We broke the 3 laws of YouTube

25:20Just call it Twitter. I'm not, I'm gonna call it X. I need to get used to it. You call it X, I'll call it Twitter. Fine. X. So on X, creator monetization was something that rolled out and it felt like a great marketing campaign where everyone was posting their dollar amounts. Like Mr. Beast posted$24 ,000. There were some people who got$1 ,000. Some people got$3 ,000. Who knows what that was actually based on? I think it was just like probably a rollout of monetization. I think that needs to keep up. Like those payments, you need to see that on a recurring basis to care about it. The threshold is 15 million impressions in the past 90 days.

25:56I checked ours and we had 3.2 million impressions in the past 90 days. So it's not impossible. Like you recognize we don't think strategically about Twitter or X, like our presence on that platform. But if we did, if we started optimizing for impressions, we could get there. You can get to 5 million impressions a month. And it's a smart way to get people to care about it. Like monetization is going to be an incredibly smart or incredibly important play for them. But I think if it starts to get muddled and you start to get all these different functions on X, we've never experienced that. You can't even say it.

26:31I can't even say it, man. It's hard. X, it's so uncomfortable. It's one syllable, X. I wonder, though, if people really will take it seriously from a business perspective, considering how in flux it feels. Totally. Should I really dedicate time with the expectation that it will give me revenue back? Expectation? Let's get to our first Discord question. We should leave this, right? Okay, yeah. Well, actually, the last thing I'll say is that threads, I got something extra extra. Yeah, the biggest miss for me with there was two big misses with threads. And I said it on the last episode. One was that it's not just a part of Instagram.

27:07And that's kind of going to this like everything app thing. But like, how would how did they not just I don't want to open another app. Like, I really don't. So maybe that makes an argument for an everything app because I'm sick of opening new apps. Right. So like that should have been a part of Instagram where you swipe over and now you're in a text feed. I think that. And I think you should have been able to enter threads through the comment section. Instagram, call me if you want to talk about this. The second thing was the rollout was excellent. Like it was just like, boom, there's thread.

27:37Threads, everyone's on it. The next week, they should have announced how creators make money on threads. They should have had a week two and week three plan. The fact that they just launched and then just let it die, what? right? Yeah. What? They didn't have a marketing plan for week two and week three and week four. Like you got to look at that over like a six week window and be like, okay, and the next week we're going to announce how creators are going to make money. And the next week we're going to announce like exclusive deals. And the next week we're just nothing. Yeah. I just don't know how much, uh, value like society has put on a text app.

28:17Like, I think like obviously threads, I think if Twitter were to go away, I'm not even sure threads would be able to become a place that people go to on a regular basis and would be able to make money off of. I think the whole like just text thing may go away. Yeah, that's fair. And like maybe you're right. Maybe it just goes into the Instagram feed as like an option. Right. Maybe. All right. Let's get to our questions from the audience. This one comes from Joel Wood. I'm curious to hear Colin and Samir's opinion on YouTube stalking, specifically when another YouTuber tries to track down and give another YouTuber something that they may or may not even want and what that means for our current content path.

28:59I keep seeing these goofy videos where another person builds something or gives someone else something, and I can't say that I've ever really connected with these types of videos much. The only possible exception would probably be the last episode of the Penny Series where Ryan Trahan gives Mr. Beast a huge penny, but I haven't actually seen a full series yet, so I can't comment. So I think there's a difference between stalking and collaboration. Yes. Now, with a collaboration, you can definitely shoot your shot and like send out a tweet, send a cold email and pitch yourself that you would like to deliver something, collaborate in some sort of way.

29:36We did it with Yes Theory, right? We sent out a tweet. We said, we're giving ourselves 24 hours to meet Yes Theory. If they didn't respond. By the way, this was years ago. This was years ago. And you look back on that and you're like, that's stalkery. That's a little weird. Yeah. But we sent out one tweet and then we sent an email and we got. No, it happened in the DMs then. Yeah. And then the DMs. Yeah, yeah. And so we sent out like three things and we got a confirmation back that was like, yes, I would like to meet you. Yeah. Had we not gotten that, there's no way I would have or you and I would have suggested, let's keep going.

30:11Let's keep tweeting them. Let's keep emailing them. Keep DMing. Let's try and show up at their house. I also want to clarify with Ryan Tran and Mr. Beast, they are friends. And they like that was a conversation they had and an agreed upon collaboration. Jimmy set up like a finish line for him. when he arrived in North Carolina, that was a agreed upon thing. It wasn't like a, hey man, I'm going to show up. I'm going to show up. You better be ready. Like Jimmy was waiting there for him to film that scene. So that is very different. I agree. We should make the very distinct difference between collaboration and stalking.

30:47Like something I don't want to do that collaboration. If your arrival or the thing you are sending or whatever it is, your collaboration is unexpected, it's most likely a disturbance. Yeah. I mean, if you think it's adding value. We had to move out of our last office because it was a bit too exposed. And we did have times where, you know, we had a time where someone just walked in and was just like pitching themselves to us. They walked in and it was so odd to us that we thought that maybe they worked at the building because they just walked into our office and started talking. And they were like, hey, I have a million followers on TikTok and here's why I should be on the show.

31:27and we should do an interview. And I was so confused. I was like, what is going on? And then I remember Chris stood up and he's like very tall and physically imposing. And he was like - He picked him up with one hand by his ankle. No, but he really walked up and he was just like, you need to leave. And I remember in that moment, then I was like, oh, this guy just found us and walked in. And it was a really uncomfortable feeling and a very like, just like, I don't know. it just didn't feel good at all. It didn't feel right. And I think all creators should know who are trying to do something like that, how bad it feels being on the receiving side of a collaboration that you don't want to do, you know, or like someone showing up randomly.

32:11It's not like endearing. It's not like, oh my God, thank God you came today. It's like, hey man, I'm, I'm a human being who has something going on. You just need confirmation from the creator. I have boundaries. Like, I don't want you just showing up here. I'm not, I'm not down to be in your thumbnail and your video unless I know you. And I agreed. Yeah. And I think a lot of creators, you look at like ZHC, he would design all types of things for creators, but he had confirmation that they were going to be in the video and receive it. Yeah. I think this culture has come largely because of the concept of like social hacking, which is something we discussed when Eric first started and he did the couch series with Logan Paul.

32:51You know, there's some of his success in doing that, um, I think probably spread a lot to, to a lot of people and a lot of people may be misinterpreting what that meant for their own careers or Ryan with Mr. Beast. Like that is, again, maybe it doesn't seem like it, but they are friends. There's communication between them. Um, those are collaborations. So we saw something recently where someone on Twitter wanted to, it was like, I I'm here in North Carolina. I want to give you something, Mr. Beast. And he, he tweeted back being like, go away. Like, I don't, I don't want that. I don't want to be a part of that.

33:27Um, I didn't agree to that. And so I think, um, as our space gets bigger and bigger, we don't have frameworks that traditional celebrities have. We don't have the same systems, right? If you're at the top, if you're at Logan or Mr. Beast or Emma, like you have security or David, like you have security and you are, you have that system. Most of us don't have that system. We just like have a space that we record and people probably can figure out where we are. And then they just sometimes show up or there's videos where like, uh, you know, they're like DMing or calling celebrities until they pick up.

34:04And then you're like, people figure out how to call. After that one video came out, I got so many phone calls and I was like, I don't want these phone calls. I'm not excited if you call me. I'll stop calling. It's fine. Look, just have to tell me. I'm pretty passionate about this because I think, you know, I just hope this culture stops because you can't really see it until you receive it. And when you start receiving it, you're like, this is weird. Yeah. It feels exploitative. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my brother and dad had an experience, too, one time where someone just showed up to their office.

34:39Oh, yeah. They're like, I'm here for Samir. Yeah. And they were like, what? What's happening? Yeah. Yeah. So it's strange. It's strange. Opinion is don't do it. Final answer. Don't do it. Don't do it. Collaborate. Yes. Build relationships. Yes. Don't stalk. Don't be weird. Next question. All right. Advice on sponsorship placement. This is from Permanent Glue in our Discord. Company wants to put a passive logo placement in the background of my videos. Any ideas what to charge for this kind of thing? So he actually screenshotted the email and put it in here. Says, hey, Jesse, how are you doing? We have one idea we want to discuss with you.

35:19We recently produced a series of posters and would love to place them in the background of your videos to test the ad format. What do you think of this idea? How much would it cost to book 20 to 25 placements to be published before the end of 2023? The posters are designed to be natively placed in the background of the footage that you film. That's so interesting. I really like the idea of the product placement. Yeah. Especially if it's like obviously a product that you want to endorse, you actually use. it's just so unobtrusive to the story, which is really nice. And we see this in movies all the time.

35:53Yeah, it's also legacy. It's like a historical advertising placement. I think it's, I think it personally, I think product placement is undervalued in our space. Like if you and I had a certain type of coffee mug or you and I wore a certain shirt every episode, right? It becomes a character in the universe in a way that I think, like you said, it's always a part of the story. It's never interrupting the story. You have no idea how many jumpsuits I'm selling on the side. It's crazy. Right. But like if that jumpsuit was made by a company, right? And it was part of our narrative that this company made that jumpsuit for you.

36:33That feels really good to me. Do you think it's just that we don't know, and I say we as an industry, don't necessarily know how to price? Yeah. I don't know how to price it. If someone was like, hey, I want to put branded coffee mugs on your table every podcast you do. Interviews with guests, you and Colin sitting, every podcast has this branded coffee mug. I have no idea what I would price that. I think we don't have frameworks to price that. That's now getting into like endorsement territory, like celebrity endorsement territory that I don't think we've been in yet. And it comes with potentially no guaranteed call out.

37:08Exactly. Which is the interesting thing that we may have a sponsored mug or something, but there's nothing in the contract that says we will bring it up. I also don't know how like FTC guidelines work with that, right? Like, do you say this is a sponsor? Do you like, how do you, how do you approach that? There's gotta be something in there though. I mean, if you watch, I remember watching Transformers one time. Yeah, right. They had products. And the Chevy trucks are just like, I remember, yeah, they, they, something got published about like the amount of money that, that was paid in terms of product placement for that movie.

37:38And it was just like absurd. and you're watching and you are kind of realizing or you watch any of the Fast and the Furious movies. Like the amount of times you notice. I've only seen two of them. I've seen a decent amount. The amount of times you notice. Would you make a steak and watch Vin Diesel movies all night? Yeah, I'm like, become real manly these days on the weekends. Yeah, you realize like product placement is a real thing and there's no disclaimer. Like Vin Diesel doesn't turn and look to you and say like, hey, just so you know. Yeah. We got paid for these Chevy trucks. I hope to continue following this and seeing how it goes because I think what would be better, if you're a company that's interested in doing this, maybe throw out the first rate because we don't know how these should be priced.

38:22But creators, I think, are open to this for sure, of course. It's super interesting to do. But we don't know how to price this. So it's also evergreen. It lives in the video forever because it's a part of the production. So it should be priced accordingly that like this thing can be viewed forever. Yep. I don't know, man. I'm really interested in it though. I think it's a great form of monetization for creators. Agreed. Do you think you charge more or less than a typical integration for something like this? That's a good question. It depends on the brand, who's interested. Yeah. So Marilyn just asked us, would we charge more or less for product placement?

38:59My gut says more because it's a part of the entire episode. it's more integrated I would do it across multiple episodes it'd be I just think it feels something makes me think if it's the entire year or something like that it would have to be pretty high because the brand association of that brand in the background with our show and us is really high I also don't think I would do it that passively you know what I mean like I think I would make an acknowledgement of it I would be uncomfortable not making some level of acknowledgement of like we're using these adobe cups well it depends if that's the deal i guess yeah but i'm just saying for the audience's experience like i would want to make it i would make it a bit of some type yeah i don't know someone make us an offer so we can go through a mock negotiation on that or a real negotiation maybe there's something man i don't know maybe someone pitches us something relax dude for mugs looking for a mug sponsor all right i don't know if you know but i'm the money guy in this.

40:00You are the money guy. That's right. All right. From the press in your recent dream podcast, I noticed that in the thumbnail, you changed the color of the hoodie he was wearing to green when in that podcast, he's wearing a blue hoodie. Is there an interesting reason for this? That was a recommendation that actually came straight from the discord straight from the cord. And, you know, dream his marquee color is that green that you now see in the thumbnail. So someone suggested that by association, if someone's scrolling really quickly, they would see that color and that color in the mask would make them think dream and then want to click.

40:34Right. So actually that thumbnail was made by someone in the Discord. That's right. Yeah. Which was super cool. They changed it. It looked perfect. So I just, I said, yeah, okay, I'll replace it. Great. Yeah, it was a good idea. It was just like that. It's the question of like in a split second, do you understand what's happening here? And so whatever you can do to just create that, you know, I think it was smart to say, hey, what's the association with dream? It's that green color. Made sense? They sent it to us in Discord of like, here's before, here's after. It was like, that's a great idea.

41:03Yep. Probably one of the most interesting things of having a Discord full of creators. It's amazing. It's great. Okay, I like this question. I think it's a healthy debate. Patreon public dollars. Hide it or show it? This comes from Honza. Hey guys, I'm wondering if I should keep the amount of money we're making on Patreon public. It's 300 people and$2 ,000 a month. Any pros, cons, or suggestions? Thanks, Honza. I selfishly enjoy when creators make it public. And there are a lot of creators, specifically podcasters. Who keep it public. Who keep it public. And they have crazy dollar amounts. But I find it to be really interesting.

41:38It's like this gamification almost where you want to see how many other people are getting on board and how much money is your creator making. I don't know. I find it interesting that like, maybe I reward the transparency and I join. But it's going to be a case-to-case basis. Like some people may see the amount of money you're making and be like, I don't know, I guess. But if they want the content, they want the content. What does it matter? So something that's interesting, granted TMG has moved, I think, most of their stuff to fourth wall, but they used to have a public number on Patreon. They no longer do.

42:13I think what was really interesting

42:18when TMG first started, they had a goal with their Patreon. They said, if we make, I think it was like$4 ,000 or$5 ,000 a month, and Noel can leave his job and do the podcast full time. Then you're creating like a public number. Like Kickstarter. Yeah, that's like a goal, which I think is cool. When that surpasses and goes to$90 ,000,$100 ,000 a month, I don't know. Should that be public? Does Schultz and Flagrant reveal their number? It's a good question. Yes,$77 ,000 a month. So that's on there, yeah. It's public. I don't know. We're in this amazing world of like financial transparency in the creator economy for anything that's audience or platform-based.

43:02Typically creators are pretty transparent about, you know, like we just had Ali Abdaal on the show, which will come out next week. I'm super excited about that episode, but he's so transparent about his finances. I think at times it's really inspiring and like gives us like, like me seeing this with Flagrant, they have 16 ,000 members, it makes$77 ,000 a month. it's definitely inspiring and interesting to learn about that the cons definitely would be someone being like turned off and feeling like I don't know like you're getting overpaid or something yeah but is that a con is that a con does anyone think like I don't think like that they're already fans yeah I think if I want to subscribe to flagrant I subscribe to flagrant like I subscribe to Van Neistat's Patreon yeah because if you want the information right or you want the episode you just do it you're probably not going to look at how much they're making and be like okay I'm not I'm going to forego oh, the content that I know I want to pay for because too many people are already paying for it.

43:56I think also like good content, you're excited when the creator's doing well. You should be excited. Yeah. Like Van Neistat, I didn't even know this. He's doing$15 ,000 a month on Patreon. That's awesome. When I subscribed, it was smaller than that. It was probably under 10K. Yeah. I don't like not buy things I want because the companies are doing well. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess the pros are you can set goals, which is good, and have your community feel like they're supporting a goal. The cons would be anyone who feels like it's, I don't know, like cocky or something. But I guess those people wouldn't subscribe to you anyway.

44:33Anyone who feels like turned off by the public number wouldn't subscribe to you anyway. They're probably not enough of a fan to care. I guess I've just convinced myself that there's no cons to it. If there's cons, please put it in the comments because maybe I'm like totally missing what the cons are here. All right, Colin, we are now in the deep end fully. Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Deep, deep in the deep end. All right, happy to be here. I have a gripe. Great. May I share? Please. Okay, so I went to go see - Permission to gripe? Permission to gripe. I went to go see Oppenheimer. Permission granted.

45:03Which was fine. Good story, but it was fine. Okay. A bit too long. Now, I sit down and they play one trailer. Trailer is fun. Okay, good time. I'm at the movies. Nice. next trailer starts starts out kind of like okay this is a horror movie something's strange about this and then it gets like nightmarish and it is a trailer for the new Exorcist movie and it is a complete like the entire theater my entire row had their hands over their eyes and I did that too then and I was just like ah no and it was like it gave me a horrible feeling and then it ends and then Oppenheimer started and I was like, I think you should have to ask for consent for that kind of trailer.

45:51That was crazy. Anyone in the theater who's like freaked out like me of things like that, I didn't know I was signing up to just be traumatized. I feel the same way about screens on airplanes. It's like, if you want to watch a horror movie to the right of me, you should ask my consent because I've got to live with that screen for the next hour and a half. Yeah, I don't feel that way. Come on. Yeah, I don't feel that way because you can just not look at it. No, no, no. You can't not look at it. It's there. You see it. That's a valid gripe. You're breaking the laws of gripes right now. Yeah. Because I doubled up.

46:27I threw a gripe on a gripe. Yeah, but you threw like a non - I didn't give you full space for your gripe. Yeah, you threw a non-gripe on top of my gripe. No, mine's a real gripe. I'd like everyone to vote. What was the better gripe? Mine was a better gripe. No, I don't think so. Yeah. It's not a competition. Gripes are not a competition. That's right. That's right. Yeah, but that was like a... I was like shocked when they did that. I was like, that was crazy. Like you shouldn't, this is like a, this is like a movie of the summer that everyone wants to see. And then you play that trailer beforehand.

46:53That's crazy. That is crazy. I'll offer up a delight. Please. The Barbie movie. It was good. Great time. It was just like great time. Like just a fun time. Yeah. Interesting, thought provoking. I haven't seen it yet. And the marketing behind it, obviously. I mean, it was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. It made over a billion dollars already, which is crazy. I saw it in Amsterdam. And it was crazy. The theater was packed with people wearing pink. that's amazing like how incredible they were able to get people all over the world to show up to theaters wearing pink that's incredible um speaking of incredible I do want to shout out Yes Theory I think their last two videos have been two of my favorite videos of the year um on YouTube I'm so happy they're nominated for editing at the Streamys and something we didn't talk about we're nominated again at the Streamys um we're nominated in the education category we are up against very stiff competition uh Veritasium Tom Scott some of the best educators on YouTube.

47:44I look at that category and I'm like, don't give it to us. You know, like I'm so happy to be nominated. I love being a part of the streamies. Uh, I had a great time last year. Wow. Different vibe from last year. Last year we were nominated. I know I wanted, I wanted to win, but I look at this and I'm like, I watched one of Veritasium's recent videos. And I was like, that team is so good at making videos. They should win that category. So you're just, you're honored to be in the same category. You're honored to be nominated. I don't even know that we should be in the same category of education.

48:14What a difference a year makes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last year you're like, we deserve to win the whole thing. For sure. For sure. I just think, you know, it kind of inspires me to push a bit more and be like, okay, they're making really compelling education. And I feel a immense sense of pride in the course that we're building and making that like the best educational product we can. And as I'm watching more of the educational creators on YouTube, I'm like, they're so good. Like even I would consider Cleo Abram a part of that, that contingent, like just so good at making me care. They're putting so much effort into every video.

48:48So much. Yeah. So I'm, I'm pumped about the streamies. I, I really, I hope yes, there he wins the editing. Cause I think their editing is just, it's just for years and years and years, they've been doing such hard videos, you know, like documentaries on a regular basis. I think that should be honored. And the last thing I'll say is congrats to the whole Mr. Beast team. When we had Jimmy on the show, he was probably the first time ever. He was like, listen, I had to talk to my team and be like, our next video is probably not going to be a one out of 10. If it's a one out of 10, that means we broke the world record for most viewed video on YouTube in 24 hours.

49:27So let's just temper our expectations. And they did it. They did it. They broke the world record for most viewed video on YouTube in 24 hours with seven days stranded at sea, which looked like a miserable time. I was like, oh my God, guys. I mean, yeah, creators have done things similar to that. And it just, every time it seems miserable. The Try Guys spoke to us about that. Yeah, it wasn't as long. And Keith was saying, like, at some point, you just, everyone just starts vomiting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looked insane. I was like, Jimmy, that is discomfort. I will hang out here in the deep end. Totally.

49:58I don't need to go to the open ocean. No, no, no, no. I will say, though, I loved the personalities in that video. Like, I thought it was so much more focused on like a group of people doing something. And, you know, that to me is my favorite type of YouTube. When you get to know the personalities, you get to know their quirks, you get to know like how they would react in these uncomfortable situations. You know, again, it feels like yes theory to me where it's like fun groups of people doing interesting things. You know what I really want to do? Yeah. Is a studio tour. Again, we did a bunch of those last year.

50:28Oh, with someone. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I would love that. Whose studio should we tour? Put that in the comments if you're here in the deep end. And thank you for being here in the deep end. That's the end of this episode. We'll see you next week.