Buying and Selling 2025 Creator Economy Trends

31:23We know from experience that it is hard to find a guest that no one else has already had on their show. So it's become harder and harder to differentiate yourself. but I am buying Theo Vaughn and Theo as a, as a major like next Joe Rogan, a massive viewership interview podcast. So it's a little bit conflicted. Like I'm buying Theo Vaughn, but I'm selling the format. Well, okay. So break that down. I think you're, what you're selling is the, the lack of host perspective because what matters about Theo Vaughn is I will listen to like i was so excited to see timothy chalamet on theo vaughn because i want to hear how theo vaughn talks to timothy chalamet and how timothy chalamet reacts to the character that is right so i think like the world of me chasing the guest is gone like i it doesn't really matter to i'm not following timothy chalamet on shows uh i am looking for the host and i think that is the way of the future is choosing based on the host, not the guest.

32:38So our hope has to be with our show when we have guests on that people are like, oh, even if that guest has been on five pods, I want to see how Colin and Samir talk to them. Not just I want to see that guest, which I think is dramatically different from what it was five years ago. I think people would search a guest name and go, I'm down to just watch that guest wherever they are. So, yeah, but I'm buying Theo Vaughn. I think Theo Vaughn is one of the best long form pods right now. And I think he's like really emerged as a, as a top tier show for sure. All right. I got to give you one more, just one topic to throw out.

33:14Just based on that celebrity YouTube channels. Are you buying or selling? Celebrity YouTube channels. For context, Chris Hemsworth launched this year. Tom Brady launched this year. Obviously, Cristiano Ronaldo with the third most subscribed to channel on YouTube of the year. We're seeing more celebrities come onto YouTube. Are you buying or selling celebrities? As a trend, I am buying it. As if it works. Does it work? If it works, I'm not so sure.

33:47That to me is if it works is going to be consistent with what it's always been, which is like if the celebrity actually cares and wants to be making YouTube videos and wants to be a part of the ecosystem and has a team to support it and can handle it, then it works. But how many celebrities have, I mean, a lot of celebrities have started YouTube channels. How many are still around? So, yeah, I'm buying it as a trend. I think 2025 is going to be a year where we see a large quantity of celebrity YouTube channels get launched. What I'm also buying is, alongside that, I'm buying the mid-tier creator getting hired by that celebrity.

34:30So the person who's dedicated their time to YouTube but has maybe not yet solved how to really explode their channel, I'm buying them getting hired by the celebrities. I'm not buying that. You're not buying that? No, I think it's smart for them to do, but I'm not buying it. You think they're hiring a production company to make their channel? All these celebrities have their own production companies. There's no way. Yeah, but they're hired. Maybe they'll contract this person. They have to hire a native person. I think nobody's going to want. I agree with you. They should. But you saw Ronaldo's channel with the intro mock-ups.

35:01Nobody means an outlier. They all have their own. Tom Brady has a... They all have production companies. And yeah, I think they will continue... They've got to hire somebody at that production company. I agree with you. I just don't know if I'm buying it. I agree with you. They should. Okay. It's my advice to them. Yeah, that's advice. I'm not buying that. As the trend emerges, please hire a native YouTube creator. Because some of those native YouTube creators going into next year, one thing I'm selling is the brand integration on YouTube as we know it. I think it's going away. I disagree. But I think it's changing.

35:38I think it's changing. Sorry. I think it's changing. I think brand deals will be the lion's share of everyone's revenue. But I think they're going to change. I don't know how they're going to change. but I think they're going to change. I think brands are getting sharper with how they want their return to feel with a creator. I think they're getting smarter about how they want to spend. I think they want to spend into specific communities. I don't know how that's going to play out across a ton of creators. But the reason why, I think as brands start to experiment and figure out what's next for the brand deal on YouTube and the brand integration on YouTube, I think there's going to be a mid-tier creator that gets really impacted by that.

36:16and that AdSense is not enough to support them. And I think they'll be looking for gigs to do the thing that they know how to do with someone else. I think the trend is less creator as influencer integration, right? Where it's like, let's integrate with this creator and show up on their platform more. Let's use this creator as a production company. Yeah, potentially. And we even saw YouTube started doing it with creators at Made on YouTube this year when they made a bunch of announcements. Instead of making the videos and just sort of putting creators in them, they contracted the creators to make the videos for the presentation.

36:56So like Docs made a really cool video. Natalie Lin made an incredible video that showed during the presentation. And that's very different from the year before where it's like YouTube hired a production company or had a company make these product announcement videos and they put creators in them. I think that is the future of like maybe not watching an integration on Gox's channel, but it's like Gox for Gap. And he makes like an entire video series for Gap. Right. Sort of filling that void of like the creative agency for certain creators. All right. I'm going to play our first voice note here.

37:32OK. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. One more prediction based off the celebrity YouTube channel. I think Timothee Chalamet is going to return to YouTube. People may not know it, but when he was a little kid, he had a video game modification channel where he would modify video game controllers, and it was a faceless channel, but you could hear his voice. And just seeing what the press circuit he did for a complete unknown, I think he's going to return to YouTube and continue to make video game content. I don't think he is. well i think that's my prediction he's returning to his youtube channel i think he's one of the few movie stars of our era and i think that what's made this press tour special is the scarcity of him and i think coming less scarce i know but i think if he becomes really less like way less scarce he's no longer a movie star i actually think though he'll he'll do it as a headline like as like a stunt like he will release a video on his on his old youtube channel Yeah, that's a stunt.

38:39All right, let's hear it. Let's hear it from, all right, here we go. What's up, guys? So here's my prediction. I think Silicon Valley is going to get into the creator economy in a way that we haven't seen before by bringing creators in-house and brokering deals to give them stock options. And I think creators are going to take it in lieu of pursuing building their own audience, at least for, you know, two, three-year stints. Think about it like, you remember the Zuck effect where when he started getting into Jiu-Jitsu and becoming more personable, like that meme where the stock price has increased, whether or not that's just like a funny correlation, I think it stands that these companies are realizing that the free distribution they can get from bringing in someone who has already proven, you know, that they can build an audience.

39:25Like, imagine if someone was able to get someone as talented as Emma Chamberlain early in her days to help them build their brand and create content for their software. and distribute to an audience, I think it's going to be a really, really powerful distribution method and a way to subsidize your traditional sort of paid advertising customer acquisition costs. And so that's what I think we're going to see kind of creators in residence just being brought into companies and absolutely cooking. So basically what Michael's saying is that Silicon Valley tech companies are going to bring creators in-house and give them equity in their startups for potential outsized returns on their content creation versus them having to build their own media businesses.

40:10And there's a really interesting case study actually, which is Sandwich Video. Do you remember Sandwich Video? Mm-hmm, yeah. There's essentially an ad agency that was making explainer videos for tech companies in Silicon Valley. And they took equity in these companies because the companies didn't have enough money to pay them their production fee. And some of those companies were like Lyft. and they had massive returns on this equity from being able to storytell around these apps. So generally, I like this trend a lot. And I think if it works, I could see it actually having outsized returns for creators.

40:48The question is how many companies actually could give you a return? And you'll be taking a bet as a creator if you took that job in exchange for equity, but I like it. I like it as a trend going into 2025. Yeah, I think that's very specific though. I think like you need to be a creator who already has a really sound business that, you know, even if you're to take a couple deals that are more equity heavy, you're still totally fine. No, he's saying you get hired, like your salary and stock options at a, let's say like early days of Slack. They're like, we're trying to make workplace software. You're really good at making YouTube videos.

41:24Stop doing YouTube as your full-time job. Take this as your full-time job. Just make content around our software and help us build this. I think that's a really viable option. So like early to mid-tier creators just getting a job? Yes. Like a salary with equity? Yeah. But building their own presence. Like they're building their channel. Let's say they have like a productivity channel like Ali Abdaal. And over the next five years, they build that channel, but they build it in the stability of a company. And with almost exclusive promotion of that software or that product.

42:02yeah yeah i think that's like a super specific type of thing for a creator who matches a certain type of industry and you have to like forecast and trust that creator a lot and same with the company it feels risky to me on both ends you know like i guess it's a as long as you've got a good salary from the company it's better for the smaller to mid-tier creator who's concerned about potentially paying their bills creating solely like I you know look for us right like Samsung was our early partner that came in in a major way with two years worth of deals that really like gave us the footing to continue to build and focus solely on YouTube I don't know if like at that stage I guess maybe we would have taken a deal like you know I'd rather just have probably a brand deal type of arrangement than like a salary and equity.

43:00But for some creators, that might work. You just don't get the opportunity for like dramatic outsized returns in that specific context. Yeah, I guess I just look at equity with such like a skewed perspective that it's just risky and never seldom, seldom pays off. Yeah, yeah, it paid off. I would look, if you're interested in this, I would look into Sandwich Video and check it out. But their model was placing a ton of bets across a ton of companies. Yeah, yeah, it was like a portfolio. Yeah. Yeah. Like to go all in with one company, you got to be pretty. The crazy stories are like the, you know, the muralists for Facebook, right?

43:34Who like is like, yeah, I'll do this creative work in exchange for equity in this company. If you don't know that story, please look into that story. It's crazy. All right. Play another one. Mitchell Pelkey here could be the longest Colin and Samir fan actively watching a little buying and selling for you in 2025. We're going to go selling first. selling all videos under 20 minutes. I know it doesn't affect you guys because of your format, but I truly feel any videos under 20 minutes are really not acceptable on YouTube anymore, especially under that 13-minute range I feel like is dead on YouTube.

44:14Buying, daily vlogging, and now listen to me here. I know daily vlogging has been dead on YouTube for a bit, but we have seen some people do it. we saw Kelly Wakasa we saw Iraq do it last December finished it with Times Square doing the pizza challenge but I truly feel we are never really going to see that again from some of these big creators it's just not a thing anymore obviously the godfather Casey Neistat did it back in the day 2016 but I feel like that's six feet deep in the grave let me know pumped to hear this on the next video. Hope you guys have a great 2025. Wait, is Pelkey buying or selling daily vlogging?

44:52He's selling the daily vlog. He said he thinks he can't come back. It'll never come back. But didn't he say something I'm buying or, or no. Oh wait, no. He said he's selling videos under 20 minutes, under 20 minutes. Yeah. And then I thought he said he was buying the daily vlog. That was, that was a bit confusing, but buying daily vlogging. And now listen to me here. I know daily vlogging has been dead on YouTube for a bit, but we have seen some people do it. Okay. I think it's very confusing, but let's talk about both subjects there. Yeah. All right. The first one is videos under 20 minutes. I think he's right.

45:27I'm also selling videos under 20 minutes on YouTube. I think if you are a creator going into 2025, you need to solve how your videos are 20 plus minutes, largely because of connected TV viewership. And I think also just the fact, the sheer fact that like longer watch times build deeper connections. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think the trend will continue to get longer. Daily vlogging. The one thing I will say there is I agree with them. I think daily vlogging on YouTube, it's tough to imagine it come back. But like Kai's subathon, is that not like the modernization of daily vlogging? Like every day live?

46:09It probably is. I just can't speak to that as a consumer. Like I was a daily vlog consumer of Casey. I was watching every single day. It was a huge part of my routine. When Kai or any of these streamers do subathons and they're live every day, I'm not tuning in. That's like not native for me. So I can't really speak to like what that experience is like. Like, is that a daily vlog or is it really just like a variety show? And how long are you actually watching every day? I don't know. Or are you just waiting for the clips? I think the question there is, are we buying appointment viewing? Because what the daily vlog was, was daily appointment viewing.

46:47So like, is appointment viewing on YouTube going to be a thing in 2025? Meaning when someone says like, Wednesday night at 5pm, I'm dropping this thing? Or does that just not matter? no I think that matters I think it matters to core fans even with you know Jake Shane Jake and his therapist podcast like he premieres all of them at I think 7pm whenever they come out and he uses the premiere function on YouTube so you know when the episode is dropping and you can click to be notified to tune in exactly at that moment and I think he's doing that because he likes TV he's a fan of appointment viewing from speaking with him, but I do think that's a trend we'll continue to see is eventizing and making sure people are watching it at the same time.

47:33I think, sure, it may not be in the millions, but for Jake, let's say one of his episodes gets upwards of a million views, even if he has 10 ,000, 15 ,000 people watching when it's live, that's still 10 ,000 to 15 ,000 people who care enough to be there at the exact same time, experiencing it at the same time. So I think it's helpful for community building to have appointment programming. So there's another subject I wanted to talk about, which is serialized content on YouTube, if we're buying or selling it. Drewski has a show called The Coulda Been House, which I think is kind of like making the band.

48:13But these like the drops of shows, like and serialized content where it's like episode one through episode four like is that real are we really going to see that going into 2025 or not i think we will but a series on youtube is very different than a series on a streamer or on tv a series on tv is eight to ten episodes generally like a season i think on youtube it really is three max four it's max four i don't think yeah i think like our attention spans our ability to to hang on and you know i realized that a bit with uh tejas's series that we followed about the science of being attractive really easy to know the overall story arc of him as a creator during that time but you could even tell hard for him to hit all of his uh release points because of production he was pushing things back um and that really matters i think if you're going to try and make a run at serialized content appointment viewing you have to be there when you say you're going to be there you know the best way to do it is truly to be like we will be here every wednesday at 5 p.m eastern time and we will not miss like i'm making that promise to you as the creator that that's when you can tune in and i think as audiences we have max like you know two to three weeks in us of following something especially if it's not like you know like a severance or like a squid game season one where you're just like hooked you know who does this surprisingly well is barstool sports they have a series called surviving barstool they've been releasing like reality shows on their channel and they'll push up to like episode 10 episode 12 on these and they'll carry viewership into like 500 to 600 000 sometimes a million people on these episodes so i do think they're like surprisingly impressive with this um and i wonder where some of this serialized content goes um we were at a dinner in new york and i'll i'll never forget about this this is a bit of an offshoot to what we're talking about it just made me think about it but someone brought up the concept of like doordash becoming a streamer and i just thought that was one of the most interesting ideas of like hey you just ordered chick-fil-a it's going to be here in 30 minutes watch this 30 minute episode while you wait yeah that's a crazy produced by doordash produced by doordash right like all the cooking content like nick de giovanni is that like a deep partnership where you get to watch a nick de giovanni video and get hungry while the chick-fil-a is on the way um yeah part of the reasoning i forget who it was who said that at the dinner but part of part of the reasoning behind that too was uh just the sheer number of people who have door dash downloaded on their phone yeah like it's pretty astronomical it's a lot of people and then you partner into that uh companies like door dash or even like big corporate companies like like mcdonald's like the budgets that they have to produce content are just massive it's similar to you know apple getting into the streaming business it's like they can get into the streaming business because the money is just nothing to them to produce shows uh so you know who else has a lot of money for content some of these major major companies yeah totally i think mcdonald's will make a cooking show of some sorts or like a food show of some sort it's like a drive-thru like why would they not make a drive-thru celebrity interview show totally put it out on youtube yeah or put it out through the doordash streaming app and you can order the thing that this like order kevin hart's meal right after you watch it right Yeah.

51:55I want to talk about what I think was probably the YouTube video of the year that came out of nowhere at the end of the year here, which was from Megalab about the honey scam. I'm going to explain it real quick. Okay. Yeah, explain it. I mean, I know what happened there because we talked about it and because we covered it in the newsletter, but I actually have not watched that entire video. I mean, I think that video is on 10 million views in the first five, six days.

52:27It blew me away from how deep he went into this, but also the fact that none of us knew about it. So for context, Honey, which is owned by PayPal, is a browser extension that essentially allows you to find the best deal on a website. If you're checking out on a website, you click this button that says find deals. For me, every time I've used it, it said you can't find it. You have the best deal. You can't find any deals. And you just check out and move on. Now, the significance of Honey in our space is that Honey was one of the biggest sponsors of creators. like i don't know if you remember about honey honey was like mr beast's main sponsor for years big sponsor of lightest tech tips big sponsor of every reputable creator worked with honey and rightfully so if they offered us a deal i'd go these guys are owned by paypal they work with every big celebrity why would we not work with them and i downloaded honey i still have honey as a browser extension uh and sometimes it does work like it does find you deals like it puts on it searches the internet for coupon codes and it'll put on a coupon and, and I have found it actually at times effective.

53:37So here's what the scandal is around it. Essentially, a lot of creators make their money through affiliate revenue, which means like I have a link, you know, you click on that link and I get a percentage of the sale. If you buy something on the other side of that, what honey's doing is essentially, even when I click the button and say, find me a discount, and says you have the best deal, it has now swapped the affiliate commission to go to Honey because I've now clicked a button through Honey. It's attributing the sale to Honey and they're collecting the affiliate commission, not the creator. And that is extremely significant for our space.

54:15It's just something that nobody knew was going on. And what's amazing is like sophisticated creators, you know, like, you know, one thing the creator says in the video is like, they're one of the biggest sponsors of Linus Tech tips. You would think someone at that company would be aware of it or look into how this affiliate structure goes. So I just thought that it hit right during the holidays. And it was just this video that for me was getting texted to me from friends who do not watch YouTube. It made its way around the internet in a way that I just had never seen before. Yeah. I think luckily when I look at that scandal, it doesn't harm consumers because that's when I think you have the biggest issue with a creator marketing a product is when a creator markets something and then at scale, thousands and thousands and thousands of people, if not millions, are using something that is potentially harmful.

55:09It was just bizarre that in this case, it was like the creator who was getting sidestepped and losing affiliate commission. Yeah. It was fellow creators or even themselves. Linus talked about it on the WAN show. He's like, this was like, we lost affiliate revenue. Obviously, we got compensated during the process. Yeah, they got paid for the brand deal. Yeah, but he was talking about how he shared on our show too that affiliate revenue was going down. And he's like, well, this is why. It's crazy. Yeah, interesting. And from what I've heard, that video is very investigative. It's like investigative journalism.

55:46You should watch the video. It's a fantastic video. I would say my two favorite videos during the holidays were that. Let me guess your second one. Yeah, I was going to say. The Sticks video. Yeah, the behind the scenes of them making the Emma Chamberlain video. I thought that was fantastic. Yeah, those Sticks guys are really on to something. Yeah. All right. I have my last or two more buys that I wanted to say before we get into the next one. In-person events slash the New York City creator scene. I actually am buying. And Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest. We're buying the same thing. No, no, no.

56:20You sold it. We're buying it in a different context. No, no, no, no, no. You missed what I was saying. Okay, fine. The in-person nature of that. Like, I really do think in-person events are going to continue going up. That was one of my favorite parts of our year was the in-person events that we worked on. We're working on a bigger one next year now, specifically in New York. and I think that every time we've gotten together in person with people maybe it's still like the post-COVID slingshot of isolation people wanting to be together but I think that events are really going to be a big thing in 2025 but I think they're going to be smaller like I don't think the massive VidCons are as interesting as the niche you know here's 100 like when we do coffee with creators 150 people up to like 300 maybe max 500 but I don't know if like the multi thousand person event is still as interesting maybe I'm wrong but I do think that in-person events are really interesting and then I think the New York City creator scene alongside that is getting really interesting to me like that to me is the heartbeat of emerging creators yeah New York is Hollywood for creators yeah for sure Hollywood is no longer Hollywood yeah because it's in Toronto, Vancouver, and Atlanta.

57:38It's in Toronto. Yeah. Hollywood is in Canada now. Yeah. Which begs the question, what are we still doing in LA? I mean, I'm born and raised here, man. So I can't leave. But you can leave. You can leave. Okay. I'll think about it. My bonus buy is dubbing. I think that, you know, dubbing has kind of been up and down, meaning translating your videos into multiple languages. And I think some creators come to us and they're like, is it really worth it? And sometimes even I evaluate, like, is it really worth it? But as I was looking at the data for our channel, like our longest watch time is in Spanish.

58:12That is crazy. Our absolute like most amount of watch time of our channel, the people who watch the longest are people who watch in Spanish and they watch for an average of 50 minutes. Spanish speakers or Spanish listeners watch our content for 50 plus minutes. and it's not nominal. It's in the hundreds of thousands a month who watch it in Spanish. So I'm buying dubbing in the context of like, you know, global fan bases. I don't know what it means in the context of monetization right now. I don't know. But what I do know is that our content and our content can be kind of like esoteric and, you know, not necessarily for the broadest audience.

58:56But the fact that we could probably now look at our data and go, okay, people in Mexico City watch us. We could pop up an event in Mexico City now. Like that, to me, the future opportunities that it opens up is really interesting. You say you'll never join the Navy. That you've never tracked storms brewing in the Atlantic. And skydiving could never be part of your commute. You'd never climb Mount Fuji on a port visit. or fly so fast that you break the sound barrier. Joining the Navy sounds crazy. Saying never actually is. Start your journey at Navy.com. America's Navy. Forged by the sea. Now that we're on the topic of AI, which I'm amazed we really haven't spoken about AI considering this was the year of AI.

59:47Dubbing's not necessarily AI, but... Okay, you're right. It can be. People do human dubbing. When I think about it, it's mainly AI tools. yeah okay is it crazy to sell ai video creation is that a nuts thing to do no i feel like the whole year you know there'd be new models released from different companies we saw sora recently with their video creation and yes it is impressive but at the end of the day i really want real like with this influx and over saturation of content i just want something that feels real. And it matters to me that the drone shot I'm looking at was actually taken by someone.

1:00:34Maybe that's like a really old school way of thinking, but I think when it comes to animated series, AI is going to be huge AI video creation and like sci-fi over the next year. But I don't know. It just doesn't interest me that much. It feels gimmicky still when I look at it. Yeah, I think that's fair. I think it's in early stages. I think a lot of people have jumped the gun in pushing the models out and pushing everything out. And I don't think we know exactly how it's going to be used yet. In the context of animated series, I am buying more animated content on YouTube. I think the most incredible story of YouTube is The Amazing Digital Circus.

1:01:15I truly believe that's one of the most incredible stories. if you don't know what it is it's an animation studio out of australia who put out three episodes of this show amazing digital circus and immediately got picked up i think by by netflix yeah by netflix they did in the like 300 million views uh on on each of these episodes but there was like obsessive fan created content about the characters that then just generated 25 billion views across YouTube. And I think that the AI supported animated content gets really interesting to me. And then Amazing Digital Circus was also translated into every language.

1:01:57Like, I don't think that, I think that like Jimmy's scale too, Mr. B's scale going from like a hundred million views to 300 million, you know, and sometimes beyond is largely because of dubbing. And I think that those massive IP plays are going to happen in the context of animated shows and global animated shows like Amazing Digital Circus. And I think that might be one of the ways that we see the YouTube world and the Hollywood world engage with each other. And I think a lot of that might end up being AI-supported. But I think AI-supported and AI-created are two different things right now. I'm definitely buying AI-supported.

1:02:37yeah i'm buying ai supported i'm not buying ai created yeah um when it comes to ai supported i'm definitely buying ai editing and this is kind of a crazy thing but like we have been editing so much this year based off of transcriptions so transcribing our episodes uh and then asking ai to like pull out the most interesting moments whether it's for like the intro montage or like questions that are less interesting, moments that we might want to cut. You'd have to imagine there's a time where we just upload all of our footage for a documentary and it runs all the transcriptions and we just do voice to edit.

1:03:21We're like, hey, can you give me a cut of this documentary that's 25 minutes long and it highlights these characters and talks about this. It gives you a really rough V1 that, of course, is not perfect, but it like it takes the role of like the assistant editor i think we're five years away from that maybe three years but uh that is obviously where things are going i think like they have to be going in that direction and i do think actually the ai supported stuff that has happened this year for us i think one of the ones that comes to mind more specifically is like ai supported thumbnail ideation so like that thumbnail we made that was like a uh you know our best performing thumbnail was supported by spotter studio meaning like gave us the idea then you designed it but that's the version of support or like if i've ever run you know some writing through chat gpt and it gives me a v1 and i'm like oh cool okay i can base something off of that i don't look at this as like a doomsday scenario where we're all getting replaced i think when we talk about ai a lot of times we see serious pushback in our comments or on twitter yeah uh as if we're saying that ai is going to come in it's going to replace everyone they're going to lose all their jobs all their creative jobs.

1:04:28I mean, I feel like we've experienced firsthand, like you're saying, it's like, yeah, we use AI to support on writing a script or to support on concepting a thumbnail or to support on crafting edits. But at the end of the day, like the proficiency in Photoshop or in actually knowing how to write or in actually knowing how to edit is still the massive brunt and what really matters. Yeah, that's what matters. Also, like knowing what people connect with, Like knowing how to connect with people is number one. Filter for what people care about is number one. Yeah, knowing what people care about. Like being able to watch a cut of something and go, does anyone care about this?

1:05:06It was one of Linus's 10 laws of YouTube that he shared on our last one. One thing that I really appreciated was information density. What he's talking about is like in a script, looking and going like, is it only the stuff that people will care about? Like cut out everything else. And in order to do that, like you can say that as a law, but you have to have the vision to look at a script and go, okay, which lines do people care about? Which lines do they not care about? That is the skillset still that you have to go, which one's interesting, which one's not. All right, let's play another voice note.

1:05:39I just sent it to you. Okay. Hey, Colin and Samir. It's Heroic. I'm a music producer, podcast host, and content creator. And one thing I'm buying for 2025 creator economy is big budget, big scale creator projects. I'm looking at Mr. Beast Beast games, Markiplier's The Edge of Sleep, things like that that really make Hollywood pay attention to creators and give them a chance for something bigger. One thing I'm selling in 2025 is definitely clickbait or sensationalized YouTube videos. I think their new clickbait feature to try to take down videos that don't deliver is, one, going to work correctly and take down clickbait videos.

1:06:21But then I think there's also going to be a number of creators who are just kind of scared out of clickbait or anything that could be seen as clickbait and really make sure they're authentic and straight to the point with what the video's point is. So the buy is big budget creator projects. Are you buying that or selling it?

1:06:49I'm selling it. I'm selling it. I think we may... Yeah, no, I'm selling it. I don't think many people are going to want to put, you know, the type of money that, like, Amazon put up for Beast Games. I just think it's such an outlier. And, of course, he said Markiplier, but I think across the board, I just don't think we're going to see that many huge types of things like that. Well, let me tell you... I just think there's lower cost ways for bigger streamers to engage with creators and still have a pretty outsized impact. I just think, here's the thing. I'm not sure streamers necessarily should put up that type of money with creators.

1:07:36Meaning, you know, again, Jimmy's an outlier. We can look at what he's doing and go, that's a good sign for the industry. Maybe there's ripple effects there, but it's not what we can do. What we can do is what A24 did with Raka Raka. $4.5 million budget for the movie Talk to Me for two brothers to make that movie. Obviously, they wrote the movie. It's in horror, so typically horror costs less. $4.5 million, A24 puts that up, and then they go out and generate over$90 million with the film. I like a production company putting up the money, like A24, like a studio putting up the money, And I like creators getting large budgets to create and then someone else supporting with distribution and monetization.

1:08:21I really like that. I think the direct-to-streamer relationship could work. You know, like, for example, if Netflix gave us$10 million and they were like, go make an interview show with the top kind of culturally relevant people and celebrities on the internet. I'd be like, okay, great. Let's go do that. I don't know what their performance metrics look like. I don't know what it means to generate an ROI on a$10 million budget for them in that context. But I think what might happen is a production company comes in the middle there and goes, hey, we'll put up the money. Let's go make this interview show and let's go distribute it.

1:08:58There's a bit of loss of control there. Maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. But maybe companies like A24, who we met this year, maybe they step in and play that role of financing interesting creator projects. but in the like in like the one to 10 million range i don't know if we're if it's responsible to go beyond that for certain creator projects i don't know how many like hundred million dollar projects there are in the creator economy i just i really don't think i just think it'll be like a walk before we run type of trajectory it should be as you say sometimes with partners like let's date before we get married type of thing like i think it'll just be it'll move slower and then maybe it'll get to the point where it's a major thing but i just think the question is a little bit slower.

1:09:39It's pretty rare to see what happened with Jimmy and Beast Games and Amazon. Is this a Daniel Ek moment that he talked about on our podcast where he said when Spotify did those deals, like with Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper, the$60 million Spotify deal,$80 million Spotify deal, he was like, the space needed energy. And that's the interesting question. It's like, do the Netflixes, like after Prime Video does this with Jimmy, does Netflix go, hey, we got to create some energy in this space and we got to put our flag in the ground in the context of working with creators we got to make a headline now you know like how do you make a headline after mr b's hundred million dollar show with amazon prime video i mean they did it with jake paul mike tyson wasn't it was not the best experience watching it nor was it like a great fight but they definitely made major headlines with that and brought huge viewership that's true i think more so youtube is going to continue to be focused on making these types of headlines that matter for them.

1:10:35You know, I know a YouTube creator, like winning an Emmy is a really important thing to them. And we saw this year, whether it was Wonderhole from Rhett and Link or Michelle Carey, like we saw with her Black Belt video, like YouTube stepping in and making sure it was shown in theaters. Yeah. And I think we will continue to see more of that because it's just a good part of their narrative. And I do think that is a good, like energy in the space type of move where, you know, I see that and I think, man, I'm jealous. What could we make that could be shown in a theater? You know, what I'm buying is Rhett and Link.

1:11:14I'm buying Rhett and Link. I'm always buying Rhett and Link. Rhett and Link are buying or already bought Hot Ones, which is great. I mean, they were part of the - So we'll buy Rhett and Link and we get a little bit of Hot Ones in that. I'm always buying Rhett and Link. I think in a similar way that people say like never bet against Elon, I would say in the creator space, like never bet against Rhett and Link. Like I think those two guys have such a clear vantage point on what's happening in the world. I think their team is amazing. But I would just never, I would never bet against Rhett and Link.

1:11:46Yeah, Maddie and I watched the Tear Jerker episode. No, no, no. We watched Jason, Kelsey, and his wife Kylie going up against Rhett and Link in terms of which couple knows each other better, whether Rhett and Link know each other better, having worked together for so many years, or whether Jason Kelsey and his wife probably know each other better. That's funny. And it was like a 30-minute episode, and Stevie was basically like the game show host. And it was so funny and so... I was like, this is amazing. These guys, like... And this is just a drop in the bucket of something they made this year.

1:12:23Like, they make so much. Yeah. And it's so consistent and so fun. So, yeah, I'm always buying Rhett and Link. All right. a couple more subjects that we can riff on of buying and selling here. One, India, like the Indian creator economy or Indian audiences on YouTube. It's a really interesting one because in the short term, like I'm buying India as a content market and as a creator hub, but I'm not positive yet how it monetizes. I really am not. I think what Jimmy and Logan and everyone did where they went to India and launched their products as CPG products in that country. Super interesting. I'm obviously, you know, I'm probably biased to it because I'm like really want India to emerge as a cultural epicenter for the creator economy.

1:13:14I think what would have to happen is like a squid game of India coming to America for that to really explode and create like commerce opportunities. So for context, like Squid Games from South Korea, you know, South Korean exports of entertainment into America have been so interesting over the past couple of years. You look at Parasite, which won, you know, an Oscar, you look at Squid Game, like you look at pop music, like, dude, pop music in America, some of the biggest artists are Korean artists. That's crazy. How did that happen? And I think that if that happens with India in a similar way, we will also see it happen across the internet.

1:13:56Or it is the thing that will happen is something from India on the internet will come to America. And the first thing we saw this year was Big Dogs, the hip hop song that blew up from an Indian rapper and an Indian creative group producing that music video. It did over 100 plus million views. It's like the audience is there in India. Like the foundation of the Indian audience is just like absolutely massive. Will it come to America? Will it be able to monetize is the big question. But I'm buying India as like a, I would buy stock in India as a new creative and cultural epicenter of the internet.

1:14:37Yeah. I'll buy as well. You have no choice but to buy. Yeah, I'm buying. You have no choice but to buy. Yeah. If you could leave only one thing that you're buying, one trend with the audience where you're like, hey, listen, we just talked for an hour about all this, but let me tell you the one thing that I'm buying. The one thing that I'm buying? oh man the first thing that comes to mind is theo von yeah i mean that's just also like just trends with what i'm consuming right now so i would say like a year from now i think theo just will be in a totally different stratosphere yeah i think i'm buying um i guess i guess it's so simple but i I would just continue to buy long form YouTube.

1:15:23Like I just, I just would, that, that would be like a stock, like an Amazon that you just keep, you know, spending a little bit every month. Like you're just buying a little more stock constantly. Like I think long form YouTube this time next year will dominate in ways that we just continue. It'll be gradual. We'll be like, Whoa, wow. Long form YouTube videos really have made, like you go back in time from when we started in 2011 and you go to now and you're like the long form YouTube video can really change someone's life, like making long form YouTube videos. And I think that will continue. Like that just will never stop.

1:15:58And I think one thing we might be surprised about is like the loss of power of short form video. I think short form video might lose its power in a year. I think it's already started to lose its power. I think it's great at expediting a conversation very quickly in the moment. But I think from an impact perspective, I think it's beginning to lose its power. All right. Well, we want to hear from you guys. We got a ton of voice notes. We couldn't play them all on this episode. But I'm curious if you guys agree with our buys and sells or if you have other thoughts about what you're buying and selling, tweet them at us or X them at us, I guess.

1:16:38Just X them over. All right. Thank you to everyone who's been watching, listening, subscribing to the show this year. It's been a really big year for us. It's been really crazy. Thank you for sticking with us. We've been doing this for a long time. We're trying out new things constantly. And I think in 2025, our work is to try a lot of new, new things, which might mean that what you're listening to right now, why this is exclusively on Spotify, we might do different things here than we do on YouTube. We're having a lot of fun thinking about different videos we want to make. And some of those don't fit into a podcast format.

1:17:16So we are 13 years into this journey. And all I can say is that as I look at the next year, it's just continuing to be more experimental, just figuring out what do we want to make? Yeah, I feel very grateful to be able to be as experimental as we are grateful to our partners, actually, like our life partners, our lives, our partners in business, and everyone who tunes in and follows us. I know it's very cliche to be like, couldn't do it without the audience. Are you like giving an award speech right now? What's going on? It's just like, I don't know, reflecting it's the end of the year. And I do feel incredibly grateful to get to do this.

1:18:00And every time that we do an event in person, like I just, as someone who's relatively actually introverted, I really enjoy seeing everybody in person. And like, I get a lot of energy from it, which just makes me feel grateful. And like, I'm in the right career. So thank you. Thank you, everyone. We will see you in 2025. Have a happy new year. See you guys.