In short
The Colin and Samir Show - Episode Summary: Answering Questions We've Been Avoiding
Podcast Overview
- Podcast Title: The Colin and Samir Show
- Hosts: Colin and Samir
- Description: YouTube creators discussing the creator economy, sharing insights and answering audience questions.
- Episode Title: Answering Questions We've Been Avoiding
- Episode Focus: Engaging with challenging audience questions, discussing YouTube Shorts, and featuring TommyInnit.
Episode Highlights
- Introduction & Microsoft Copilot
- Colin shares a unique prompt he uses for research: creating a podcast about any subject.
- Discussing the excitement around new tools for content creation, particularly Microsoft Copilot.
- Audience Questions
- The show dives into confrontational questions from their audience, including:
- Why aren't large creators engaging more with YouTube Shorts?
- Concerns about Colin and Samir "playing it safe" in their content.
- Discussion on YouTube Shorts
- TommyInnit's Question: Why are big YouTubers hesitant to create Shorts?
- Colin’s Response:
- Long-form creators find it challenging to adapt to short formats.
- Shorts provide a significant opportunity for growth and engagement, but creating them can feel formulaic.
- The hosts experienced initial excitement with Shorts but later found the pressure to achieve high view counts made the process less enjoyable.
- The Risks of Content Creation
- Discussion on the balance between creativity and the business side of content creation.
- Colin and Samir reflect on their fears of becoming too formulaic and losing the creative edge as they grow their business.
- Monetization Concerns
- The conversation touches on the monetization aspect of Shorts versus long-form videos.
- The hosts express skepticism about whether growing through Shorts positively impacts long-form content performance.
- Playing It Safe vs. Taking Risks
- Audience feedback suggests that Colin and Samir may be prioritizing general appeal over creative experimentation.
- The hosts discuss the implications of creating content with significant overhead and the challenges of maintaining creativity when there’s much at stake.
- Twitter Verification & Social Media Trends
- Analyzing the recent trend of purchasing Twitter Blue and the implications of monetizing social media presence.
- Colin shares personal insights into the need for increased reach and the complexity of being associated with a polarizing figure like Elon Musk.
- Audience Engagement & Future Directions
- The hosts express a desire to foster a more intimate community through tools like Discord.
- They appreciate the feedback from their audience and emphasize the importance of maintaining a connection with their community as they grow.
- Lighthearted Moments
- The episode wraps up with fun banter between Colin and Samir, including discussions about group photos and their personal experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Adaptation to Shorts: Creators must find creative ways to engage with short-form content, balancing enjoyment with the pressures of performance metrics.
- Risk vs. Safety: Successful content creation in the long-term often requires some level of risk-taking, but financial and business pressures can lead creators to play it safe.
- Monetization Landscape: The shift towards paid features on social media platforms indicates a changing landscape for creators, who must navigate the implications of their choices.
- Community Connection: Building a more connected and intimate community remains a priority, with tools like Discord providing a new avenue for engagement.
Conclusion The episode effectively navigates complex issues faced by content creators in today's digital landscape, blending insightful discussion with humor. Colin and Samir demonstrate a commitment to engaging with their audience while seeking to maintain their creative identity amidst the challenges of growth and monetization.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00The Colin and Samir Show is supported by Microsoft Copilot. This is something I thought I would never say, but can I share with you my favorite prompt? I mean, like when you say something like that, I have to say yes. Were you going to say no? No, but okay. Just let me hear it. So when I'm researching for a guest or I need to know a lot about a subject matter, I say, make me a podcast about. And when you do that, you're going to get a short blurb about that subject. And then in like two minutes, you're going to get a podcast. So check this out. Welcome to Co-Pilot Podcasts. Picture this, a guy working the front desk at a hotel, making lacrosse videos in his spare time, completely unaware that he's about to become one of the most influential voices in the creator economy.
0:38Today, we're diving into the remarkable story of Colin Rosenblum. Wow. Did you pay it to say that? That's crazy. That's very kind. It's crazy, but it's my favorite way to learn about a subject matter. I'm learning about so much more now that I can turn this research into like a seven minute podcast that I can listen to just when I'm walking. Did you tell it that I worked at the front desk of a hotel? Dude, the prompt is just make me a podcast about Colin from Colin and Samir. That's it. I may be biased, but I'm on the edge of my seat. I'm hooked. So if you guys haven't checked out Copilot, check it out.
1:10Try it for your research. Try it for getting variations of your titles, your ideas. It's one of my favorite tools on the internet right now for our creativity. And now back to the show. Have Colin and Samir lost their creative edge? Are they just playing it safe now? That's a question we're going to answer today on Creator Support. We're also going to be reacting to one of Mr. Beast's most vulnerable tweets. We're going to be talking about Twitter verification, whether you should buy it or not. And we're going to be starting with a question from our friend Tommy Innit. Welcome to Creator Support, the show where we answer your questions about the business of being a creator.
1:44If you guys make it to the deep end, let us know. All right, so this episode, Cole, we're getting some tough questions for us. Some confrontational questions from the audience. That's what I've been told. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be fun. We're in the hot seat. But why don't we start off a little lighter? I would love that. Okay, so we'll start off with our friend Tommy Innit, who submitted a video question. Great. Hey, nerds, it's me, Tom. And I'm wondering, why aren't other big YouTubers, like, why are they so hesitant to do shorts? You know, they have such a huge byproduct to them. And I get that they're not necessarily always fun.
2:18But because of the kind of ways to get retention, there's so many ways around that to make them so much more fun. Anyway, I just don't get why everyone's not dropping onto them because in my five years of YouTube, I've never seen sub growth like this. Ever. Okay. All right. A lot to absorb there. Yeah. A lot to unpack. Yep. From Tom. Okay. I'm going to start at him saying, I get that they're not that fun. I think that's something that people may overlook when it comes to long form creators who feel like they have to make shorts. or short form, even for you and I, I'm still trying to figure out how I want to tell a story in 30 to 60 seconds, the ways that I enjoy it.
3:04We're finding ways that are like interesting and fun, but I think it's a process for long form creators. It may not come naturally. And so that's part of the reason that you're seeing big creators not post shorts because they're just not used to it. It's not their main expertise. If they're very long form YouTube centric. I would say for me personally, and maybe for us, but when we first started making shorts, fun was at like all time high with shorts. I couldn't believe it. It was liberating. It was like, oh my God, we figured it out. You know, like this is so fun. We're able to have an idea, shoot it with our phone, put it out.
3:40Like for guys who are making hour long podcast episodes, putting out a 60 second video shot from your phone was like really refreshing and very fun. and that rode all the way to like the excitement of things working, like the validation of millions and millions of views. I mean, we did over a hundred million views in shorts last year. Like that was very exciting. And that led us to crazy sub growth. So I understand what he's saying. It's like, there's never been a time where you can make this many videos and the by-product is millions of views or hundreds of millions of views and millions of subs.
4:11Because this may not last. So he's saying, why not take advantage now? Yeah, why are creators not doing it? And get as many subscribers as you possibly can. while shorts are being prioritized and while this is even possible. And what I would say is as I reflect on like, there was a time where we were doing three a week. That was our goal, three shorts a week. And for me, what ended up happening was like, there was probably a mix of our conversation with Hasan Minhaj who really talked about shorts as being this like, we're just feeding into this, you know, YouTube algorithm in this world of like just whatever YouTube wants, we'll do.
4:46but also starting to be a little bit more formulaic with our shorts kind of took some of the innovation out of it and a little bit of just like, I know this is going to work. I'm doing it only because it's going to work. If I can just get 98 % retention by making it loop and keeping it short. And then it was like, the outcome has to be, you know, five to 10 million views and it has to be 30 ,000 subscribers added. And the outcome for me became less fun. The outcome was just like, so performance-based that it wasn't liberating anymore. It was again, one of those like constraining things that happens on YouTube where it's, I have this fun idea.
5:23Let's try it. Whoa, it's working. Now it has to work like this, or it has to one up itself constantly. Um, and then everyone's doing it. You know, you go in the shorts feed and you're like, does my content look exactly like everyone else's? Is everyone, is everyone doing the same thing now? And it becomes less fun. I think if long form creators and I'll throw ourselves into this grouping, truly believed that the subscribers that were added via shorts would significantly affect the performance of our long-form videos. Yeah. Then we would be posting more shorts. And that may be the case. Like adding subscribers from shorts may affect long-form videos positively because from our understanding, they're like a beacon of light.
6:06There are more data points for people, for YouTube, to understand who might be interested in your content. Yeah, I would say there was probably a correlation. of our long-form viewership and our short-form viewership last year. Yeah. But I don't know if creators at scale, especially bigger ones, believe that. So much so that they will prioritize shorts to grow subscribers right now. Right. Personally, I have a little bit of a fear that if we were to grow this year to 10 million subscribers, there's a reality where we could put out a video, a long-form video that doesn't do well. And it sits sub 100 ,000, maybe.
6:41Yeah. Who knows? Like you have like 30 ,000 views. Yeah. but you have 10 million subscribers. Right. I worry the optics of that are, oh, wow, this channel has really lost their way. Yeah. And so that's why right now I'm not super interested in creating shorts that kind of game the system to grow subscribers. I'm interested in posting shorts that I think are valuable, are interesting, but not necessarily ones that are like, subscribes, you can help us hit 10 million subscribers or subscribe so that we can pass this YouTuber or something like that. Yeah, I think the point, something I've talked to Tommy about before, It's like the still today, the social currency of a subscriber count is high.
7:16Like if we had 10 million subscribers, we're in a different category, even if our viewership is like in the hundred, 200 ,000 range, which is kind of strange. Cause I think the metric should be, you know, a community metric of like, what are your engagements? Views per video, comments per video. Are people actually engaging with your content? Are you, are you fostering community? But I do think that the subscriber number still carries a lot of social weight. So it is interesting to think about the concept that we could figure out a way to get to 5 million subscribers this year with shorts. But I agree that that doesn't feel like the optics are one thing, which is very specific to YouTube.
7:53I think that optics matter so much because again, everything is a public view count, public view count, public subscriber count. But also I'm just at a point where it's like shorts that I'm interested in making, I'll make, but I don't want to have a schedule right now of like, we have to make three shorts per week. we made a short last week that was very fun to make that we wanted to make for weeks. We kept talking about it. We were like, we want to talk about AI tools that we're using. And that doesn't really, you know, we could talk about it here on creator support. We could, you know, maybe make a long form video about it, but it feels really well fit for a short.
8:29Yeah. And we had been filming our experience with our phones. Yeah. So we had footage of us trying out AI tools. What's so interesting about now to add to what Tommy's talking about is if you're making short form vertical content, it's not just YouTube shorts that can be posted across TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube shorts, Instagram, right? And maybe Snapchat, Facebook, whatever. Just everywhere. It can be posted everywhere. And that's exactly what we did with this short about AI. What's fascinating is on Instagram, it has nearly 5 million views and has gained us 55 ,000 followers on Instagram.
9:07Which is crazy. We've never really hit Instagram like that before. We never marketed our Instagram account. We actually didn't even post our shorts to Instagram before. No. Yeah, we just never really thought about it. Yeah. Twitter, it did pretty well. TikTok, it has over a million views. And YouTube Shorts, it has 130 ,000 views. It's actually the worst performing on YouTube Shorts because the retention is in the 60 % range rather than other shorts that we've made that have hit the 30 million view range are in like the 90 plus percent retention range. And I think some of the stuff that we kept in there actually wasn't built for YouTube because YouTube is really intense when it comes to give me the information and don't give me much else.
9:48Yeah, we kept in some loose reactions to the AI tools that we were using. Yeah. And maybe that didn't help us. I think that works on TikTok and Instagram because it kind of builds the world out a little bit more. But on YouTube, and I've noticed this, that even Mr. Beast, when he posted TikTok, like he posted one about the fighter jets, which was crazy. Like it was so insane to like think that we're at this world where a creator can be like, I have these two fighter jets and I'm going to see which one of these guys passes out first. It's like a wild concept. And that creator wouldn't think to make that a long form video.
10:22That's not a long form video. It's a crazy concept. It's a crazy concept. But also like, yeah, I'll just make it, you know, 50 seconds. It's just for a short. Yeah. But it was a different version on TikTok than it was on YouTube Shorts, which was so interesting to me. On YouTube Shorts, it was much more condensed. I think YouTube Shorts right now is pure entertainment and you don't really know what you're going to get. Whereas on Instagram, there's this shareable nature to it. Like, I think we have over 100 ,000 shares. Yeah, that's right. And almost 200 ,000 saves. Right. So a lot of people are watching this reel and then sharing it with a friend on the app.
10:54I don't think anyone's really sharing shorts to another channel, right? To another person via the YouTube app. On Instagram, there's this huge culture of DMs. Yeah, true. So it's very shareable. On YouTube, it's like, I'm watching this in a silo just for my own entertainment. I'm not taking it anywhere else. It's really interesting to think about like the DMs as the space on Instagram that you're trying to get to. That's super interesting. So we always, honestly, well, you always think about like every piece of video that we make, we think, could this start a conversation? Totally. But we don't always think about how is the conversation going to take place?
11:26Where's that environment? Where's the environment? Because on YouTube, someone has to kind of take it, share it on Twitter, text it to someone. But on Instagram, it all happens right there. Oh, that's interesting. So maybe like Instagram. Oh, wow. So back to Tommy's question, like why are more creators not taking advantage of this moment? I think it's a whole different format, a whole different creative format. Matt, if you're focused on making really good long form videos, you kind of need someone thinking about shorts and some of the best creators at shorts have a like head of shorts or someone who's, you know, like Ali Abdaal, we just posted this in our newsletter.
11:58He's hiring two shorts editors right now. Like the creators who are doing this well are building out specific teams for short form vertical content. Creators who, you know, aren't posting a ton of them probably don't have a team and are like, when they get excited about one, they'll post it. I mean, that's, that's, that's what I think is going on. And I think that there's some also creators who are just like long form is what I do. You know, it's a totally, it's, it's almost like when I open up YouTube, YouTube shorts and YouTube long form feel like two different apps to me. Although they feel very interconnected now, when you like, I showed you this, when you watch a YouTube long form video on the right side, there's a shorts tab that you can get into as a recommended.
12:40And then you're just in a shorts feed. But then once you get to the shorts feed, you can't go back to long. It's not easy to get back to long. Yeah. Super interesting. So before we move on to the next question, I don't want to miss this. Do you think it has anything to do with money? Like, are we missing that aspect? Oh yeah. Monetization for sure. I just want to say that in this conversation. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's an important point, right? Like I think the reward for shorts, like right now people maybe aren't viewing the, but yeah, I mean like if you gain a bunch of subscribers, there is an opportunity for more monetization.
13:10I guess what people aren't sure about yet is if it converts to long form viewership. Yeah. Cause long format is where you make money on YouTube. Yeah. That's where you make money. It's like, would snap creators be posting snap stories right now? If they were not getting paid. Yeah. The narrative has to be that you can make a lot of money and then people would might do it. Yeah. It's interesting. I think I'm more energized right now about YouTube shorts than I've been in a while. And a lot of that is also because of the cross platform nature of short form vertical content. You can take it everywhere that we can post it everywhere.
13:42And like, I almost feel this level of excitement. Uh, we have it with our podcast with this show, you know, or with our main channel podcast where it's like, it's posted on Spotify and YouTube, which is really exciting. Cause you can be like, Oh, it underperformed here, but it overperformed here. And I've never experienced it where we posted across five platforms and we're like, Whoa, it overperformed here, underperformed here, overperformed here. Like that's a really interesting new thing for us. I think that speaks to the opportunity for cultural relevance. And I think that's another factor that will make creators post short form content.
14:13Yeah. Monetization being one, but there's also this opportunity for cultural relevance, which happens on TikTok, which I think we found with that AI reel on Instagram. And I don't know if creators feel like they're getting tons of cultural relevance from posting a short quite yet. So I think between monetization, cultural relevance. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like, does that outweigh the potential upside of high viewership and high subscriber growth? I guess so. Yeah. To some creators. Yeah. To some creators it does. And maybe it's because again, for us as creators, we might be starting to devalue the subscriber number.
14:48We talked about it last week. It's potential that we're like the difference between 11 million and 12 million. Like, does it actually carry that much currency? Yeah. I don't know. So there's your answer, Tom. Hopefully that was good. We kind of went in a lot of different directions. on that. Tom, let us know in the comments what you think. Tom, you let us know if we answered that for you. Yeah. All right. Here we go. This is our first one that's kind of like a one that I read and I was like, I'm going to look away from this. JM, something helpful. Feels like Colin and Samir are playing it safe.
15:19This is a gripe in the subreddit. I was watching the interview with Van Neistat where Colin and Samir mentioned that they're starting to see more success once they switched from creating art to creating media, aka playing it safe by uploading more general appeal content. Makes me a little sad because I think that's the only way to really succeed on the platform. I do want to validate the boys because I understand they're running a business, but they're only creating to be watched right now, not creating for the sake of creating. What would Naval think? Would love someone who wants more of the filmmaker content back.
15:51Super interesting. Yeah. I, I, you know, I have these feelings sometimes of wanting to experiment on YouTube, uh, and wanting to, you know, do completely new things. But it's something that actually Casey Neistat and Andrew Schultz talked about on, on the episode of flagrant that Casey was on, um, that like what happens when you have something to lose, you know, and, and, and Andrew's talking to Casey about his appetite for risk. And I think, um, as creators, you work really hard in the beginning to build something and then you have something. If you're lucky enough to get it, you have something, but having something means you can lose something.
16:37Yeah. And that is drenched in fear. I mean, we experimented a ton when we had nothing to lose. Of course. Like what, what do you have to lose? And when you and I were the only ones that would benefit or potentially be hurt by what we were putting out. Right. Right. Now we have overhead. We have an office. We have people who work for us and what we do could potentially risk their jobs. Yeah. Our ability to pay for this space. Yes. I do think that that's obviously why it's perceived that we are playing it safe and that. Of course. at times we are playing it safe. Well, there's also a world where we are, right?
17:21Like we don't want to lose some of these things that we have. We don't want to compromise our ability to cover our expenses. We don't want to compromise what we've built. And even creatively, you want to be validated. And the easiest way to be validated is to perhaps repeat something that was validated. Yes, of course. Yeah, as creators and artists, we move in the direction of what works. How we know what works is by validation, whether that's through brand deals like monetary validation, audience validation, you know, growth validation, like any of that validation. We look at those as signals and we take those and we repeat those.
18:00And doing something completely unfamiliar, it becomes way higher risk in your day to day. And we tweeted out this graphic that we made around the single person media company. So basically what we were talking about is like, we talked about this in a past episode. We talked about this a lot. Like a typical company operates like a pyramid with the CEO at the top. If you remove that CEO, you can put it in another CEO, but the functions of the company continue to work. You flip that on its head for a creator run business and you take out the creator and everything falls, right? So everything lies on our shoulders.
18:35You know, the whole way that this company works is based on what you and I are doing. And Mr. Beast actually replied to that tweet with a pretty vulnerable response where he said, yeah, making big budget YouTube content is a huge mental game that's more intense than people realize. Not only do you have tens of millions of fans and the pressure that brings, but also you have hundreds of people and families that literally depend on you for a job. once you start hiring, you can't just take a break. Everything falls apart when the creator disappears. It's like being an elite level athlete and the CEO of a publicly traded company at the same time.
19:14I highly recommend you don't scale your YouTube channel too big unless you have some serious mental toughness. There's a reason that most creators do that and get burnt out and quit. That's a really important response from Jimmy right there. And I think that there's like this desire right now to grow and grow a company and be an entrepreneur and build a business and hire employees and get an office. But I think everyone has to recognize that that does have a lot of impacts and effects on creativity. And it's happened to us, you know, for sure. Also could be bad for your business, I think. For sure.
19:49Yeah. Platforms change. If your interests change, you are no longer flexible. And that's one of the advantages of being a creator is that you start out super flexible. Yeah. I think we're in the business of creativity, not in the business of risk management. And what ends up happening as creators is we sometimes can land in the business of risk management where you're evaluating everything based on risk. Which is not going to produce the best creative. No. Which in turn may hurt the business and may hurt - Because you're not being creative. Your ability to like connect with your audience. So the answer to that, the answer to that is like lowering your overhead to the point where you can experiment and fail because failure becomes super high risk for you.
20:31Right? Like if we spend a week on something and it doesn't pan out, that is very, that costs us a lot. It's now expensive. It's now expensive for us to do that. And that's a problem, right? Yeah. If we invest all of our resources into something for three weeks and it doesn't work. Yeah. That's a big deal for us. Our current solve, at least as we've been talking about it for this issue is to figure out a way to sort of operationalize what would be considered safe videos. Yeah. Which I would consider, I guess, some of our interviews. Yeah. Long-form interviews. Long-form interviews, things that have worked in the past, but they're also enjoyable.
21:08Like, we like doing them. Yeah. But make the process for those easy so that we can free up time to experiment in between. I mean, I think the last time we really experimented was, like, heavily. I would say last year with the Mr. Beast Burger doc, obviously, right? That was like a new format for us. That was a investment, but we kind of knew just based on the subject matter, there was going to be some, there's going to be a positive outcome there, right? Like to the extent, I don't think I fully understood, but it was so fun to do. And it was a, it was a calculated risk. And then I would say this year, we experimented with our Austin Kleon episode on like a new format and bringing in someone who's not a creator to the show and to the main channel.
21:46And I want to continue pushing the bounds and not playing it safe. But there's also a level that we have to like evaluate and base that risk on. And maybe I'm wrong, but yeah, I think some of these questions are really good reminders that we're in the business of creativity, you know? And I think that's so important to recognize, like this world potentially, everything that we're doing two years from now could be a hundred percent different. Yeah. And that's okay, you know, But you have to build yourself in a way to handle that. So yeah, not easy.
22:26Right now, you and I are both doing something that maybe the audience isn't aware of. Does it have to do with our feet? That's right. Okay. We're both wearing the new Marquez Brownlee Adams shoes. I don't know if we're, yeah, okay. I got to lift my leg. That's not easy. Okay. How's this? Can you see? Can you see? Okay, great. If you're listening. This is really hard. You can't see, but we are both lifting our feet above the table. I just want to say these are the most comfortable shoes I've ever worn. This is not a brand deal. No one is paying me to say that, but these are unbelievably comfortable.
23:02And shout out to Marquez and Adams for making these. I think what's really cool about this project with Marquez of launching his own sneaker, if you guys are unfamiliar with it, is like his content is all about reviewing products. creating a product gives him a surface for other people to do the Marquez thing, which is so cool, right? Like you see this and the craving is to like make a review video about it. And I think that's such an interesting thing for creators to do. You know, like I just find that to be so interesting. Yeah. I mean, in our merch review videos, that's one of our criteria, right?
23:40Is the product inherently shareable? Is it easily shareable? And in this instance, I think almost anything physical that Marquez puts out is so shareable because people want to replicate his format with his product. Yeah. I also love it's the M251, which is cool because two minutes and 51 seconds was the time code of his first tech video on YouTube. That's cool to bring that to YouTube. How long are these shoes available? I have, I think only three weeks or something. It's not an indefinite amount of time. No, they're sold out though. Which I think is the right move. Yes. This is not, from my understanding, Marquez launching a shoe company.
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24:18Yeah. Right. This is something that he's passionate about that he wanted to make and have out in the world. Maybe there will be other versions of this shoe, but like it's a partnership with Adams. It's not, you know, the MKBHD footwear company. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Which I, which I also like. I think that's right for him. I mean, you know, primarily reviews tech and is now reviewing cars. Yeah. If he was to do that, he'd have to hire like a head of product development and someone who came from like Nike or Adidas to like actually run a shoe company. You don't want to do that. Again, like Marquez is someone who fits really well into that world of keeping himself nimble enough to innovate.
24:57Yeah. He's launched a studio channel. He's launched a autofocus channel. Yeah. He's launched a podcast channel, a clips channel with the podcast channel. His main channel is evolving and he's doing different stuff outside of tech now. He may be stressed, but he doesn't look stressed at all. And I appreciate that as an audience member. Totally. That, you know, there's so much joy in what he continues to make. Yeah. And that's why he's making it. He values simplicity in a way that I really admire. We had coffee with him in Dallas recently. And like, I just think Marquez is like, the reason he's been around for as long as he's been around is because he has simplified his business.
25:38Like think about the opportunities he's had over the years to release like his own custom product. But he said no. And we talked about that with him. Like he's like, I make videos. Like I'm a video producer. Yep. And he's kept things very simple. I mean, life is complicated enough. Yeah. You know what I mean? But keep it simple. He's a great example of like, how do you innovate? You keep everything simple. Yeah. Okay. Laura Try. She said, question for Colin and Samir. did you consider putting creator support on your main channel do you ever wonder maybe these videos would get more views if they were on the main channel as a long time viewer of your videos i would have watched these videos on your main channel it would have made sense to me but then again i love what you guys do i'm just trying to figure out what the line is what counts as a main channel video and what would count as a second channel video for creators without a podcast thanks for all your work this is a question that i see often yeah and when i read it i turn my head and I look away and I move on.
26:38It's another question we've been avoiding. To whatever's next because it irks me a little bit. There's some truth in it. Yeah, it was a viable option for us. Especially in terms of the amount of mind share I spend thinking about, are we doing too much? Should we not have launched the creator support channel? Would everything actually have been way simpler this year if we just kept it on our main channel? Yeah, I think about it as, you know, I oscillate on this one or I did a lot when we first launched, but I do think about, you know, what strategically, how I think about 2023 for us is segmenting our audience.
27:17So going like last year was about building the biggest possible audience. This year in the way I think about it is segmenting our audience into different intimate groups. And this group that is a part of the creator support audience is very intimate. And I kind of wanted to place them in a different location. You know, it's, it's almost like if there's a big, you know, a big convention hall and there's almost like a, not a VIP area, but like a, a area for members of something else. And you go from like a hundred thousand people in a convention hall to, to, you know, a hundred people in a small space, that space is really intimate.
28:00And I do think space matters, like where you hang out and what you can post there and what you can do in that environment where there's a hundred people is very different than how you want to engage the a hundred thousand people. And so the intention of the show is to actually have a more intimate connection with people to be able to open up and talk about this type of stuff that applies to us and the intimate group that cares about this. And we are seeing it in the analytics of the channel. Like I was showing you, it's well over 50 % of our views are coming from subscribers, closer to like 80 % of the views are coming from subscribers on this channel versus on the main channel, which in a given week, if we have a short that pops off or a video that pops, we can be like sub 10 % views from subscribers.
28:44It's nice to build something that's not algorithmic or that doesn't necessarily require the algorithm to do a certain type of work to reach this crazy amount of audience. With this new channel, we have the same RSS feed, so not too much has changed, hopefully, for the audio listeners. And now on the YouTube side, thumbnails are pretty easy. The goal here is that if they see your face and my face at Mike's and they like it, then they'll click. It's not as much about like, did we really grab you with the thumbnail? I do think this is a conversation that happens more inside creator offices and studios and is more complicated than it needs to be.
29:30And I call this second channel syndrome. I called it that right when we launched. I wrote a LinkedIn post about it. Just like this syndrome that you have where you're like the main channel has become this thing in my mind. It's become this monster, this beast in my mind. And I kind of need a separate space away from it. And I think that's just what happens. Like I think if these were on the main channel, I would have a different relationship with the viewership number. With the performance. Yeah. And what's nice is I have just incredible gratitude for the people who listen and watch this show.
30:05You know, like I just look at it and I'm like, wow, that's incredible. But if it was on the main channel, I would have a different relationship with it. I would be trying to figure out ways to optimize it and get more viewership and figure out what we need to do to build it to, you know, at least 100 ,000 people listening to every episode. No shot. I'm putting a snorkel on. On the main channel. 50 minutes into a video on the main channel. People were upset with me about that. Yeah. That I didn't. You didn't really. I didn't really react to it. You didn't really react to it. I didn't know what to do with it.
30:32Yeah. Yeah. you were too worried about was this strategically the right move no i was just kind of like you didn't like it i don't know it's fine you don't have to like it you know it was like a gag that i was like that's pretty good you didn't like pretty good yeah i mean like it's like okay come on you know but you know maybe all the spirit has been ripped out of me you know like i don't know maybe i'm a shell of myself in the subreddit that was like what happened to samir is like come on samir yeah like and it's a screenshot of me with the snorkel the guy was just like moving forward. And you are just looking elsewhere.
31:03You could not have a care in the world about it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we're different. We're different people. We are different people. We have very different comedy. Extremely different. Really? Dude. Sometimes I'll send you like a funny meme and you have no reaction to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's why you're very crass. I'm not crass, Colin. And on the nose, which is why I thought you would have liked the snorkel. It's pretty obvious. It's just like... Wow. is this an insult? Are you insulting me? Is your comedy not crass? If I were to open up TikTok or Instagram on your phone would I not find the equivalent of like fart jokes?
31:43No. Come on. This is a bold face lie. Bold face lie. I watch things that are objectively funny. Period. Next question. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Agree to disagree. Okay. So there was a situation that happened on Monday of this week where you bought Twitter blue. Yeah. And then tweeted out like that it was a trend to watch and, and echoed a conversation that we had about how like platforms are becoming small business software. Yeah. How we pay for Slack, we pay for Adobe, whatever. And now, you know, meta verified is 1499 and you pay for increased reach Twitter blue, you pay for increased reach, the ability to edit, that now like creators are going to start to be charged for the services that prior to that, we just made content and that was it.
32:34There is a radical difference between you and I, which is I am constantly plugged in to just the general meta. Yeah. And you can be plugged out sometimes. I'm more of a weekend Rick Rubin. Yeah. You're out of the meta. Yeah. And over the weekend, you missed that the meta was moving in a direction of like buying the blue check was like a pledging allegiance, pledging allegiance to Elon Musk and his army and his kind of like ideology and just being like, I'm against everyone else. And I'm with this guy. And what I did not. So, okay. So I put out this tweet and maybe read the response. I want to read this one that, well, there was many responses, many responses, but there was many responses that had this same, uh, you know, flavor, some worse than others.
33:21Um, Let's read one of the ones that hurts. This one's not that bad, but it said, I thought you guys were smarter than this. Still love you guys, but I would like you to defend why it's worth it on the next creator support. I am no great debater, but I think Charlie summed it up perfectly. He posted a moist, critical video where, I mean, the general sentiment of creators is like, don't pay the$8 to this guy. Like he's ruining the platform, right? His ideology is messed up. And if you pay for the blue check mark, you're sort of pledging that like you kind of agree with him. And what I didn't realize, he did some messed up stuff.
33:54This is what I didn't realize, uh, was that over the weekend, I guess he was verifying accounts over a million, some of which were people who were deceased. Yeah. Chadwick Boseman, Chadwick Boseman, LeBron James, who famously said, I'm not paying eight bucks. And then all of a sudden was verified and people were making it really clear that they weren't paying the eight bucks. They just, it just happened to be verified. Hassan Piker. Um, so just like, he's using that as like, Elon is using that as marketing, marketing essentially for Twitter blue. Look at all these big creators. They all have Twitter blue.
34:26You should have it too. I missed that. Timing matters. Timing matters. So Monday posting being like, check out this new trend to watch. These blue checks where they're going to be everywhere. Everyone pay it bucks was very much the antithesis to the general conversation. I think what people would have expected of us. Yeah. And so, yeah, there was a lot of like, why'd you do this? So I do think it's important to be like, Like, cause I'll sit here and say, I did it. I, I defend that. I agree that, that we should pay for it. And not because I agree with, like, I probably would have done it in silence.
35:06Yeah. I didn't, I just thought this is an interesting thing that's happening in the greater economy right now. $8 a month. I'm interested in paying for it and seeing what it's actually like to have that type of transactional relationship to a platform. Yeah. Do I feel like we actually do have increased reach? Yeah. What's it like to edit a tweet? Yeah, does anything actually change? Yeah. Yeah, it'd be really interesting. Do we pay for MetaVerified? No. I'd be really interested to experiment with that and be like, does that actually change? You know, I do think we are running a business. So, you know, the reality is if that is a honest reality that eight bucks a month creates increased reach, that's the only reason I will defend why we would pay for it.
35:48Of course we'll pay for it. Right. We run a business that's based on our content reaching people. Yeah. So if we're at a point where without$8 a month, our content won't reach as many people, then that's a nominal fee for us to pay as a business. Um, you know, I, it's unfortunate that it represents like pledging allegiance to, to someone's ideology. Um, cause I don't want it to carry that much weight anymore. Like I, it's amazing that he made this thing carry so much weight. Um, like the blue chat carries so much weight in a different direction of just like your notable person. Is it, is it right that John and Hank Green have left Twitter?
36:24I think John Green definitely has left Twitter. Yeah. I think they said that for sure, but I don't know if they actually, cause Hank is very much on Twitter. Yeah. I've read many of Hank's tweets. Okay. So maybe it was just John. Yeah. Um, but I wonder for you and I, this is such a unique scenario where, you know, the head of a platform as a public figure who was also a bit controversial. Yeah. What would he do that would make us stop posting on Twitter? And if that happened on YouTube, what would Neil Mohan have to do that would make us stop posting on YouTube? Is there, is there something egregious?
37:00Yeah. But I, yeah, maybe I'm, but like, would we shut down our business if it was YouTube? That's hard. That's hard. Like imagine truly if Neil Mohan did something. That would be really hard because That's our entire business. Yeah. I think it would have to be like, yeah, that's, that's hard. I mean, like it would be impractical for us to do that at this moment. So I don't know. I don't know what would have to be done, but that it is a very confusing thing now that like you can have a public figure who's divisive running a platform. And making moves, like making changes quickly. And then your backing of those moves or your participation in that move suggests your backing of this individual, which is really a very strange thing to, to, to move towards, you know, like that.
37:44I don't, yeah, I don't know like that. Like, I mean, if Adam Masseri does something strange, like I don't feel like it carries as much weight as Elon Musk. You know, Elon Musk is such a polarizing figure that it's different right now. So I think that's that like pledge of like, like I'm with this guy is very significant on Twitter comparatively. If Neil Mohan did something, I think it'd feel different. It wouldn't feel as, I think another difference is publicly traded versus privately held companies. A publicly traded company like YouTube is so different than a private company. Elon can do stuff without like border proof.
38:20Like he can just kind of do whatever. Whereas in another setting, like - They're worrying about the stock price dipping. If Neil Mohan did something, yeah, it would impact the stock price. He would be removed. they would put someone else in, they'd make a statement. Like Elon's just tweeting at people crazy things. And it's just like - Yeah, it's in the best interest of most of these publicly traded platforms for the person at the helm to be almost invisible. Yeah, for sure. And if they are visible, like Adam Aseri, it's to be very down the middle and mild. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of Elon, do you see that Grimes thing?
38:54That Grimes will give you 50 % royalty to make a song with her AI generated voice? Yeah. Pretty interesting. Getting ahead of what happened with Drake basically. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's wild. That'd be like, I mean, one of the craziest things I've seen on the internet is the Joe Rogan AI experience. One of the craziest things. It's a YouTube channel that is AI generated versions of the Joe Rogan podcast. There's an episode with him and Sam Altman, who's the founder of OpenAI. And I clicked on it and I started listening and I was like, whoa, this is crazy. This really sounds like Joe Rogan and Sam Altman.
39:27And then And Joe Rogan asks him a question about how chat GPT works. And then I just started listening. And I was just like, now I'm just listening to this podcast and it's actually like good information. Does this matter that it's AI generated? And I think what Grimes is suggesting is like, that world is coming really fast. So why not just ride the wave and be like, my voice is now open. Use my voice and I'll take 50%. And the best stuff will rise to the top. Best stuff will rise to the top. Potentially people start creating with it on TikTok. It becomes a trending song. That's crazy. There's loyalties to be had there.
40:01And the stuff that's not good, she's, I guess, not concerned about like brand risk. It just won't be seen, won't be heard. I think maybe what she knows is there's no choice. There's no choice. It's coming no matter what. There's no choice. Like look at what happened with Drake in the weekend, right? Like he doesn't have a choice if that's made. So if you have no choice. Doesn't have a choice right now, you would hope that at some point there. Yeah. I mean, obviously artists, a lot of artists and record companies really are trying to figure that out. if people start taking our voice, you know, and making podcast episodes with other people, like, like what happened with like the Joe Rogan AI experience.
40:37And like, I don't know. It's like, what's going to happen? You know, it's going to be so strange. It's going to be like Colin and Samir and the weekend, which would be cool. You know, I don't know if that would ever happen. I guess that's maybe I'm being presumptuous here. Yeah. I mean, maybe if there were safeguards around what AI version of me could say, right. I might be more okay with that. Yeah. But it would have to be pretty regulated. Yeah. Okay. Question from Drew Little too. In terms of how the pod has changed since you guys started doing video, I think the major thing is that you've niched the format and no longer discussed the BTS of you guys trying to build your channel, find your voice, start a business, et cetera.
41:16Sometimes I mourn that loss, but I also think creator support is such a valuable thing for the community as a whole that it's probably worth the trade-off. Hmm. Interesting. This is something I thought about a lot when we added video to creator support. The dynamic changes completely. I'm so incredibly aware of this camera that's right in front of me, right? Like I'm so incredibly aware, not only of the camera, but what it suggests that it's going to go on YouTube, you know? And that changes the way that I speak. It's much easier for it to be clipped, to be shared, to spread across the internet.
41:50Yeah. And when it was audio only, it's like, there's just such a different relationship. and I did feel more open. I did feel like I could talk more about things that I was thinking, things that I, that were personal to me and weren't necessarily, um, about the audience. But when I come onto YouTube, I feel so much pressure in the fact that you clicked on this video to get value. And I want to make sure you get value. Whereas for myself as a podcast consumer, or when I click on a podcast, I am so incredibly relaxed with the decision I just made. I'm not one foot out the door. It takes me so much to move away from a podcast.
42:34Like it has to be so uninteresting for me to be like, I'm now done listening to this and I'm gonna move to something else. If I click on a podcast episode on Spotify or Apple Pods, I'm listening to that podcast. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two-factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it. Guaranteed or your money back.
43:10Save up to 40 % your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast for 40 % off. Terms apply. I think that's valid criticism, though. Yeah, agreed. whether we're uploading to YouTube now or not. Yeah, I agree. And specifically because you and I really enjoy talking about the behind the scenes of the business. Yeah. That was why we enjoyed doing this podcast when no one was listening at all. That's true. So I think we have to respect that, that we like doing that and not worry about, is it delivering fully on creator support, answering questions every time? Totally. Yeah, I agree. I think it's really good to hear this feedback from the audience.
43:50You know, like I think that is one thing that YouTube has opened up is that you can comment directly here now. You can tweet at us. There's a lot more people now who can give us feedback on what this show should be. We always talk about like as creators, we're building our content with our audience, not for our audience. And so these questions or these even topics that we've kind of been like reading but not addressing head on. even reading these out loud now I'm like yeah you know what it's really good to hear this from the audience and recognize like I do want to talk more about what's happening here like the behind the scenes of how we're moving what we're planning on doing this year I'll also acknowledge that before video and even before 2022 when our YouTube channel popped off we were doing a lot of really weird interesting strange things to make creativity a career that were pretty fun to talk about and unique on our podcast.
44:46Like we pitched a show to Justin Bieber. That's true. That is an episode. That's an episode of our audio show, audio podcast. That is so bizarre and unique. Yeah. You know, it's weird. We're not doing weird stuff like that as much anymore because we're much more in a system now. Ah, that's true. That's true. You know? Yeah. We were, um, flying to go put on an event with yes theory and Will Smith. Like there were just, there was, there were more bizarre things happening. Yeah. Pitching a show to Justin Bieber was one of the strangest life experiences. I was thinking about that the other day. Like we were in a room with four people and one of them was Justin Bieber.
45:21Yeah. And we were looking at him in the eyes, pitching him a show. Like that was such a strange experience. Seated right next to me. It was such a strange experience. Like reflecting on that, I was like, what an odd life experience that was. Um, yeah, I agree. I think that that all comes back to this concept of like risk, right? Oh, that was an incredible risk. We spent, we spent money creating a sizzle reel for that show. We spent time creating a deck. We spent weeks of our life on this pitch. We went to go pitch it to him. He liked it, but nothing ever came of it. Right. There was no reward for that risk outside of, you know, the cool opportunity.
45:56It will forever just be a story. And we learned from it. We learned from it. But now to do that for a couple of weeks, we just have such major implications on the business. Yeah. You know, and that is such an interesting thing of like the zero to one of building something is so much more, you know, twists and turns and like, just, whoa, that's crazy. Like this connects to that. And this connects to that. Whereas the one to 10 is like, this needs to build on top of that, which needs to build on top of that. And again, maybe we just haven't experienced it in the way that other people do, where you can be innovative and creative within a system.
46:28Yeah. But it is very unfamiliar to us. Like this is unfamiliar territory. We've typically been in those zero to one spaces where we take something, we build it. And then, you know, our first company, we sold it. We take something, we build it. And then, you know, we do something completely different after. Yeah. This is the first time that we're in a one to 10 and it's fully run by you and I. Yeah. It's super interesting. So yeah, this is good. This is a good reminder to be creative. So guys, keep these, keep these coming. You know, I like, I like the criticism. I like these questions. You know, there was another one that, that, you know, asked, is the Colin and Samir second channel better than the CNS main channel?
47:06The answer is yes. CNS take more risks on the second channel or more open and authentic, which raises the question, why do second channels oftentimes seem better than main channels? We kind of answered that already. Yeah, we ran into that. Just saying this is a strange creative quirk on YouTube. I agree with that. It is strange. But it's the plight of like building a creative business. It just is. So good reminder from all of you. There is a question as well from Raghav Malhotra, who says, how many subs does this channel need to get for Samir to shave his beard? Now, I just want to be clear. I haven't shaved this beard off since 2017.
47:39I don't think I'll even recognize you. Since 2017. That was the last time I shaved it off, like fully. My skin has not seen the sun. My face skin. I don't even know what it's going to look like. So how many subscribers does the creator support channel need to get? 50 ,000. 50 ,000. 50 ,000. That's all, guys. Not so much to ask. It feels pretty attainable. Maybe not like in a short window, but it feels attainable. I also, because like Raghav asking this question, I'm like, I should probably air out my skin. Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah. I think it's been, I think it's time to get a refresh. It's been, uh, we're, we're nearing like seven years of not shaving this beard off.
48:13So your chin hasn't seen the sun. No. In seven years. In seven years. Does that mean we're in the deep end that we're now talking about how much sunlight your chin has gotten? Are we there? Guys, this is why this show can't go on the main channel. Cause we're, we're talking about how my chin hasn't seen the light of day, you know? Yeah. So, so we are in the deep end. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep in the deep end. Good, good, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. Okay, cool. There is a question from you slash burrito planet on the subreddit. That's a deep end related question.
48:49Who's talking about the fact that we are launching our discord. Yeah. And that discord is going to be launched very soon, actually. I'm super excited for that. It's another example of like my desire this year and our kind of strategic desire is to curate more intimate environments for our community, right? So creator support channel, more intimate environment. Now, how do we take that a step further? Well, let's build an environment where we can actually hang out and chat and talk. And that's going to be a discord. So the question is that what we found out is there's already a Colin and Samir discord.
49:22It's closed. It's for fans of the show. And it's a very like intimate group of 70 members that seems really cool, but they're not letting anyone else in. Yeah, as of right now, they're not even interested in more people joining that Discord. Yeah. Because they want it to be intimate. Because they want it to remain intimate. And we met some of them at VidSummit who actually met each other and traveled to VidSummit together. It was so cool. But their question is, what do they now call their Discord server? Because that's currently called Colin and Samir. So some ideas, you know, might be nice. Yeah, I would say if you're listening or you're watching, comment and idea for what they could change the name of their Discord to.
50:03Because our Discord will be the Colin and Samir Discord. Yeah. Could be the deep end, you know? Who knows? Could be... Samir's beard? Could be, yeah, the beardies. Yeah, sure. Could be unofficial Colin and Samir. Could be anything, guys. I just think it's cool that you have it. Yeah. That's cool. And for everyone who wants to join that one but can join that one, we are launching one very soon. That link, we'll let you know immediately here on Creator Support once it's live. There'll be a link to it. And we are working very hard with our mods right now, the mod squad, on working on the channels, getting it all set up.
50:37Very excited about that. So thank you for asking these questions. This was a really actually fun and illuminating episode to talk about some of the stuff that we've been thinking about. There is more content coming to the main channel now. And we, you know, expect us to experiment there. Before we go, any gripes from you? Yeah, I do. Really? So, you know, when you take a group photo and it's a pretty large group and someone uses the wide angle camera to shoot this photo, I always try and fight for a middle spot in the group photo because I don't want to be warped. I don't want to be immortalized as a distorted guy.
51:13Okay. But somehow, some way I always end up on the edge at the end of the group with my hand like this one shoulder is massive my face is stretched i'm in this wide angle warp it's just a gripe that like i shouldn't have to fight for the middle spot you don't really give me fringe of the photo energy i know but i expect you to be a guy who fights his way to the middle i've been ending up on the fringes you're the you're the first guy to lay down in front i know but then put his hands up and then everyone's like oh okay all right i guess by the way i'm not that guy you don't know me man you have that energy yeah i have that energy but i don't do that at 33 years old.
51:51But you can accept you have the energy. I don't do that, man. Yeah, but - So it surprises me that you would accept I end up on the edge of the wide angle and I'm just warped. And now, when I look back in time, people will be like, what was up with that guy's shoulder? Why was his left shoulder so much bigger than his right shoulder? Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Support. If you guys have questions, you can put them here in the comments. You can tweet them at us. You can put them in the subreddit and soon you'll be able to pop them into our Discord server. All right, we'll see you next week.
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On this episode of Creator Support, we're answering questions we've been avoiding and talking about Shorts with TommyInnit.
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