces with TikTok to co-develop premium programming and branded content. (Tubefilter)
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• Gaming-focused talent management company Loaded has tapped former 100 Thieves advisor Irina Shames as its chief commercial officer. (Tubefilter)
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• Jellysmack has teamed up with Culture Genesis for a $25 million initiative that will benefit a diverse group of recipients. (Tubefilter)
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• Twitch has introduced new “content classification labels” for streams that include gambling, profanity, violence, and other mature themes.  (TechCrunch)

DATA • GLOBAL TOP 50 📈

This creator doesn’t just stand out from the crowd. He dances in it.

Rawat VL Comedy never lets stage fright dull his sparkle—and he definitely doesn’t need a stage to put on a show. The India-based creator has made a name for himself on YouTube by dancing through crowds of shocked and amused onlookers.

But don’t worry: Rawat’s viewers are definitely laughing with him.

The Shorts icon knows exactly how to take strangers from wary surprise to full-blown laughter, no matter how unexpected his outdoor dance parties might be. That positive spin on public comedy has earned Rawat a massive following in just two short years. The creator has only been shaking his stuff on YouTube since November 2021, but his channel has already amassed more than 3.2 million subscribers and close to 600 million lifetime views.

That rapidly-growing viewership isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

• In fact, a Short posted on June 2 has already become Rawat’s top video with more than 117 million views.

• That incredible viewership is nothing new for the dancing star. Over the course of our last seven-day count, Rawat’s channel scored a whopping 272.2 million views.

• The result: the comedian’s staggering weekly total skyrocketed his channel to #32 in our Global Top 50.

A NEW BEGINNING

Smosh is back in the hands of its original co-founders

Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox are getting the band back together. The original co-founders of Smosh have reunited to buy majority ownership of the digital comedy brand from Rhett & Link’s Mythical.

The co-founders launched Smosh as best friends in 2005, and built the brand into an iconic media company with dozens of crew members and millions of subscribers. But by 2017, Hecox told Variety, their relationship “was not really that good.” Padilla left the company that same year, and Mythical acquired Smosh after its former owner Defy Media collapsed in 2018.

Now, Padilla and Hecox are picking up where they left off:

The financial details surrounding Mythical’s deal with Padilla and Hecox are hush hush, although we know that the co-founders worked with Breeze Financial to finance the purchase. Rhett & Link’s own role in Smosh won’t disappear now that the company has new(ish) owners; the YouTube duo plans to serve as advisors, with Mythical retaining a minority stake in Smosh. The comedy brand’s main talent—including Shayne Topp, Courtney Miller, and Damien Haas—will stay on as well, while Smosh’s core YouTube channel (25 million subscribers) will operate as the home for Padilla and Hecox’s content.

Smosh’s upper management will see more significant changes. CEO Daniel Tibbets and EVP Joel Rubin are both exiting the company. Alessandra Catanese will become Smosh’s new CEO in the wake of those departures, while also continuing in her roles as COO and executive producer at Padilla’s Pressalike Productions.

WATCH THIS 📺

IShowSpeed’s latest video is as wholesome as it gets

IShowSpeed’s new Rumble program—aka The Kai ‘N Speed Show—may be an adrenaline-fueled mix of feral tigers and out-of-control mechanical bulls, but his latest Short is pretty darn sweet.

The creator (whose real name is Darren Watkins Jr.) finally met his hero, Cristiano Ronaldo, in a recent video. That long-awaited moment involved plenty of excitement and a few tears—a welcome sight for fans who have been following Watkins long enough to know all about his love for the iconic soccer star.

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