TOGETHER WITH

It’s Monday and Twitch is calling a do-over on that whole “artistic nudity” thing. After two days of living on the edge, the platform is back on the straight and narrow.

LIVE IN CONCERT

9.6 million people tuned in to watch TikTok’s first-ever live concert

TikTok’s very first concert was also its biggest live-streamed event to date. The platform hit Arizona’s Sloan Park on December 10 for In the Mix, a live production that included three sponsored rebroadcasts and a one-hour special.

On stage: TikTok’s big event featured mainstream celebs Cardi B, Peso Pluma, Charlie Puth, Niall Horan, and Anitta while making room for emerging artists, such as Elevate alums Isabel LaRosa, Kaliii, Lu Kala, and Sam Barbere.

In the audience: Altogether, 33.5 million viewers took in TikTok’s big show.

• 9.6 million viewers tuned in live from various devices. (17,000 people scored in-person tickets.)
  
  

• Almost 24 million people watched three rebroadcasts sponsored by Paramount and Coca-Cola.
  
  

• Tikok also released a Disney+ and Hulu-exclusive special featuring In the Mix footage on Friday—meaning views are still flooding in.

Why it matters: TikTok is establishing itself as a music industry tastemaker and elbowing its way into the streaming world at the same time.

• In the Mix’s viewership stats are almost identical to those generated by one of YouTube’s biggest live-streamed events of all time: Dear Class of 2020.
  
  

• That stream topped out at 665,000 concurrent viewers, while its VOD hit 34 million views after 72 hours.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Pixability connects diverse creators to top brands—so you can earn higher ad revenue and promote inclusive media

Pixability is on a mission to provide diverse communities with equal media opportunities. As the only company certified by Google for both YouTube Brand Suitability & Contextual Targeting, Pixability has the industry connections and expertise to bring underrepresented communities to the forefront of the advertising world.

The first step: Pixability’s Inclusive Media Initiative.

Pixability’s Inclusive Media Initiative puts you—the creator and the person—at the center. Instead of assuming identities based on appearance, Pixability asks creators to self-identify which communities they belong to and adds them to IMI Community Inclusion Lists shared with top brands like McDonalds, KIND, and Puma.

The result: creators gain unparalleled media opportunities and ad revenue potential, while brands are able to easily support diverse communities.

Here’s how it works:

1. Sign up for the Inclusive Media Initiative and select the communities you identify with.

2. When a brand or agency requests an IMI List that includes your community, your channel name will be added to the list of creators they see.
   
   

3. Brands will consult those IMI Community Inclusion List to target their ads, giving your channel a chance to gain bigger Adsense payouts and increased CPMs.

Ready to pave the way for inclusive media?

Join the Inclusive Media Initiative →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Rhett & Link‘s Mythical Entertainment has hired Hearst Communications vet Gwen Miller to serve as Senior Director of its $5 million creator accelerator fund. (Tubefilter)
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• TikTok updated its Terms of Service over the summer with new requirements that direct users to file complaints in one of two California courts. (Tubefilter)
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• A communications watchdog in Italy has fined YouTube and Twitch over alleged breaches of national advertising rules. (Tubefilter)
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• Instagram is giving creators a new way to start trends with “custom, meme-able Add Yours templates” for Stories. (Engadget)

DATA • MILLIONAIRES 📈

This TikTok star is always serving up hilarious skits. (And he has the wig collection to prove it.)

Meet Drew: In the late ‘90s, Drew Talbert devoted his life to comedy. He relocated halfway across the country (from Nashville to L.A.) and spent the next twenty years waiting tables to support his passion. But, despite his best efforts, Talbert “never had enough success to quit” his day job—until COVID-19 hit.

How it started:  Quarantine brought the restaurant biz to a stand-still, so Talbert applied his hard-earned experience (and his impressive wig collection) to a new pursuit: making TikTok skits about the service industry. He played every character, from spoiled kids to weary waiters, and went viral in the process.

How it’s going: Four years later, Talbert’s following has grown to include 2.7 million TikTok followers, 1 million YouTube subscribers, and hundreds of thousands of fans across Facebook and Instagram. He’s tweaked his skits to feel more like a cohesive sitcom—a strategy that’s helped him transition to creating content full-time:

What’s next: From podcast ideas to potential training videos, Talbert and his wife have big plans for the future. Check out our full interview with the creator here to learn more.

STAR POWER

Kai Cenat’s latest celebrity guest star was 4 hours late. The record books didn’t care.

Kai Cenat has once again cemented his position as the top Twitch streamer. The creator broke his own record for most concurrent viewers last week thanks to an appearance by rapper Nicki Minaj.

What happened: On December 13, Cenat’s fans were hyped to see their favorite creator join forces with Minaj, who planned to drop by as part of the promotional tour for her new album.

• (That appearance didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. Minaj showed up to the stream four hours late—in the early hours of December 14—but the duo still made time for a celebration of Trini culture and a bit of twerking.)

By the numbers: Per Streams Charts, Cenat and Minaj drew a peak viewership of 348,593 concurrents.

• That total smashed the previous record for most concurrent viewers (also held by Cenat), which came in at 306,280.

Why it matters: The entertainment industry is responding to the power of digital talent. In addition to being a key stop on Minaj’s promo tour, Cenat’s Twitch channel has a history of hosting mainstream rappers like Offset. In short, creators are driving culture and cultural icons are taking note.

• The streamer is also leveraging his cultural cache to get into the film industry: Cenat made a recent cameo in the comedy film sequel Good Burger 2, which hit Paramount+ in November.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

Creator products reigned supreme.

• MrBeast co-founded ViewStats, a potentially revolutionary data platform for YouTubers.
  
  

• Ironmouse (aka Twitch’s most-followed English-language VTuber) transformed her virtual avatar for a revolutionary brand deal and product drop with Razer.
  
  

• Industry-leading talent agency Viral Nation announced the launch of a new Ventures unit that will help creators sell everything from coffee to salad bowls.

Find out more on the latest episode 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.