Good morning. How often do you think about the Roman Empire? TikTok users may have informally conducted the largest pop history study ever, with over 1 billion views on videos asking (mostly) men for their thoughts on the rather specific slice of history. The results? More often than you might guess.

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

TikTok Creators Bricks and Disorder Expand to Longform

After two years of making exclusively short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram, UK-based creator duo Bricks and Disorder recently uploaded their first long-form YouTube video—and it did numbers.

• The video, which follows Bricks and Disorder’s journey making a sofa, surpassed 1 million views in one month.

• The video has been recommended on many of our team’s YouTube homepages.

• It even earned praise from YouTube vets including Max Fosh, who commented, “Incredible storytelling for your first vid.”

Who are Bricks and Disorder? Longtime friends and creative partners Cullen Farleigh and Olamide Soyemi. They started out in advertising and now make videos that blend quick-witted comedy with DIY home renovation, garnering a following of over 1.5 million across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

How did they transition from making one-minute videos to nearly 20-minute videos? Their delivery style might be chaotic and haphazard, but Farleigh and Soyemi’s production process is far from it.

• The duo zeroed in on their style and filmed their DIY renovations for a year before uploading any content to any platform.

• They write scripts and plan shots for their TikToks, and they did the same for their long-form debut.

• “We didn’t try to make a YouTube video, we tried to make lots of short videos and put them into one big video.” Soyemi said. Farleigh added, “The thing we made different was a bigger framework that put all these short segments together.”

The why: Farleigh and Soyemi branched into long-form to diversify their content without compromising storytelling. “Some person who makes tables is going to make a way better table than us, but I think we would tell a better story about making a table,” Farleigh said. “We want to inspire people and teach them a few bits and bobs without boring them and reducing our audience to a small group of people who really need to make a sofa.”

Is LinkedIn Cool Now?

Don’t look now, but LinkedIn might just be winning over creators. Users shared 41% more content on the platform this spring than they did during the same period in 2021, according to Bloomberg.

Context: LinkedIn appears to be seizing a moment when social media platforms are in a state of upheaval. Meta and YouTube are chasing TikTok’s short-form video lead, and Twitter (now X) has stumbled under new ownership.

Unlike the other major social platforms, LinkedIn’s business is largely bolstered by LinkedIn Premium subscriptions instead of ads. “What we’re seeing at LinkedIn is a little bit of stability…because it doesn’t depend on an advertising business,” Bloomberg reporter Sarah Frier told Slate.

But: Others see LinkedIn as an “inauthentic place” to connect with peers given its “brand-safe” career focus, as Kate Lindsay wrote in Embedded.

Zoom out: LinkedIn has over 900 million users. But only 3 million users created weekly content on the platform in 2019, suggesting an imbalance between consumers and creators—aka lots of lurkers.

The opportunity for creators: “You’re probably going to have a better chance of reaching a large network of people than if you were to post on another network,” Frier said.

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Lily Hevesh Releases Domino Set Collab with Disney

Dominoes creator Lily Hevesh released a dominoes set with Disney and Spin Master Games this month. While Hevesh has made videos with Disney in the past, this is the first product collaboration she’s sold through her H5 Domino Creations brand.

The 200-piece set features new colors and designs of iconic Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Moana.

Context: With over 3.9 million subscribers and 1.7 billion views on YouTube, Hevesh is considered the No. 1 domino artist in the world, with The Washington Post labeling her the “queen of dominoes” in 2021.

👀 Creator Moves

• SMOSH is hiring a director of digital marketing to manage a team that spans social media content and overall branding.

• Johnny Harris is hiring a freelance video writer with expertise in international relations.

• Vince Vintage is looking for a writer to develop story concepts and scripts.

🔥 Press Worthy

• PRIME is set to pass $500 million in revenue in its second year.

• Alix Earle releases a teaser for her upcoming podcast, Hot Mess with Alix Earle.

• TikTok receives a $368 million fine from the EU for failing to protect children’s privacy.

• Lifestyle creator Kristy Scott signs with Range Media Partners.

• Hank Green is hosting a comedy show about cancer.

• TikTok Shop will subsidize Black Friday discounts up to 50% to encourage users to shop on the app.

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