TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and the Biden campaign is on the hunt for a new hire that could make or break the 2024 election: a dedicated meme page manager.

MEME COME TRUE

Skibidi Toilets are coming to a toy aisle near you

The announcement: YouTube’s 2023 meme of the year is getting its very own toy line. After earning over 16 billion views on YouTube, DaFuq!?Boom! creator Alexey “Boom” Gerasimov will see his viral Skibidi Toilet universe brought to life by Bonkers Toys and Invisible Narratives.

The product line: The upcoming collection will depict multiple characters from Gerasimov’s hit series, which follows a war between TV-headed heroes and long-necked, toilet-riding villains. Skibidi toys will appear across major retailers beginning in the fall—an upcoming launch that has already earned the approval of Transformers director and Invisible Narratives Chief Creative Advisor Michael Bay:

The context: Bay might be one of Boom’s biggest fans, but the creator’s signature series owes much of its popularity to viewers of a different generation. The devotion of Gen A fans frequently drives DaFuq!?Boom! to the top of our monthly YouTube viewership rankings; now, Bonkers Toys is willing to bet that Skibidi’s online sway will translate into IRL sales.

• This isn’t the first time Bonkers has capitalized on a viral YouTube hit. The toymaker has already released several lines inspired by Gen A-focused channels and creators like Ryan’s World and Moriah Elizabeth—meaning it’s well equipped to turn Boom’s virtual IP into a retail sensation.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Cannes Lions brings creators face-to-face with the world’s top brands and thought leaders

Every year, thought leaders from all corners of the marketing industry come together for one world-class event: Cannes Lions. 

The International Festival of Creativity is a celebration of history-making creativity—a space for the most groundbreaking work from around the globe to be awarded and presented by a lineup of legends. 

Now, Cannes Lions is inviting more creators to join the conversation.

In partnership with social-first marketing and talent agency Viral Nation, Cannes Lions is introducing The Creator Pass: a two-day programme designed to showcase the power of creator-led marketing while helping creators forge new partnerships, develop their skills, and grow their networks.

Accelerate your journey as a business leader, connect 1:1 with decision-makers at global brands, forge partnerships, and showcase your work alongside the industry’s best.

Space is limited, so submit your application for the June 18-21 program now:

Apply for The Creator Pass →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• A new Twitch update will let users filter out streams that have been tagged with specific “Content Classification Labels.” (Tubefilter)
  
  

• TikTok is reportedly preparing for a round of layoffs that could lead to the total dissolution of its global user operations team. (Tubefilter)
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• Linktree has announced the beta launch of a program that will allow more creators to add storefronts to their link-in-bio pages. (TechCrunch)
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• In a recent Newsroom article, TikTok revealed that “61% of users have made a purchase either directly on TikTok or after seeing an ad.” (TechCrunch)

COLUMNS • CREATORS ON THE RISE 📈

This podcast host has always been an “entertainment powerhouse”

How it started: Between the onset of COVID-19 and a close encounter with a hungry walrus, Misha Brown’s career as a cruise performer came to an abrupt halt in 2020. That alone wouldn’t have been so bad—but after spending thirteen years onstage (including as a performer in Cirque Du Soleil), Brown wasn’t exactly sure how to pass the time in quarantine.

• So, “like most Millennials,” he made a TikTok account. At first, Brown says, making videos was just a “creative outlet” meant to keep him busy. It wasn’t until he’d produced multiple viral videos that he considered creating content full-time. But once he was in, he was all in.
  
  

• Within months, Brown had “really started transitioning and trying to build my platforms across all social media platforms.” That approach earned him over a million followers on TikTok—and the attention of Wondery and Atwell Media, two companies that were on the hunt for a new podcast host.

How it’s going: Since coming aboard as host of The Big Flop in 2023, the creator has led nearly 40 episodes and dissected everything from Fyre Festival to The Star Wars Holiday Special. His on-point “sense of sass” has been a valuable asset to the show, which continues to see month-over-month growth in listenership and downloads.

What’s next: Brown’s 3.8 million TikTok and Instagram followers have plenty to look forward to in the coming months. In addition to hosting future episodes of The Big Flop, the creator is “feverishly typing away and writing a comedy self-help book to pitch to publishers very soon.”

• Brown isn’t counting out a future in theater, either (although he probably won’t be hopping aboard another Antarctic cruise anytime soon).

DATA • U.S. TOP 50 📈

After 15 years, Minecraft-themed YouTube channels are still going strong

The channel: A lot has changed in the 15 years since Minecraft’s big debut. Way back in 2009, words like ‘TikTok’ and ‘Shorts’ were still nothing more than alphabet soup—and many of Minecraft’s top fans had yet to be born.

• The ferocity of the game’s community, however, has stood the test of time. Minecraft-themed YouTube channels continue to top our U.S. Top 50 charts on a regular basis, while TikTok viewers will be hard-pressed to avoid AITA posts accompanied by the title’s signature blocky visuals.
  
  

• Intalord is one of the latest beneficiaries of Minecraft’s long-lived popularity. The gaming channel has attracted 7.3 million subscribers by packing brightly-colored Shorts with as many memes as possible—a strategy that may appear alien to OG players, but works perfectly well to appease Gen A fans.

The stats: The proof of Intalord’s approach is in the pudding. Over the last few months, Shorts featuring viral characters like Sonic and Skibidi villains have won the channel hundreds of millions of views. Intalord’s top clip alone currently claims a whopping 121 million views.

• Many of those views flooded in last week, when Intalord collected 128.2 million views over the course of just seven days.
  
  

• That massive sum added up to a week-over-week traffic increase of 33%.
  
  

• The result: Intalord jumped 23 spots to earn a place at #34 in the U.S. Top 50.

WATCH THIS 📺

The Ryan’s World movie trailer has arrived

The feature film: The debut of Ryan’s World The Movie: Titan Universe Adventure is only a few short months away. On August 16, fans of the eponymous YouTube channel—and its 12-year-old star, Ryan Kaji—will enter an animated world occupied by the heroic Red Titan and his “Big Bad” foes.

• Titan Universe Adventure is a co-production between the Kaji family’s Sunlight Entertainment and pocket.watch. That collaboration is good news for longtime viewers of creators Dan Rhodes, Evangeline Lomelino (of GEM Sisters), and Stella Wallace (The Stella Show).
  
  

• All three of those pocket.watch partners ☝️ will appear in the upcoming movie, which is set to hit 2,100 locations upon its theatrical release. Check out the full trailer here.

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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.