ICG Creator Chat

Our guest today just celebrated his 10 millionth subscriber and the arrival of his diamond play button. Jordan Maron, also known as Captain Sparkles, is not a guy who suffers from a lack of drive. He started his career as a YouTube gamer playing Call of Duty, but ended up being part of creating the massive wave of Minecraft content on YouTube. Jordan's Minecraft music videos have gotten....a lot of views. But he also understood that that situation wouldn't last forever. We're going to talk about his decision to drop out of college, how he thinks about his audience, why he doesn't accept direct donations on Twitch, how he encourages his community to invest in itself, and even a little bit of why he never talks about politics or religion.

We're doing a new thing here on Creator Chats...once a month, I'm going to debrief a bit with Anthony D'Angelo, the Executive Director of the ICG about what he's up to, and what big news things are happening in the world of online video. For example, in this podcast, we'll be talking about the history of MCNs, how that's different from the way agencies work, YouTube's new self-reporting tool for monetization, the benefits of exclusive brand deal representation. And we also talked about why Phil DeFranco hasn't yet launched his own platform to host his content WHICH IT TURNED OUT HE KINDA JUST DID! So, I guess we called that one.

Kati is an actual mental health professional, a trained therapist who also makes YouTube videos about mental health. We're going to talk some about her own strategy for growing her channel, picking topics, and dealing with content that is less...well...correct. But we'll also discuss some of the challenges internet creators are likely to face, both in terms of the constant stress, and also how we are unfortunately likely to tie our self worth to our numbers, which isn't great, since roller coasters generally don't only go up.

Anthony D'Angelo has been making YouTube videos for even longer than I have, and he's been studying online video, culture, and media academically for the last four years. And now Anthony is taking a new step, taking on the role of Executive Director at the ICG. After two years, Laura Chernikoff is stepping down, and Anthony will be taking her place. You can find out more about that change by checking @ICGuild on Twitter. Anthony and I never have uninteresting conversations, and I'm really glad we got to record this one. We'll talk about his own channel getting de-partnered, why YouTube is still the best choice for many creators, and what a mixed blessing the democratization of media has turned out to be.

Elle Mills is one of the biggest and most universally celebrated break out creators in recent memory. Every video is a story, and we're going to talk to her about some of the craft that goes into telling those stories and how she imagines her creative process. We'll also talk about how she has, even at such a young age, repeatedly re-invented herself, and managed to find success each time. Elle's success started on Twitter, and continues there, where a huge percentage of her engagement and video views remain. Does that mean she doesn't get paid for a lot of her views? It sure does. We'll talk about all of that, but also about how she deals with copyright claims, and why she's chosen to stay home in Ottawa, and not head to some big fancy entertainment city.

Steven Williams, better known as Boogie2988, has been making videos about games, culture, politics, YouTube, and his own struggles with his mental and physical health for a long-long time. Also an avid Twitch streamer, he talks about how important it is for creators to diversify themselves because, like, who knows what could happen. Hank and Steven discuss everything from picking brand deals that fit, to navigating the minefield of potential missteps you can make while trying to take all opinions into account.

Andrew Huang started his career doing weird song commissions. He's an extremely prolific musician, but he has also found success sharing his song-making and production process by pulling back the curtain a bit with complex, beautiful, inspiring, and educational videos. Hank talks to Andrew about his strategy, how he never seems afraid to change things or try new formats. They also talk about slowing content down...not needing to be going at 150% speed all the time, and how important it is to build narrative in informational and non-fiction content.

Sabrina Cruz is both a college student and a professional YouTuber. And while she's studying math and economics, she’s teaching history on her YouTube channel. So, like, not really normal stuff for a 19 year old. It’s a little intimidating how together and talented she is. Hank and Sabrina spend some time talking about everything from brand deals to demonetization and beyond.

Hannah Hart is, according the world, an "internet video mainstay"—but even after years of building a community online, Hannah feels like she is at the mercy of the algorithm, with views on videos ranging between 50,000 and 500,000. What does she have to do to make this computer program happy?! This episode will be a bit of a departure from our previous episodes in that Hannah and Hank spend a lot of time talking about things that aren't Hannah. Particularly, they talk about, y'know, the whole Logan Paul thing...but mostly about the larger set of circumstances that have led us here.

Rob Scallon has developed a great toolkit. Part of that is that he can play a lot of instruments very well, but he's also worked very smart in creating tools that go beyond that. His understanding of what audiences want, his relationships with other musicians and YouTubers, as well as the production and business team he's built are all part of how he's kept his channel growing into a successful business. We're going to talk about how he consistently comes up with great ideas for potentially viral videos, why that's not actually the hard part of what he does, his ongoing fued with Facebook, and how he manages to do it all and keep his head on straight.

In this episode of Creator Chat, Hank talks with vlogger, thinker, and digital story teller Evelyn Ngugi - better known as Evelyn From the Internets. Evelyn has a remarkably broad range, making non-fiction journalism, funny and poignant blogs, all while working a day job in social media and social video marketing. Evelyn talks about shifting from journalism to video, what she wants to do more of, why she makes online video, talking hard topics, and going viral on Facebook.

[REBROADCAST from ICG's Member Archive] Vi Hart is a mathematician who makes videos that get millions of views, but she has never turned advertising on. Her mathematical way of looking at the world has ended in the conclusion that advertisements, at least the way they're currently done on YouTube, are so massively inefficient as to be almost immoral. So we're going to talk about that, and also about brand deals, being weird, sharing what you know, training your audience, and why YouTube's subscription box is not up to snuff.

Akilah Hughes has been making people laugh on YouTube years. And while her biggest videos have millions of views, her average video garners respectable, but not huge numbers—meaning that making a living just through advertising isn't a thing. Akilah considers her YouTube channel as a series of audition tapes for potential work in traditional media, and she's been very successful in doing that; she has lots of hosting work under her belt, a new project with Crooked Media, and a full time gig hosting a cooking show.

Jack Conte is the CEO of Patreon, and thus, probably doesn't need that much of an introduction. In this episode, Jack and Hank discuss some difficult topics, including content policy enforcement, how to be (or not be) a sociopathic CEO, what Patreon's competitive advantage is, how to create cultural change from the free web to the paid web, and what is the secret ingredient to creator success on Patreon.

Anna Brisbin (Brizzy Voices) has a YouTube channel with over a million subscribers that focuses mostly on impressions, and as with many creators who started out with a channel focused on one kind of content, she was initially hesitant to branch out into new genres. Now, Brizzy Voices posts music and cosplay tutorials, sketch comedy, vlogs, and collabs—a strategy that has brought longevity to her channel that you can't get with just viral hits.