It's Thursday and this year’s TikTok Tailgate will usher in the Super Bowl with one hell of a headliner: the one and only “Hollaback Girl," Gwen Stefani.

SHIFTING GEARS

YouTube is restructuring its creator management side for the first time in 10 years

Major changes are coming to YouTube. For the first time in a decade, the platform is reorganizing its content creator management teams—a major effort that will follow a strategy laid out by chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe.

The changes: Until now, YouTube’s creator management teams have been loosely connected across the globe—meaning a partner manager in one country could be responsible for reporting to a leader in an entirely different region. YouTube’s restructuring efforts will change that by pivoting to country-specific teams designed to support more creators.

• The platform also plans to consolidate its music teams into one global force (which will report to Head of Music Lyor Cohen), while condensing its various sports, media, film, and TV teams into a single worldwide group.

The consequences: Restructuring efforts rarely come without job cuts, and YouTube’s case is no exception. Changes to the platform’s creator management and operations teams will result in the elimination of about 100 roles.

• The good news: according to people familiar with the matter, affected staff members will have a chance to apply for other roles at YouTube.

The motivation: YouTube’s restructuring efforts seem to revolve around a desire for streamlined operations. According to Coe, the introduction of “Gen AI tools,” the diversification of YouTube’s creator base, and the growth of its subscription businesses have all contributed to “an even greater need to ensure we’re running the business effectively and meeting the needs of all of our users.”

• YouTube isn’t the only tech giant scaling down. Companies like Google, Amazon, Twitch, and Instagram have laid off hundreds of workers over the past few weeks—and Google CEO Sundar Pichai says more job cuts are on the way.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee has taken on an advisory role at Glystn, an AI-driven “community engagement engine” that provides creators with data from multiple platforms. (Tubefilter)
  ​

• MatPat—aka the retiring host of The Game Theorists—will appear as a Featured Creator when VidCon returns to the Anaheim Convention Center on June 26, 2024. (Tubefilter)
  ​

• After 12 years, former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg has announced her decision to “step away” from Meta’s board of directors. (Engadget)
  

• New York-based hair care brand Amika has launched “the Amikaverse,” a brand-new Roblox destination where players can “create virtual hair care products.” (VentureBeat)

COLUMNS • CREATORS ON THE RISE 📈

The Homo Sapien Experience is here, queer, and ready to hit the big screen

According to creator Matt Curiano, if you told “12-year-old quietly queer Matt and Brandon [Contreras] that we were making this big fun gay content with a bunch of big fun queer people, they never would have believed that.” And yet, here they are: creating a safe, goofy space for 1.5 million TikTok followers.

How it started: Curiano and Contreras have been best friends for twenty years, but it wasn’t until 2018 that they came up with The Homo Sapien Experience—a channel that Curiano describes as “a place for queer people to be authentically themselves.” Over the next few years, the duo’s YouTube sketches attracted a loyal viewership of a few thousands subscribers…and then the pandemic hit.

• With short-form video on the rise, the two creators decided it was time to bring The Homo Sapien Experience to TikTok. The response was overwhelming: Curiano and Contreras’ empowering (and hilarious) videos quickly attracted millions of views.

How it’s going: Since posting their first TikTok (a sketch that revolved around what Curiano calls “your gay hype-up crew”), Curiano and Contreras have reeled in 13.4 million likes, become full-time creators, collaborated with Drag Race stars, and formed a community of more than a million fans.

What’s next: The Homo Sapien Experience is going places. According to Contreras, he and Curiano “want to have our own TV show for sure” and aren’t afraid to “dream big” when it comes to the future of their production company.

RETURN OF THE CON

TwitchCon will head to Rotterdam and San Diego in June and September 2024

TwitchCon is gearing up for its next cross-continental adventure.

The agenda: The yearly convention—which is organized by Amazon-owned streaming hub Twitch—will make its Rotterdam debut on June 29. 

• The European edition of TwitchCon launched in Berlin six years ago, and has since traveled to Amsterdam and Paris.
  
  

• TwitchCon is set to arrive in San Diego three months after hitting Rotterdam. That North American event will run from September 20-22 at the San Diego Convention Center (the home of Comic-Con International).

The context: The reveal of TwitchCon’s 2024 schedule comes on the heels of job cuts affecting more than 500 Twitch employees and a troubling admission from CEO Dan Clancy that the platform is not currently profitable.

• The annual return of TwitchCon offers an opportunity to re-establish a much-needed sense of stability—something Twitch seems to be capitalizing on by setting the location of its next events multiple years in advance.
  
  

• TwitchCon Europe is slated to return to Rotterdam in 2025 and 2026, while San Diego plans to host TwitchCon North America through 2028.

The official statement:

WATCH THIS 📺

Will Rhett & Link be crowned “Idiot Sandwiches” by Gordon Ramsay himself?

Introducing Idiot Sandwich: a new cooking competition show that will see creators like Rhett & Link, Zach King, and Lexi Hensler compete to earn the ultimate insult from celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.

The juicy details: Idiot Sandwich is produced through Studio Ramsay Global—a joint venture between Ramsay and Fox—and will be released in weekly segments on the chef’s YouTube channel.

• The show’s premiere episode follows Link, Rhett, and Mythical Kitchen host Josh Scherer as they race to create a Ramsay-worthy sandwich in just twenty minutes. Check it out here.

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.