Dhar Mann had a Crazy Week (feat. his Chief Strategy Officer, Ross Habif)

12:26Dhar Mann:But notably, State Senator Scott Wiener, Democrat from California who's running for Congress, said on X that he had posted about legislation that would allow lawsuits against ICE agents, for example. And Mr. Wiener said the post was sitting at zero views, and I'm not the only person this is happening to. And creators have been mentioning this, too. So there is the thought that now this is sort of controlled by Trump and his allies, and now they're controlling the platform. I don't think that that's smart. I don't think that that's like, I mean, you know, I think that, you know, TikTok vehemently denies this.

12:59Dhar Mann:Oracle was saying that one of the U.S. data center partners that, you know, sort of powers TikTok experienced an outage over the weekend. There's been like horrendous weather around the country. Like, so like they're saying that, who knows, maybe that's a factor in this whole thing. So conspiracy theories, we're going to be conspiring. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. I don't know, we'll see. time will tell. One side is always saying the content suppressed from the other side. So who knows?

13:23Ross Habif:That's 100 % true, Lauren, that one side is always going to say that they're being suppressed by the other side. I think it is worth noting some of these actual individual complaints that people raise, though, too. Like comedian Meg Stalter, for example, claimed that an anti-ice video reposted from Instagram failed to upload on TikTok. Other users reported similar stories. One ex-user shared a screenshot that suggests Epstein is now a verboten word on Trump's TikTok. Again, who knows the validity of that or not, but these things are floating around.

13:48Dhar Mann:What I think is worth noting that let's just assume that that is true, that that content's being suppressed. That means that like they were all right. You know what I'm saying? That like these these platforms are suppressing content to their liking. So it's all fine and good if it's the content that you don't want to see and it's your side politically. But the second it changes, you're like, wait a minute, this is unconstitutional and blah, blah, blah. And it's sort of just like, so they were right. So that's what we're all deciding. So then this is a disaster. You know what I mean? Like, I just feel like people are just so obsessed with their own point of view that they're not zooming out and seeing the bigger picture here.

14:22Dhar Mann:So like, if that is true, then what?

14:25Ross Habif:Then yes, it validates that this should have been done. But people can still complain and act up about how it's being done.

14:32Dhar Mann:People are going to complain no matter what. I'm just saying like, it's just super. I just think people get so into the weeds about it. And I'm just sort of like, can we zoom out and see that this is a much larger problem?

14:41Ross Habif:so allegedly if that stuff is true yes it would validate them doing this for sure the entity in charge of the new us app tiktok usds joint venture claimed that technical issues like you said lauren at a data center caused those glitches they said on x quote we've made significant progress in recovering our u.s infrastructure with our u.s data center partner however the u.s user experience may still have some technical issues including when posting new content, end quote.

15:09Dhar Mann:Well, I mean, and to be fair, I think what people don't realize, you know, is these platforms break all day, every day, like all the time. And so if they are in fact doing some, I mean, I think this has been the works for a long time, but let's just say that they're doing some sort of big data transfer. There's going to be glitches. There's going to be stuff that happens. Like it's just, it's going to happen. So yeah.

15:29Ross Habif:And the people who are uploading pictures of their pasta boiling aren't going to post on X saying, oh my God, this is a travesty.

15:36Dhar Mann:Correct. And so it's, I mean, you might. I know how you love watching pasta boil. It's kind of.

15:43Ross Habif:I do think it is worth noting, though.

15:44Dhar Mann:You can't eat it because of gluten. And so you're just like watching it boil. Sorry, go on.

15:48Ross Habif:I watch. Yes, totally. Time lapses of just regular glutinous pasta boiling. Oh, my God. So good. I'm salivating. Dreams.

15:55Dhar Mann:Dreams. Go on.

15:56Ross Habif:Pavlov's dog. So I think it also is worth noting, though, that like legislation, this legislation around TikTok's divestiture has had a lot more politicking around it than just the issue of the Chinese government. For instance, Senator Mark Warner, who's a Democrat from Virginia, urged the congressman turned Palantir exec Mike Gallagher, who was a Republican representing Wisconsin, to tell the real story behind the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Gallagher then said, so we have a bipartisan consensus. We had the executive branch, But the bill was still dead until October 7th.

16:36Ross Habif:And then people started to see a bunch of anti-Semitic content on the platform and our bill had legs again. I think the people who are claiming that this is not just an issue of power outages are hearkening back to this and saying that the U.S. version of TikTok has kind of always been seen as a check on youth discourse and are pointing to this as exhibit A of that.

16:59Dhar Mann:I think it's also worth noting, too, that this week, Google and Meta began a landmark trial in California facing allegations in the Superior Court of California facing allegations that their addictive platform designs harmed children's mental health. It's going to be about six to eight weeks and people are talking about how this is going to be. It's going to be like, you know, potentially open the floodgates of so many lawsuits should this go not in their favor. I don't really know how they get out of that, but we'll see. sorry just saying I mean like there's a lot of good things about social and there's a lot of messages about it so I mean

17:38Ross Habif:meta I get Google I would have some pushback on but yes well YouTube I know but YouTube I feel like has gotten their act together way more than other social platforms

17:48Dhar Mann:sure but it doesn't mean that they didn't cause mental health issues for certain people prior to getting their act together fair I mean I mean again I'm talking to somebody who like hasn't communicated with their child outside of a screen and like ever. So, you know, we all have different ways. Everybody does things differently. Okay, we have Ross Habith, the Chief Strategy Officer at Darman Studios. They had two huge announcements this week and I'm really excited to dig into the details with him. Welcome to Creator Upload, Ross Habith. You are the Chief Strategy Officer of Darman Studios.

18:21Ross Habif:Thank you. Happy to be here.

18:22Dhar Mann:There's so many announcements happening with Dar. First, let's just kick it off. I know you were working really in the weeds on this new deal with Fox and Holy Water and DAR. Can you just give us like the high level? Tell us about it. It's kind of confusing. There's a lot of players.

18:35Ross Habif:There's a lot of layers. There's three parties, which always make things a little bit more complicated. We are very excited to be working with Fox and Holy Water. Fox is our production partner and we are creating the content in partnership with them. We're putting it onto Holy Water's platform.

18:50Dhar Mann:Just to back up, it's like, what is the actual deal? It's how many episodes of...

18:53Ross Habif:We're creating 40 films for the platform. These are, call it 90-minute, 60 - to 90-minute assets broken up in the vertical drama, micro-drama approach so that they're broken into segments. But the overall, it's 40 films.

19:06Dhar Mann:And it's going to be distributed on MyDrama.

19:08Ross Habif:It is distributed on Holy Water's MyDrama platform exclusively for the first year.

19:13Dhar Mann:Oh, my gosh. And so what's the goal here and where does Fox kind of, like, come into play?

19:17Ross Habif:I think it's really exciting. I think the goal is that we are tapping into a new way that consumers are consuming media. you're seeing this really big in Asia and China right now it's coming to the United States I think there's clearly demand for it and we are one of the forerunners to bring content to this space we really know the production model based on what we've been doing on our social platforms YouTube and Facebook and we're bringing that model and that idea to a new platform and I think Fox and Holy Water together realized the power of our audience and the power of how we were able to produce content and we're willing to do a very sizable deal with us compared to basically anybody else because they trust in our ability to produce that content and they trust in our quality of the content we make.

20:00Dhar Mann:And so is so these films will be distributed like obviously in short form on on my drama. And then is there some sort of like, I don't know, if somebody pops, you'll just distribute the full thing via Fox or something like that, like the full length feature or is like is that somehow involved in this or is it really just like a short sort of micro drama deal?

20:18Ross Habif:Long term, I think that we're all open to how to best maximize the viewership of these assets. So we're going to debut on the My Drawing platform, but long-term, I think there's a willingness to manage distribution and windowing strategies that Fox will lead the efforts for.

20:32Dhar Mann:I would imagine that's where they would come into play. And I mean, it's just interesting because I think about being at the early days of YouTube and when YouTube was investing in, we're spending a lot of money investing in different channels trying to, I think, figure out what works on the platform. So it feels like we're in a new dawn of that where studios are potentially investing in this new type of content, really to educate themselves and see what happens? Would you kind of say that that might be?

20:56Ross Habif:In terms of our lifetimes, right? We've lived through SVOD. We've lived through now Fest and AVOD platforms. This is the next type of platform. And when you see these launches happen, always it is something that nobody knows is going to come and they're all a little bit skeptical about. But suddenly starts getting traction and investment and people are willing to experiment. and try different things to figure out what works. So being part of that first wave is a pretty incredible spot for us. I mean, obviously, Fox experimenting in that space is not surprising. They have been a long-term studio doing these kinds of things.

21:34Ross Habif:For us to be making the jump and to be showing that social media and the platform that we've been on, this YouTube platform, Facebook platform, can also make the jump to this kind of new platform, I think is a testament to where the creator of business has come and the kind of things that we have license to do.

21:49Dhar Mann:And Fox, I believe, is an investor in Holy Water, right?

21:51Ross Habif:Fox made an investment. I don't want to figure out exactly what their investment is or isn't. But yes, Fox is involved. I think they made their own commitment to provide Holy Water with content as well from their studio.

22:03Dhar Mann:Yeah. I'm just trying to like, it's just interesting to see like how they're getting into the space and the different like sort of tentacles. Well, super interesting.

22:09Ross Habif:Disney also made a play, right? I think Disney invested with or made a small play with DramaVox. Yeah. Participate there as well. So Fox made a much bigger statement with Holy Water, though.

22:20Dhar Mann:No, for sure. And so when are we expected to see this content? Do we have a timeline?

22:24Ross Habif:I mean, the anticipation is that by the middle of this year, we will have our first batch of content up on this platform.

22:30Dhar Mann:Oh, my God. Super exciting. It's really exciting.

22:32Ross Habif:It's a real big opportunity, not only, again, for Holy Water and Fox, but I think it's a great way for Darman to be expanding its presence outside of the social platforms.

22:41Dhar Mann:Well, I think and I think, you know, the listeners will know that I, you know, spent some time, you know, in the trenches with Darman. And so I think it's really exciting to see, you know, all of the ways there's been a lot of talk and a lot of like, you know, what's going to happen. He's obviously doing really well with how he built his business. But what is how is this going to expand? What is this going to look like? So this feels right to me. And it feels like time.

23:05Ross Habif:Yeah, well, we just did the Samsung TV Plus deal maybe now four months ago. And I think it's just the next step, right? We are exploring how to best bring this brand and the content we're making to other audiences. Samsung TV Plus allowed us to foray into that fast space and to experiment on how linear viewing would work in a TV-first environment. this now is a way for us to come back to the mobile space that is predominantly where vertical drama is being watched so it's a new format a new platform but it is very much what we are doing right we're expanding past that origination point our core business continues to be youtube and facebook but we're always open to how do we reach our audience in other places so i can't imagine

23:54Dhar Mann:that like dar might have you know being such having such a huge footprint and being so successful he might have his choice of partners in the space. Is there any particular reason why you went with this sort of Fox and Holy Water kind of partnership over others?

24:06Ross Habif:We spoke to just about everybody that's in the space. I think that everybody was excited about the ability that we had to produce unique content, that they've seen what we've been able to do. And they recognize that it kind of fit the vertical drama model. So we had a lot of different potential partners. Fox was more innovative, as was Holy Water, in their ambition to do something a little bit new, not necessarily be beholden to only what worked in the Asian markets. They gave us a lot more creative independence in the conversation. And because we retain 100 % of our ownership and creative autonomy, it just ended up being the clear winner here compared to anybody else.

24:44Dhar Mann:Oh, yeah. I didn't realize that. Oh, yeah. No question. Well, not to be outdone, you had another announcement this week. Maybe we could have spread these out a little bit. I mean, just throwing it out there. But Dar was just named NFL's chief kindness officer. I don't know how much you worked on this, but I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about this. Like, sorry, what does that mean? And what should we expect from this innovative new partnership?

25:08Ross Habif:Yeah, well, Dar is the creator of the week for the NFL coming into Super Bowl week and the chief kindness officer doing things like being at the Super Bowl in addition to leading a variety of events and experiences, bringing creators in and working with them across some of the things that whether it's the NFL flag football or other things that are in that category. It's very much about sportsmanship and about recognizing the value of sportsmanship in any of these competitions.

25:32Dhar Mann:Well, what a week you guys have had to Jarman Studios.

25:36Ross Habif:It has been busy. And what's exciting is there's more to come. So I don't know that we're going to have two massive announcements in the same week next week. But, you know, there are more announcements on the way.

25:45Dhar Mann:But you never know. All right. Thank you so much for joining. And yeah, we'll look out for those announcements.

25:50Ross Habif:Great. Well, thank you so much. Good times.

25:52Dhar Mann:Thank you again so much, Ross. I'm really psyched to watch the Super Bowl. Who doesn't need a chief kindness officer? I mean, I sure do. I'm just going to be watching the Super Bowl for Darman content.

26:01Ross Habif:I'm stoked on this because Darman is the perfect creator to be making microdramas.

26:07Dhar Mann:100%.

26:08Ross Habif:His program is already basically a long form microdrama. And so he just needs to chop those things up. I mean, not just, I get it. That's not what microdramas are. Don't come at me in the DMs.

26:20Dhar Mann:Actually, PS, it kind of is.

26:21Ross Habif:Maybe it kind of is. It kind of is.

26:23Dhar Mann:It's like 90 minutes that you can chop up into like 15 second instrument or whatever, minute long, whatever it is.

26:28Ross Habif:Yeah. Yeah, but the good ones probably have a little bit more thought put into them than just doing that, Lauren. Okay.

26:33Dhar Mann:I want to jump on with Madison really quickly and talk about what she's been up to with Creator Society. Madison Weaver, welcome to Creator Upload. Thank you for having me. Oh, my God. I'm so excited. So you are the co-founder and CMO of the Creator Society, which I want you to tell us a little bit about that. But I really wanted to have you on because you were talking to me recently about this really interesting project that you have going 11 to midnight, which is a very fascinating, call it case study, of creators transforming their social presence into another sort of venue. In this case, it's Off-Broadway.

27:06Dhar Mann:So give us the logline of Creator Society. I would really love to get into the origin story of this show.

27:12Ross Habif:Amazing, yeah. So the Creator Society is a talent management company, and we work alongside creators to elevate their business in a multitude of ways. And I think that 11 to Midnight really exemplifies that for our agency, which we are so excited about. And 11 to Midnight is an off-Broadway dance show in New York City created by Kostin Mayer, who are TikTok, Instagram, dancers, choreographers. And they really, you know, started in 2020. They were part of that group of creators that started dancing on TikTok, and they were living in Meredith's mom's attic and just dancing and creating. And it was always their dream.

27:57Ross Habif:They lived in New York pre-COVID and were pursuing dancing in New York. And so it was always their dream to be on stage in New York City. And as they've continued to grow as creators, their passion has been in choreography. and so when they kind of conceptualized an initial idea and started taking it to some producers in New York City and the first idea that we took to the producers of the show Hideaway Circus didn't end up panning out we just kind of left that idea behind and kept working on on a new idea, which is now 11 to midnight. And we started talking with the producers at the end of 2024.

28:44Ross Habif:And we're conceptualizing and creating the Pinterest boards and what's the vibe and what's the plot line. And in March of 2025, I actually flew out to New York to start workshopping the show. And by September, we were we had cast all of the dancers in the show and done an online casting call, which was really cool. I think we had like 500 submissions and we only took five dancers all across the country. And there's some really cool stories from the dancers that were chosen for the show, which is really cool and unique.

29:24Dhar Mann:Talk a little bit about the sort of how their social presence on TikTok sort of like contributed to them getting a show and what were they doing alongside sort of developing a show? Like, you know, I feel like obviously there's a direct correlation between like them sort of growing on the platform and being able to like, you know, get a show, which I think to some sort of like purists might be a little bit sort of difficult pill to swallow. Like you've got to have this sort of presence on social in order to kind of, you know, get a show. But like, let's tell us how that sort of like went hand in hand.

29:51Ross Habif:here's the thing austin and meredith are tiktok creators yes and they are social media creators and whatever term we want to maybe coin them by but at the end of the day they aren't good because they were on tiktok they were dancers pre-tiktok they were choreographers pre-tiktok um they went viral because they were good at it uh so they just have an audience now and so i think when we look at creators and the different, I mean, Addison Rae, you know, she went from creator to musical artist and is performing. And I think people question the validity of creators who go from social media to having this opportunity.

30:32Ross Habif:But I think that that is why a lot of creators build these platforms is in order to do what they ultimately want to do.

30:40Dhar Mann:Did Broadway or Off-Broadway come calling? How did that sort of work? Because I actually think it's a really positive case study as to your point about like how you can use social to sort of realize your dreams so can you just speak a little bit about that i mean it was all them they

30:53Ross Habif:were pitching themselves they were reaching out to producers it's actually funny because they had auditioned for a show that the producers they are working with were casting for in new york um i think pre-covid and were cut from the first round of auditions um which is really funny and And interesting to look back on now that they're working together. But they did the work. You know, we had contacts and definitely introduced them and put them in front of people where we could. But ultimately, they just cold pitched and reached out and said, hey, we're Costa Mayor. We have an idea and we want to talk.

31:32Ross Habif:Can we set a meeting in New York? So obviously, the validity of their name that they have and the capabilities that they are able to show their resume. That helped them get them in the door, but they just went out there and took a shot.

31:47Dhar Mann:Right. And so they have 7.6 million TikTok followers and about 2.6 million Instagram followers. And so when is the show open? February 11th.

31:56Ross Habif:We're actually in previews right now. So their first show was last night, which is wild. I still have not heard back.

32:03Dhar Mann:I'm like, how did it go? That's amazing. Josh, do you have questions?

32:07Ross Habif:Yeah, I think this is super cool. Well, Madison, can you just go into the economics of this? So they have a 12-week run, and then is the idea where if that goes well, it continues, or it's kind of 12 weeks and done? Is this like a first step? They wanted to kind of prove themselves with this show, and then they have a stake in the ground on off-Broadway, Broadway, and the theater space that they can build from in the future. Tell us, like, how the economics work and the business plan moving forward. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, we would love to be in the Orpheum for as long as we can be. um i don't know if you know the history of the orpheum theater but it's actually really cool and interesting because the orpheum is what housed stomp for the entirety of its run which was also a dance forward show and so we don't you know right now we have 12 weeks we would love for it to be longer um but that's that's the first goal you know i think that there's conversations of touring it maybe in 2027.

33:06Ross Habif:But ultimately, yeah, we would love to keep doing this and create more shows. I think they have so many ideas and they're brilliant, like the marketing behind what they do in their content creation. And then the way that they thought about building in public for 11 to midnight has been brilliant. And just every single piece of it has been so interesting and intriguing. And so, yeah, this is definitely a case study. But at the end of the day, this is their baby. And I think whatever we can do and wherever we can take this is the dream.

33:39Dhar Mann:Madison, where do people go to find out about the show?

33:41Ross Habif:They can go to 11tomidnight.com. It's the number 11tomidnight.com. Also on Instagram, TikTok, or just, you know, buy a ticket and head to the Orpheum Theater.

33:53Dhar Mann:I love it. Awesome. Thank you for coming on. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

33:57Ross Habif:Thanks, Madison. This is great. Excited to check it out.

33:59Dhar Mann:Go check out 11 to Midnight on Broadway. I think it sounds amazing. Very excited for them. We'll see how that goes. And excited to see all the things happening with the creators on other platforms, including Broadway and Off-Broadway.

34:11Ross Habif:Speaking of another big creator, Lauren, Kabi Lame in this upload just got a deal that is being reported as being worth$975 million to Kabi. So here's what happened. He basically sold a controlling stake in his core business to Rich Sparkle Holdings. Under the agreement, Rich Sparkle secures exclusive rights for 36 months to manage and monetize Lame's digital presence. That includes live stream income, short form video strategy, supply chain operations and brand partnerships. The company says Lame will also be a controlling shareholder. What are they a controlling shareholder in? Well, Rich Sparkle Holdings is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ capital markets.

34:50Ross Habif:And everybody's been reporting this at face value. it seems like it's a big deal. It sounds a little bit interesting to me. I think the purported potential value of this could be worth$975 million. It's not like Kaby Lame is pocketing $975 million right now. And also I'm curious about how this deal comes to be and what it actually means. So I spoke with my friend who works at a hedge fund in media and didn't get clearance from his PR team yet to talk about it. So I'm just going to give you the nature.

35:24Dhar Mann:He worked on this deal?

35:25Ross Habif:Didn't work on this deal, but worked in media. Got it. Okay. And didn't get clearance from his PR team to talk about this particular component yet. Okay. So sources unnamed. I'll basically tell you the gist of our convo. And he actually likes this deal. He thinks it's cool because now fans of Kabi Lame can basically invest in Kabi Lame now through a publicly traded equity. And I was talking to him about the valuation here. And he said, OK, let's break it down. How much do we think Kabi Lame makes a year? We settled with doing two minutes of research because you can't really tell about these things.

36:01Dhar Mann:That tracks for like how you like to go deep.

36:04Ross Habif:Somewhere between like 16 and 20 million bucks a year is what's been reported. Sure. So 20 million bucks a year, you put that valuation, you like 10x that for a potential valuation and you extrapolate that over three and a half years for this deal. And it gets up to around like 700 million dollars. And so if Rich Sparkle Holdings thinks that they can make a little bit more than that, this makes sense that 975 million dollar value does make sense.

36:30Dhar Mann:Yeah. No, I get it.

36:32Ross Habif:I get it. I don't get it. It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

36:35Dhar Mann:All right, Josh, I think we did it.

36:37Ross Habif:Lauren, I think that's it. I'll see you trying to live stream this meta and YouTube trial in California Supreme Court over their alleged harm to children's mental health just for the local PTA.

36:51Dhar Mann:It's like, where is this playing? Was this playing going to last? I got it there-ish. Got it there? I feel like it would have been better for your kids or something like that. That would have been better. Yeah, I'll do that.

37:02Ross Habif:I can see you just orchestrating something for the PTA. You have a watch party. Yeah. And if not there next week, create or upload. Today's show is produced by Lauren Schnipper, Joshua Cohen, that's me, and Adam Conner. It's edited by Adam Conner too. Original music is by London Bridge. You can check them out on Instagram at London Bridge Music. Make sure you subscribe to Creator Upload right here on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts, as well as Spotify or wherever you're listening. While you're there, give us a rating and leave us a comment. If you want to talk, hit us up at info at creatorupload.com.

37:29Ross Habif:If you like our show, recommend it to a friend. If you love it, just tell everyone. Thanks for listening to Creator Upload, and we will be back next week.