Good morning. Today is Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the freeing of all enslaved Black people in the US in 1865.
Want to learn more about the history behind the holiday (and the reason why there’s a two-year gap between the Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth)? Watch this video from knowledge creator Blair Imani.
Today’s lineup:
Invisible Narratives raises $300M for creator projects
Why Jubilee’s new series is different than the rest
Seven more creators ink deals with Fox Creator Studios
…And a quick overview of our plan for Cannes 🇫🇷
The Studio Investing $300M to Find the Next Big Creator Franchise
Mark Shedletsky (left) shares how Invisible Narratives plans to spend $300M with creators / Photography courtesy of Invisible Narratives
Entertainment studio Invisible Narratives just secured long-term capital partnerships with private equity firm Verance Capital and BC Partners Credit. The plan? Deploy more than $300M into the creator economy.
Context: Invisible Narratives was founded eight years ago by former Paramount Pictures president Adam Goodman, with Transformers director Michael Bay as creative advisor. The company's model: partner with creators early, then bring the full Hollywood infrastructure—licensing, gaming, film, TV, consumer products—to scale their IP into lasting franchises. The company has previously worked with FaZe Clan and holds majority rights to Skibidi Toilet.
We spoke to Invisible Narratives’ new president, Mark Shedletsky, to hear what creators are the best fit for investment →
"It all starts with the creator who has a format or franchise and fandom and is looking to expand. That's really the primary filter set,” Shedletsky told us.
The key metrics: Watch hours, engagement rate, audience sentiment, and product conversion are priorities for Invisible Narratives.
Priority categories include kids and family, animation, and horror, "a great category for fandom, lore, characters, and worlds," Shedletsky said.
Shedletsky said a creator’s audience size is less important than their ideas. "It's really just about vision and prioritization. That's what I would say to any creator in any meeting they want to go take,” Shedletsky said.
Why it matters: This capital 1) signals institutional conviction in creator IP and 2) gives Invisible Narratives funding to pursue acquisitions that create infrastructure most creator businesses can't access on their own.
Big picture: Many studios are chasing the next Kane Parsons. Shedletsky said Invisible Narratives wants to find creators before Hollywood does—and build franchises that last longer than an option deal. "We're not producers of content, we're not coming to take creator businesses and say thank you and move on," Shedletsky said. The goal is to give institutional infrastructure to creators who keep creative control.
Jubilee Launches a Bipartisan Talk Show
David Mauricio (left) and Austin Julio Broughton (right) host Jubliee's newest show, The Split / The Split
Yesterday, Jubilee (the media company behind YouTube formats like Surrounded and Odd One Out) announced its newest project: The Split, a weekly talk show hosted by two political creators on opposite sides of the aisle.
It’s the first time Jubilee has leaned on consistent hosts for a format, signalling a big shift for the mostly faceless channel. The Split will upload weekly to YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music as both a video format and a podcast.
How Jubilee got here:
Since 2017, Jubilee and its sister channel Nectar have operated without tentpole hosts or talent, instead opting to bring in guests like political commentators, creators, and everyday people as cast members.
This method helped them rack up over 16M followers, 3.6B views, and a plethora of recognizable formats.
The search: Jubilee auditioned around a dozen political creators to host The Split (all of whom have appeared in Jubilee videos), eventually casting Austin Julio Broughton and David Mauricio. Jubilee exclusively told The Press that the first guest will be left-wing creator Dean Withers.
“We saw that there could be a lot of value in developing an audience with faces and voices that you trust,” Jubilee founder and CEO Jason Y. Lee told us. “So particularly with topics like news and culture, we felt like this is the right vehicle to do something like that.”
Ultimately, Jubilee’s goal is to host a presidential debate, something that Lee said is more likely to happen with a network of trusted faces involved.
Skirting past “key man risk:” Creator studios that rely heavily on hosts (like Theorist, Good Mythical Morning, and Smosh) risk becoming too reliant on the talent over the formats themselves. But with so many successful, host-free formats, Jubilee could add recurring hosts without balancing its entire platform on two creators. With The Split, the question is whether audiences will show up for the hosts or the format—and whether Jubilee will still be able to tell the difference a year from now.
Fox Creator Studios Unveils New Creator Lineup
Fox Creator Studios adds seven creator-led projects to its roster / FOX Entertainment Publicity
Following its partnership with comedian Tom Segura, Fox Creator Studios (FCS) just announced a roster of seven more creator-led projects across genres including comedy, food, and racing.
Inside the deal:
Joining the roster are Josh Richards, Emelia Hartford, Sorted Food, Speeed, Christina Richardson, Mad Realities, and MyHealthyDish.
“Our role is to help scale what's already working—whether that's through production, financing, advertising, distribution, brand partnerships, or new formats—and help these creators build the next generation of global entertainment brands,” Head of FCS Billy Parks said in a statement.
FCS will fund each project and use its development and production network to give creators financial and structural resources. Creators will distribute the projects on their existing channels.
“I see myself carrying the audience that trusts me with whatever I do,” auto creator and actress Emelia Hartford told us. “This is the perfect way to no longer have a gap between traditional and digital.”
➕ Community Tab
Bonjour! We are officially en route to Cannes, France, for the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
While we’re there, the newsletter is going to look a little different—focusing mainly on the festival, how Cannes’ creator presence is changing, and what brands are looking for from creators.
If you’re a creator at Cannes: Give us a shout. We’d love to hear about your experience over an Aperol spritz.
If you’re following along at home: Let us know what you want to read about. It’s a big festival—some are calling it the “Super Bowl” of creators—and we want to make sure you feel like you were on the beach with us (minus the 95 degree weather).
Merci beaucoup, and we’ll see you Monday.
🔥 Press Worthy
Fortnite has paid $1B to creators since 2023.
MrBeast and James Patterson release a book together.
Comedy creator Brooke Averick signs a deal with Netflix to adapt her book into a film.
The US government is requiring foreign creators to get work visas for the 2026 World Cup.
Amelia Dimoldenberg brings her creator incubator, Dimz Academy, back for a second year.
Threads reached 500M monthly active users, outpacing X according to similar web data.
📚 Thank You for Pressing Publish
The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.
Read: For Intelligencer, writer Bridget Read uncovers how years-long digital trails are making cloud users more vulnerable.
Watch: Film creator ahizzle shares stories and builds sets for his “worm girlfriend.”
Listen: Podcast creators Dane Cardiel and Stella Young launch This is TV Now, a meta podcast on the industry’s shift to video.
