TOGETHER WITH

It’s Friday and GameStop’s stock jumped 40% after the guy who sent it “to the moon” in 2021 announced his plans to stream on YouTube today.

MRBEAST’S NEW MAN

Big changes are coming to Beast Industries

The new hire: MrBeast has brought in Jeffrey Housenbold, a longtime tech investor and executive best known for his work on SoftBank‘s Vision Fund, as President and COO of Beast Industries.

• “Beast Industries” appears to be the newly debuted catch-all name for the company that serves as support for all of MrBeast's ventures, including his ever-growing YouTube presence (in case you missed it, he beat T-Series to become the most followed YouTube channel in the world) and things like Feastables and his upcoming Amazon reality show.

Housenbold has invested and served on the boards of dozens of companies and was a Founding Managing Partner of SoftBank’s $130 billion Vision Fund. With Beast Industries, he plans to “build an extraordinary media and consumer product & services company that has a positive impact on the world,” he said in a LinkedIn post.

• Also worth noting: Housenbold’s joining reportedly won’t affect the duties of MrBeast’s other President, Marc Hustvedt (who is also a Co-Founder of Tubefilter). Hustvedt will retain his current title and continue to oversee operations of the video side of MrBeast’s business.

Why it matters: This is MrBeast’s first big move to flesh out his exec team since ending his exclusive relationship with talent management firm Night. It’s clear he’s putting things in order to take more personal control of his business.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Lickd lets you add hit songs to your videos—so you can hook viewers with top tracks from stars like Dua Lipa and David Bowie

Lickd is the only platform that gives YouTubers access to mainstream music—including songs you literally won’t find anywhere else. By offering a library of 1.4 million mainstream tracks, Lickd has made it possible for creators of all sizes to use popular music, while remaining completely protected from copyright takedowns.

🎵 Lickd’s creator-friendly music catalog is constantly introducing trending hits and classic songs from billion-stream artists like Coldplay, David Bowie, and Dua Lipa.

Those viral hits are the secret to higher audience engagement. In fact, a recent study by Lickd and creator GrowingAnnanas, shows that using popular music generates 14% more views, 35% more watch time, and a whopping 50% more comments! 

🎵 Best of all: you can try Lickd for free right now.

Stars like Ryan Trahan, MrBeast, Airrack, Casey Neistat, and the Sidemen have already found the beat with Lickd. Ready to discover why YouTube star Chris MD (6M subscribers) says Lickd “makes the viewing experience for your audience SO much more enjoyable”? 

Hit the link below to start your 14-day free trial:

Visit the website to learn more →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Like Nastya and her manager Viral Nation have partnered with high fashion agency Ford Models to bring the Nastya brand into fashion & beauty. (Tubefilter)

• Creator groups AMP and Beta Squad snagged over 700,000 live viewers with their charity soccer match. (Tubefilter)
  ​

• Twitch is increasing subscription prices in 35 countries, and some streamers are not happy about it. (Game Rant & Dexerto)

DATA: STREAMERS ON THE RISE 📈

Florida man, fitness enthusiast, sock collector, and streamer—StreetGrind does it all

How it started: StreetGrind and his friends used to hop on their Xbox 360s and dream of going pro in games like Halo and Gears of War. He knew he was pretty good at beating those friends, but he didn’t really think he could do anything professional with games—until he found Twitch.

• It was 2018 and he was scrolling Facebook in his office, where he worked full-time as a software engineer. “I found this person who was livestreaming a video game in real-time and people were interacting with it. I was like, ‘Wow,'” he says. “I never knew something like this existed. That origin story is a little bit different than other people who may have started with Justin.tv and they saw streaming there and really got incorporated into it. That was my real intro.”
  

• To get familiar with this new world, he joined a couple of established fighting game streamers’ communities, “and the thing is actually wanting to be there and not expecting anything in return,” he says. “What ended up happening was people ended up being like, ‘Do you stream?’ I was like, “Yes, I stream a little bit of so-and-so.’ They say, ‘Okay, I’ll go ahead and I will check you out.’”

How it’s going: Being an active member of other creators’ communities (especially in the fighting game sphere, which is super tight-knit on Twitch) helped Street establish his own stream slowly and steadily over the past six years. But in the past six months, he’s seen growing success on TikTok—and that success is carrying over to Twitch, making May his channel’s most-viewed month yet.

Get all the deets in our full chat with him here.

INSIDE SIDEMEN

The hottest new reality show is on YouTube

The premiere: The Sidemen are taking their shot with reality TV. This week, the U.K.-based, seven-man content supergroup dropped the first series of Inside, a show where they take the time-honored reality format of locking a bunch of people in a house together to see what goes wrong, and infuse that with the high-energy vibe of their YouTube content—all with a £1 million prize on the line.

The show’s two-hour first episode introduced contestants like digital creators Joe Weller and Fanum and reality vets like Love Island‘s Chloe Burrows. And the Sidemen’s fans dug it, sending it soaring past 9 million views.

• The premiere went live on the Sidemen’s main channel, where they have over 21 million subscribers, but subsequent episodes dropped on their second channel, MoreSidemen (8.5 million). The location change doesn’t appear to have affected viewers’ enthusiasm, though: together, episodes 2-5 have racked up over 11 million views.

So, why a reality show? Sideman Vikkstar123 shared some insight:

Why it matters: The Sidemen have become a major force on YouTube, and with Inside, they’re moving into ever more high-production content that rivals what TV networks and streaming services are putting out. And we suspect YouTube is very happy about that.

WATCH THIS 📺

A beloved livestream queen

The streams: We know this is a little bit sad, but today’s Watch This comes from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which surged to digital popularity during COVID because it set up 24/7 livestreams on YouTube that showed some of its most popular exhibits, so people from all around the world could enjoy its animals and their environments during lockdown.

The lady: One of those animals was Rosa, the aquarium’s eldest sea otter and champion surrogate mom. She raised 15 abandoned pups during her tenure, and was well-known to Monterey Bay’s online supporters. Unfortunately, she passed away this week—but to remember her fondly, the aquarium has uploaded a memorial video with some of Rosa’s most charming on-camera moments.

• Monterey Bay Aquarium also invites viewers to leave their own Rosa stories and photos in the comments. “Thank you all for being such a big part of Rosa’s life,” it said in the video description.

While the loss of Rosa is a big one, this is also a moment to celebrate the rest of the animals at Monterey Bay Aquarium, which continues to offer nine 24/7 livestreams of animals like spider crabs, penguins, jellyfish, and the rest of its thriving otter community.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.​

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