Did MrBeast ruin YouTube?

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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. What's up, everyone? Welcome to Creator Support, the show where we answer your questions about the business of being a creator. The first question today, did Mr. Beast ruin YouTube? We're also going to be answering the question today, when is a YouTube title too sensational? And we're going to be responding to some beef that Ludwig has with us. All right. If you make it to the deep end, let us know. All right. Our first question comes from Twitter from Tariq Abdelphoto.

1:47He says, I can't wait for the Colin and Samir Creator Sports segment discussing this. and he has the Jack Septicai Tommy in it clip where Jack is talking about Mr. Beast ruining YouTube. We're going to play that clip. Yep. But before we do that, you have something on the table. I do. What is that? This is my handwriting, the full ABCs, and I've turned it into a font. What's the font called? It's called, currently it's called My Font. My Font, okay. So if you want My Font, you can get it on Discord. Discord is the sponsor of today's episode. If you guys watch this show, if you listen to this show, you guys know that we've been partnered with Discord all year to launch our community.

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4:16let's watch the video now Jack a completely unrelated question do you like Mr. Beast? no Jack oh do you think Mr. Beast ruined YouTube? yes oh now in all honesty Jack why? because it became more about views, money, and popularity than it did about having fun. You used to only have fun playing Squid Games. You only have fun riding on yachts. Building wells in Africana. If he had fun doing those videos, they'd be longer. We'd see the... Oh. Oh. It's not even going to get me. Oh, I didn't yet. Who is the issue where you hate the world? I don't know. There's a lot of groomers and pedophiles on our platform.

4:59Okay, so I got to be honest. This, to me, just seeing Tommy in the background, Like, I don't know the larger context of this clip. This whole situation has since been resolved between Jack and Jimmy. But Jimmy replied to this clip with a pretty long reply, just kind of feeling like it was a very disrespectful clip, that, you know, the context of it just didn't feel like it made sense to him, and kind of defending himself when it came to this question of, did Mr. Beast ruin, you know, YouTube. I watched the clip and I feel like this sentiment does go around quite a bit right now that like, I mean, it's, it's been talked about on our show, the like Mr.

5:45Beastification of YouTube. Yeah. Um, and I was curious to just have the discussion here about the, the impact. I mean, no one has had a more outsized impact on internet media culture than Jimmy. Like, I, I, is that a true statement? You think you agree with that? I would argue that I think anytime someone becomes the face and for many years, the platform has decided that he's the face, his story is so rooted in YouTube. He currently is breaking records week to week. He's the most well-known, right? When it comes to what it means to be a YouTube creator and a YouTube creator is not a singular thing.

6:22Like we are all incredibly different talking about so many different things in so many different styles. Some of us are media companies. Some of us are like independent, just starting out for passion. Some of us like him, actually not many of us are like him. He's singular. And I think, um, anytime someone becomes the overarching face representing a lot of people that they didn't necessarily ask to represent, right? Like he didn't set out to represent all of YouTube. Uh, this type of thing is destined to happen. I don't know that he's asked to be the aspirational figure, right? Like I think when I watched that clip, I thought about it and I was like, you know, the reality is, yes, he is the largest.

7:02He's created a completely new thing on the internet that we've never seen before. We've never seen what he's done. That said, it doesn't necessarily, I guess it just happens that on YouTube, there's someone who's kind of leading the meta and then that creates aspiration, which makes this ripple effect where everyone is making content similar to that person. Totally. And I think there's actually, maybe it's just me, a little discomfort with the fact that we don't know who is perhaps leading the meta now. Like, I think we had a few years, right? There are eras of YouTube where it was, like, very clear sort of what it meant to succeed, what the meta was.

7:39Yeah. And now I think the Mr. Beast era, I guess you would call it, has maybe lasted a little bit longer than people expected because, like, there was this influx of excitement about YouTube in general. and you would have thought maybe that there would be like a cycle of something new. Yeah. That the platform and that audiences deemed as like the new thing. Yeah, I think he's held his position stronger than everyone maybe hasn't either anticipated or seen before. Typically, someone's kind of leading the pack and it's like three years. Yeah. And then they don't want to do it anymore. They don't want to upload anymore.

8:17They change their vibe. They go to TV. They go do something different. There's got to be a sports analogy here somewhere, right? There's got to be someone. But like he is not slowing down and continuing to push. But I think people who were trying to be like him have now burnt out. And now that's like, now we're in that era of like, we tried, but, you know, there's got to be something new. I think, I think that maybe the sentiment that I can understand is like the, like YouTube feels like it's not a place for originality, but YouTube's a massive place. there's so much content on YouTube. Right.

8:53But I think people just feel like the fact that so many people are adopting his style and aspiring to be like him is what has felt like the most tangible change. And I think because a lot of his content is based around money. Yeah. Giving it away and he's very transparent sort of with the fact that he makes a lot of money. It's hard not to when you're that big. The brand of YouTube became opportunity, not self-expression. Like if you think about like Casey Neistat made a ton of money off YouTube as well and off of selling Beam and has done really well for himself. But the brand of YouTube, because of the style of content he made, was come here to express yourself.

9:26Yeah. So I think there's like some discomfort from some people of like, what is the brand of YouTube? Because I identify as a YouTuber, as a YouTube creator. And what is the overall brand in society? Right. Because that will like impact me. And when I tell people, yeah, I'm a YouTube creator. I have a YouTube channel. Do they immediately think like, oh, you must make videos like Mr. Beast? Because not everyone wants that. Yeah, I think it's also I think it's what you said about YouTube has become the land of like opportunity. And when when the opportunity is so well known, that does change the creative.

10:02It just changes the creative. And I wanted to bring up you just brought up Casey. Watch this clip from him and Rich Roll this weekend. Did you see that? I don't think so. From he was on recently. No, no, no. He was on a while ago, but it was a clip that surfaced that started getting passed around. I've noticed you've dropped off in terms of like posting on Twitter and stuff like that. I have a new rule with Twitter, which is every time I think of something clever, interesting, funny, insightful to tweet, instead of tweeting it, I just don't. That's my rule. Anytime I go to tweet, just don't. Tarantino, maybe one of the best living filmmakers right now.

10:36What does he take, like eight years to make a movie? So for like seven years, you don't hear his name. He's not making IG stories to show you where he got lunch today. hey, he's just living his life, man. And his movies are great and call me naive. But I think that it's a demonstration of where these brilliant creatives, where their focus is. And their focus is on what they do great. And I think that in social media, there's sort of this weird perversion where it's less about your craft and it's more about marketing yourself, branding yourself. It's a stupid fucking buzzword, but like that's what it's about.

11:08So when I think about what Casey's saying there, when I watched that clip, I actually related the two. the two clips over the weekend. Because I was like, what he's saying is right, but he's describing two different crafts. And I think we haven't separated those. Like, I think they have to be separated. To be a media maker is to regularly post stuff that will attract an audience. Yeah. That is what being a YouTuber is. It's like regularly posting stuff that will attract a large audience, a large and specific audience. To be a filmmaker or to be a creative is to make really creative stuff. And then typically someone else handles the distribution.

11:50Quentin Tarantino isn't necessarily handling the distribution of his films. He's handling the creation of the films. And the difference is as a creator, you are dealing in distribution. So once everyone kind of caught up to that, that we are independent media publishers, everyone operates totally differently. They operate like independent media publishers. So yeah, like art doesn't necessarily feel like it always has a place on YouTube because that's not the game of YouTube. The game of YouTube is distributing content. Yeah, which requires consistency. Yeah. And consistency doesn't always match up with creativity.

12:30It's not guaranteed that you're going to be creative every single week, right? You could argue like with this show, one of the most important aspects of it, creative support is that we're here. Right. Just that like, we're like here, that's it. Just that like we've decided we will be here on Thursdays. It's like one of the most important aspects. Yeah. Yes. It matters what we talk about, who we're speaking to the intention behind it and the value. But one of the most important is just that it's regular and that's not necessarily like a common trait of art. Yeah. I do think there's a craft to being a media publisher.

13:05Like I think that is a craft. I enjoy that craft. I think that craft is really fun. I also enjoy the craft of making something really cool and creative, but those crafts are different. And my job is to, is to be the media guy. That is my like regular job. And then my passion is to make something creative and fun. Those intersect a lot, but they are totally separate things. And I think that's the thing that maybe people confuse sometimes. You can have fun being the media guy. We all get to be these like young media executives who choose things that we put on the air that attract big audiences. That's also a fun thing.

13:46And I think it's just separating those two things with like that conversation of did Mr. Beast ruin YouTube? Like, no, he just showed us a whole different way of being a studio executive at 20 some odd years old. He kind of was just like, how hard can I push this thing? Yeah, how much can I compete with the other studio executives who are putting stuff on the air that are reaching hundreds of millions of people? That's what he's doing. So when you think of it in that context, it's just that we have so many different versions of what a YouTuber is in our head. In today's age, like the ones that we are seeing rise to the top are the studio executive, the media distributor, the internet publishers, not necessarily like the creative craftsmen.

14:27Again, sometimes those intersect, but most of the times they don't. Yeah. It's important to understand as a creator where you lie on that spectrum. It doesn't mean that you have to pick one side, artist, media distributor. Like you said, we have this format, which is a little bit more on the media side. We are here. We will continue to be here, but then we pick projects that we can distribute mainly on the main channel that are more of that creative thing. And we make sure sometimes there's no brand obligations on those. We can take as much time as we want. Yeah, the thing we do is avoid the commercialization of our passion like too much.

15:05You want to avoid that. That sounds like almost like antithetical to this whole thing of like, wait, I'm passionate about making videos. So shouldn't I monetize that? I always tell young filmmakers, like if you have a passion film, you always wanted to make a film, just don't sell that one. Don't sell it. Be careful with how many people you get involved. Don't get anyone involved in that one. Make enough money doing something else to finance that film on your own. Yeah. That's the game of this thing. Like if you're a true creative. So to answer the question, no, obviously I don't think Mr. Beast ruined YouTube.

15:39I think he just opened our eyes to something different. I think the challenge is if you don't look within and think, am I trying to be the next studio executive or am I trying to be the next filmmaker? If you look at Mr. Beast, he's probably, he looks and feels more like if you look at some of like the TV executives of the 90s and 2000s than, you know, Quentin Tarantino. Yeah. Right? I think the positive right now, and I said this on the round table as well, when Jack Septiceye says, like it's become all about popularity and views, I actually think, and I said this, like I said on the round table, that it's more about brand over views right now.

16:22That like, sure, Mr. Beast gets a lot of views, but they're not views in random directions. Yeah. Right? Like it's a pretty consistent brand that he's built. And I actually don't think that's like a bad thing if you're trying to build a business. I agree with Casey that that is kind of what it has become. It is a lot about promoting your brand. But if you're trying to make a business out of it. That's part of it. That's part of it. That's a huge part of it. Yeah. Interesting. Interested to hear your guys' take on this. You know, outside of like this isolated moment on Twitter that became very, very viral, just this conversation comes up a lot.

16:57And this, like Jimmy's impact on the platform comes up a lot. And I'd be curious to hear everyone's perspective on it. Again, I firmly believe it's like, you don't have to aspire to be like him. Totally. And then that changes the whole thing. It's like, okay, well, cool. Yeah, just, there's so many ways to make it on YouTube. Yeah, even though he's one creator of the year, every year for five years. I don't think you should be stacking yourself up against that. True. 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.

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17:50All right. In line with this, from the subreddit, I really like Jordan Schwarzenberger and his thoughts. So this is in reference to our interview with the manager of the Sidemen. But I could not disagree more with his take on Creator Inc. Specifically when he said there will never be another Sidemen or Mr. Beast. I think he falls into the trap of what all industries think at one point or the other, which is that the industry is stabilized and no one can dethrone the top. Again and again, we see new entrants that innovate and out-compete entrenched market leaders. IBM got beat by Microsoft. Netflix bankrupts Blockbuster.

18:27Amazon crushes Barnes & Nobles. Even more recently, TikTok has gained more market share in the world than Instagram, YouTube, Snap, and Twitter. The top creators won't be the exception to this rule. I don't expect the current winners to suddenly disappear. I'm truly confident that there will be more Sidemen-sized creators sooner rather than later. Very well thought out take here. Yeah, I, for the most part, agree. I think all of this just comes down to perspective and time. I don't think there will be a new Sidemen or a new Mr. Beast in the next year or two, or probably even three years. Like, I think this thing will take a lot of time.

19:02Like, I think sometimes generationally, it will take creators 10 years, like it took the Sidemen and like it took Mr. Beast, to get to a point where they could be of that size. Like, I think brands like that, audiences of that size and communities that passionate, I think require lots of time in market. So like, yeah, they may not be getting dethroned, quote unquote, in the near future. But of course, at some point, there will be a shift, right? And like generationally, there will be a new face of what it means to be a big time media group on YouTube, a big creator like that. So here's my take on this.

19:40Like, I remember when we were in sports, we used to talk about this moment in time where ESPN arised, right? Which is one of the largest sports networks here in the US. And Sports Illustrated was the biggest sports media publishing company. They had the biggest magazine at the time. The question always that I looked at was why didn't Sports Illustrated launch a TV network? And it was because of this reason. They were at the top. They were like, well, we do works. No one's going to watch 24-7 sports on TV. That's crazy. And they didn't launch TV. And then ESPN became the market leader. But you're right.

20:17That took a very long time to happen. But what ends up happening in any business, when you're going from like, it doesn't exist at all to it exists, you are super attracted to risk because you have nothing to lose. And you're just like, let's just do it. Let's go nuts. Let's do whatever. Let's just try anything. And then once you build something, you have a ton of employees, you have a studio, you have a bunch of overhead, you have to make certain amount of money every month to cover that. All of a sudden you make different decisions. You become more risk averse. You're less interested in taking big swings.

20:54So then when the new player comes around and they're willing to take big swings, it's nearly inevitable. They're right. It's nearly inevitable that it happens. So I think what might happen is the next person that we see is going to be a single solo creator with no overhead who then can, you know, essentially outpace someone else because they don't have anything anchoring them down. But if they want to build a media company, they'll fall into a similar cycle. So I don't know that, I agree, it'll be a very long time until something like that happens. But I agree with this take that it's typically the person sitting in their bedroom alone right now who doesn't have a team, you know, or any overhead who might be able to outpace.

21:41I think that's where Ryan Trahan came in the picture, right? Was just like, once he reduced his team size and became very nimble, it's just like he was able to explode and is able to compete at very high levels. I think too, it is very hard to stand out right now. There have been many years of what I would call premium content, like creators who are taking this really seriously, putting out formats and high quality series. And I think just when you watch YouTube, you and I say like, it's tough right now. There's a lot of stuff. If you search anything in any niche, like it is crazy how many options there are.

22:18And when you bring up Ryan, I think what makes him special and what made him stand out, you mentioned this on the round table, that he is in that challenge genre in a way, but he said, I try to pick actually the most ordinary things, the most attainable, almost underwhelming and boring. And that's what makes him stand out. You know what I mean? That like in this genre, he has actually chosen to go a completely different way. And I think that's what just new creators should think about in general is how can you do something where actually not many people are trying to compete with you there? Like that's a very competitive genre.

22:54And he was like, let me flip it on its head. And instead of doing really difficult things, let me just do underwhelming things and see, let me experiment with that. And it actually worked really well. So speaking of different genres, this weekend we had a discussion amongst our team around the video essay genre on YouTube. And I'm saying that specifically because I started by sharing James Janney's new SBF documentary, which is about Sam Bankman-Fried, the guy who started FTX. James Janney is phenomenal. He's so good at what he does. This crop of creators, Doddford, James Janney, even Johnny Harris, the video essayist, who's putting together all of this information.

23:40Cleo Abram, I watched one of her videos about robots and why they've taken over refereeing in sports. It's like, it was fantastic. But when I watched James Janney and Dodford specifically, they feel like documentaries. And I think it's because they call them documentaries. They put, like James Janney took eight months to put this together. Let's play a clip of it real quick. My name is Sam Bankman-Fried. I'm the CEO co-founder of FTX. Did you ever imagine that at 25, when you got involved, you would now be one of the most important people in the crypto world and have become a multi-billionaire?

24:10No, I, well, no, although. Not only one of the nicest people in crypto, but one of the smartest as well. SPF, thanks for taking the time out of your day down in the Bahamas to join us. How are you doing over there? At only 30 years old, this guy had an estimated net worth of$26 billion. I mean, Forbes had already done an article on him. Save for Mark Zuckerberg, no one in history has ever gotten so rich so young. Sam is a genius, an effective altruist, and he's also the wealthiest person under 30 in the world. You can tell in the pacing of that, in the sound design, even if you're just listening and you're not watching, that this feels like a documentary.