Good morning. What happened to all the big YouTube cooking channels? One Reddit user posed this question in r/cooking, claiming that the niche “has seen a massive decline in quality content.” What do you think—are there still cooking creators you gravitate towards?

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Ludwig, Hasan Piker Join Creator League at Dream Con

Sports media brand House of Highlights (HoH) is set to host a “Creator League” 5v5 basketball game and dodgeball tournament at next week’s Dream Con for the third straight year—with top creators including Mark Phillips, Ludwig Ahgren, and Hasan Piker signed on to participate.

“This is one of the pinnacle moments of the Creator League calendar,” Drew Muller, the General Manager at HoH, told us. “Having 3,000 people there live to watch it [last year]…that in-person atmosphere and the real estate to build a mini sports arena is awesome.”

Catch up quick: HoH livestreams a mix of Creator League sports events and multi-week tournaments on its YouTube channel, with creators competing to win cash prizes.

• Phillips, a former employee at HoH and the founder of sketch comedy group RDCWorld, started Dream Con as an annual anime and gaming convention in 2018.

• Dream Con has grown significantly since then—and partnered with Creator League to introduce a live dodgeball tournament in 2022 before adding basketball in 2023.

That partnership has paid off. Creator League streams and clips from last year’s Dream Con generated over 80 million views with 7 million engagements across HoH’s channels—and notched a No. 2 Trending Video on YouTube’s charts, according to Muller.

• Creator League is a great chance for creator participants to meet peers IRL and be “treated like pro athletes…having an event produced at this scale with TNT-level cameras,” Muller told us.

• He noted that games also appear on Max, TBS, and Bleacher Report (which all share the same parent company as HoH).

Zoom out: Investing in creator-led content helped HoH triple its revenue from 2021 to 2022, according to Digiday.

Environmentalist and Creator Hits Snag in Her US Senate Bid

Creator, professional ski mountaineer, and environmental activist Caroline Gleich filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) “to help seek clarifications around campaign finance regulations,” she revealed in an Instagram Reel last week.

Why? Because Gleich is running for US Senate in Utah, and a “large part” of her personal income involves posting brand partnerships across her channels.

• FEC rules are strict on what public communications political candidates can share, particularly advertising—which Gleich explained limits her ability to do her job while running for office.

• Her request to update these rules “will help provide more guidance so that more young people can run for office in the future,” she said.

Big picture: 38-year-old Gleich believes young people (particularly creators) are “uniquely qualified” to tackle regulatory issues around social media, algorithm transparency, and artificial intelligence.

But “running for US Senate basically requires an unpaid commitment that is similar to a full-time job for an entire year,” she said, observing that most young people can’t afford a political campaign—and are therefore underrepresented in Congress.

FYI: The current Senate's median age is 65, according to the Pew Research Center.

Sponsored by Fiverr

How Fiverr Solved This Creator's Business Bottleneck

Juliana Juby Yasmine is a YouTuber with over 100,000 subs and a small-biz centered around holistic living.

Earlier this year, Juliana decided to refresh her website. But while design is one of her strong suits, aspects like SEO aren’t.

Luckily, she’s part of the Fiverr Creator Network. Besides a personalized brand deal, Fiverr helped Juliana find an SEO expert who analyzed competitors and optimized her website in a week.

“Not only has it been helpful having Fiverr as a tool for my business but collaborating with them on a video promotion has been seamless,” Juliana said. Check out her video.

If you’re a creator, get paid to share your experience with the world’s leading marketplace for digital services. Join the Fiverr Creator Network.

Chris Stuckmann’s Crowdfunded Film Lands Distributor

Film critic and YouTube creator Chris Stuckmann launched a Kickstarter in 2022 to fund his feature directorial debut, a horror movie called Shelby Oaks—and blew past his original crowdfunding goal ($250,000) by raising $1.4 million in 27 days.

This week, Neon (an indie production company known for hit films like I, Tonya and Parasite) announced that it acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Shelby Oaks.

Zoom out: Creators-turned-filmmakers have endeavored to mimic the success of RackaRacka, a pair of brothers who raised money independently to make their film Talk to Me—and ultimately landed a US distribution deal with A24.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Instagram now allows users to leave Notes on Reels and Feed posts.

• Ibai celebrates with Spain’s national soccer team after they beat England to win Euros.

• Creators are using Corpus to get paid by AI models. Check out their calculator to see how much you can make.*

• TikTok’s search tools pushed young users in Germany toward content from far-right groups, according to a new report.

• Telegram introduces new features to let creators share paid content to channels.

• Brand partnerships are off to a strong start in 2024, per Business Insider, even as other parts of the creator economy struggle.

_{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

• Read: Elle dives into how Substack is becoming a “social marketplace” to find secondhand and vintage clothing through fashion creators’ newsletters.

• Watch: Why are budget airlines like Southwest and Spirit all suddenly struggling at the same time? Wendover Productions explains.

• Listen: Donald Glover releases his final album under his “Childish Gambino” moniker, Bando Stone & the New World.

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