TOGETHER WITH

It's Friday and if you’re wondering how to keep your business hopping during the holidays, why not consult a deck of TikTok’s Creative Cards?

TAKING THE STAND

Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord CEOs are being called to testify about their “failure to protect children online”

The U.S. Senate has some tough questions for the tech industry’s top dogs. On January 31, 2024, the CEOs of Meta, X, TikTok, Snap, and Discord will testify at a hearing hosted by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It sounds like those execs are in for a rough time.

According to Judiciary Committee leaders Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC), the Committee plans to grill Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, X CEO Linda Yaccarino, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, TikTok’s Shou Zi Chew, and Discord’s Jason Citron about “their failure to protect children online.” If Chew’s Senate experience earlier this year is any indication, that interrogation won’t be much fun for the assembled execs.

Some of the execs who were called to testify weren’t initially on board with the Judicial Committee’s plan for January 31. While Chew and Zuckerberg volunteered their time, the other three CEOs only consented to testify after receiving subpoenas from Durbin and Graham.

Those summons are only the beginning. As the Committee gears up for the new year, Durbin and Graham have made it clear that Big Tech can anticipate an intense line of questioning:

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Is your audience up for a challenge? Find out how Jon Youshaei’s fans competed to turn his videos into viral clips:

Nothing brings a community together like a little healthy competition. That’s why Jon Youshaei teamed up with Opus Clip to host the Clip For Cash Challenge—a contest that dared fans to clip Jon’s YouTube videos for a chance to win $4,000 (and a truly giant pair of golden clippers).

The competition was stiff:

• In total, participants generated well over 4 million views by creating short-form clips of Jon’s videos on Opus Clip.
  
  

• Over 1,000 people joined the contest, helping Jon’s channel grow by thousands of subscribers and adding 1.5K new creators to his dedicated Discord server.
  
  

• Jon also awarded $1,000 to whoever posted the most total clips, with some contestants posting over 1,000 clips! 

Who among your followers will take home The Golden Clippers?

Big creators need more ways to build their audiences—so why not crowdsource your reach with Opus Clip? 

Opus Clip competitions like Jon’s generate thousands of short-form clips, bringing your content to a wide range of audiences. You can offer zany prizes like Jon’s giant scissors, motivate fans with cash, or introduce your own terms—it’s all up to you.

Hit the link below to learn how you can leverage your audience to clip for you.

Get in touch with Opus Clip →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Brat TV—aka the media company behind hit shows like Chicken Girls—has acquired ecommerce platform Jemi. (Tubefilter)
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• ChatGPT celebrated its first birthday by passing 110 million installs and $28 million in “global consumer spending on mobile.” (TechCrunch)
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• TikTok’s latest feature allows creators to add an “artist tag” to their account profiles. (TikTok Newsroom)
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• This year’s YouTube Music Recap includes an option to generate custom album art “using your top song and moods from the year.” (Engadget)

DATA • ON THE RISE 📈

This creator’s viewers came for a Kardashian parody. They stayed for her personality.

On her 22nd birthday, Naomi Hearts had an epiphany: it was time for her to become a content creator. Armed with a new camera (a birthday gift from her mother), Hearts quickly got into the swing of streaming on Twitch—until her friends decided TikTok was the place to be.

Hearts wasn’t convinced. At the time, she still thought of TikTok as a dancing app for kids—and that was definitely not her vibe.

TikTok was exactly where Hearts was meant to be. Fans were initially hooked by her sense of humor, but it wasn’t long before viewers began tuning in for everything from fashion and lifestyle content to trans activism. By the end of her first year on TikTok, Hearts had already hit 100,000 followers.

After that, she says, “it just kept stacking and stacking and stacking every year.”

Fast forward to 2023 and the TikToker now claims more than a million followers, has worked with major companies like Target, and is in the process of developing her own clothing line. But at the end of the day, Hearts’ main goal hasn’t changed one bit; she’s still just as committed as ever to building a safe and inclusive community.

JUST A THEORY

Your favorite Game Theory videos are coming to TV

MatPat and Stephanie Patrick‘s YouTube production studio is making the jump to TV. Thanks to a deal between Theorist Media (which was acquired by Lunar X almost a year ago) and FilmRise, content from Game Theory, Film Theory, Food Theory, and Style Theory will soon be available on various FAST, AVOD, SVOD, and pay TV channels.

FilmRise’s contract with Theorist Media is part of its larger creator partner program, which has already produced deals with top YouTubers like Sam and Colby, UnspeakablePlays, PrestonGamez, LazarBeam, jschlatt, I did a thing, and TheWhyFiles. Now, the Brooklyn-based company plans to repackage and distribute Theorist Media content to all of its English-speaking territories, including the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Those videos—which will be repackaged in a TV-friendly format—are bound to attract an enthusiastic audience. Altogether, Theorist Media’s channels currently claim more than 40 million subscribers.

WATCH THIS 📺

Is this the best Windows holiday sweater yet?

Some people might describe Microsoft’s yearly Windows clothing drop as a collection of ‘ugly Christmas sweaters.’ We prefer the term ‘classic’—especially when it comes to the tech giant’s latest masterpiece.

As Emily Zugay showed off in a recent TikTok, 2023’s Windows sweater is packed with enough nostalgia to get millennials through even the coldest of winters. After all, how can you not feel sunny when staring into a knit version of Microsoft’s most beloved desktop background?

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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.