It’s Monday and Spotify is ready to play influencer matchmaker. The company has announced Spotify AUX, a service that connects emerging artists with Fortune 500 brands.

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?

Marques Brownlee is getting into the wallet biz as Ridge’s chief creative partner

Ridge is adding one of YouTube’s top tech creators to its team. The RFID wallet company has tapped Marques Brownlee to come aboard as both a board member and chief creative partner.

The company: Ridge wallets have been on the market since 2013, when founders Daniel and Paul Kane scored funding for their flagship product through a Kickstarter campaign. Over the past decade, the company says it has “worked with thousands of creators and sponsored billions of views across Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.”

The partnership: Millions of those views have stemmed from Brownlee’s tech-focused YouTube videos, which frequently include sponsorships from Ridge. Now, CEO Sean Frank says the creator will teach Ridge “to be more of a content-first brand, like how we actually get better at storytelling instead of just running static image ads on Facebook.”

• Brownlee will also take a stake in the company, and says he’s “happy with how much input I’m gonna get to have on actually bringing certain products to life.”

The context: While Brownlee’s deal with Ridge marks his first company title and board seat, the creator has a history of supporting promising tech brands. The creator joined “community engagement engine” Glystn as an advisor last month, and has also put money into laptop camera company Opal and podcast recording platform Riverside.

• Ridge is the latest in a long line of companies that have onboarded creators in a bid to optimize their social media presence. From Karl Jacobs’ Journeys ambassadorship to Josh Richards’ role as a special advisor to the NHL, creators have become vital assets for brands looking to modernize their content strategies and reach new audiences.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Reddit plans to allow some users to take part in its upcoming IPO through a directed share program. (Tubefilter)
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• A new study from Pew Research Center shows that the top 25% most active TikTok users have uploaded 98% of the platform’s videos. (Tubefilter)
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• X is reportedly expanding access to audio and video calling, a feature originally limited to Premium users. (Engadget)
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• Threads’ latest test feature allows users to take photos without leaving the app. (Engadget)

COLUMNS • MILLIONAIRES 📈

These YouTubers are channeling The Simpsons (with just a hint of The Addams Family)

The McCartys don’t have a typical “vlog family” vibe. Instead—as Kevin McCarty describes it—”if The Addams Family and The Simpsons had a baby, we popped out.”

How it started: The McCartys’ quirkiness has a lot to do with Kevin’s “really odd” sense of humor. The creator originally began filming as a teenager, and went on to incorporate video making into his teaching career—until COVID-19 hit in 2020.

• While Kevin’s wife, Stephanie, continued working in healthcare, he suddenly found himself at home with their two young children, Audri and Braxton. Making “goofy videos” seemed like the perfect way to keep everyone’s sanity intact.
  
  

• According to Kevin, fans “fell in love” with then-four-year-old Audri almost immediately. By the end of quarantine, The McCartys’ TikTok account was nearing a million followers. By 2021, Kevin had transitioned to creating content full-time.

How it’s going: Three years later, The McCartys now claim over 10 million YouTube subscribers and 6.2 million TikTok followers. Kevin says achieving that success has been “a grind,” but he and Stephanie still make it a priority to keep life as normal as possible for Audri and Braxton. As for the future?

What’s up next: According to Kevin, The McCartys are “really just trying to figure out a way to take this as far as we possibly can while it lasts.” Between negotiating brand deals and expanding their production team, 2024 holds plenty of possibilities:

GO NUTS

Ninja is teaming up with a plant-based brand to launch “premium cashew milk”

Tyler Blevins—aka the streamer known as Ninja—is going nuts for Nutcase.

The (informal) announcement: The creator let slip during a February 14 stream that he’s been working closely with a beverage brand called Nutcase Milk to produce a “premium” chocolate cashew milk. Blevins described the product as a “naturally sweetened, gluten-free, delicious new drink.”

• Fans interested in securing a can of Nutcase can join the waitlist here—but they’ll have to hold tight for additional details. In a follow-up X post, Ninja clarified that he hasn’t yet made an “official announcement” regarding his latest collaboration.

The background: Nutcase Milk may have been only inaugurated last year, but Blevins’ history of brand partnerships goes way back. In addition to an array of endorsements and merch lines, the streamer established a venture called Ninja Labs under the umbrella of entertainment company GameSquare.

The big picture: Blevins’ collaboration with Nutcase is part of a larger trend taking over the creator economy. MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson), Ryan Trahan, Logan Paul, KSI, Aphmau, and Unspeakable have all expanded their brands (and opened up new revenue streams) by venturing into the world of “consumables.”

• Many of those creator products have proven to be enormously profitable. According to Time, Donaldson’s Feastables snack brand accounted for 70% of MrBeast revenue in its second year on the market. KSI and Paul’s Prime has generated a similar amount of buzz; in 2023, Paul claimed that the beverage brand generated $250 million in retail sales during its first year.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

The episode: It was a big week for the creator community’s top stars. Ludwig Ahgren snagged coffee with YouTube CEO Neal Mohan, MrBeast hit the cover of Time, and—as you already know—Marques Brownlee claimed his first company board seat.

Tune in: Get the full scoop on all those stories and more by tuning into the last installment of Creator Upload. It’s all right here on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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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.