Good morning. How did you celebrate 'Barbenheimer?' The two movies combined for $235 million in the U.S., the second-highest domestic box office weekend ever—showing that the narrative of declining ticket sales was no match for a good meme.

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

News Roundup: Creators Do Good

This past week, a handful of high-profile creators shared updates on their work towards causes they and their audience care about.

The highlights:

• Atrioc Takes Down Creator Deepfakes. After the streamer accidentally revealed that he had watched deepfake porn, Brandon “Atrioc” Ewing committed to spending $100,000 to remove 100,000 deepfakes over six months. This week marks six months later, and he claims to have exceeded his goal by working with brand Ceartas to remove 193,000 deepfakes for OnlyFans creators such as Amouranth.

• Scammer Payback Helps Shut Down Illegal Call Center. A scammer call center in Ludhiana, India was successfully shut down last week thanks to help from the YouTube creator. For over a year, Scammer Payback has been working with local law enforcement to expose the call center that stole millions of dollars from senior citizens.

Big picture: Taking legal action against identity theft through deepfakes and scammer phone calls can be expensive—Ewing claims it’s cost him up to $60,000/month.

By using their network and partnering with professionals, creators have been able to take strides that rarely happen as fast on their own.

A Comedy Creator’s Bedroom Interview Goes Viral

Comedy creator Bobbi Althoff made headlines last week after an interview with Drake revealed new insights into the rapper’s life and career—in between hilarious conversations from the comfort of his bed.

It’s the fourth episode of Althoff’s new show, The Really Good Podcast, and clips from the interview combined for nearly 50 million views on her TikTok account.

How she got here: Althoff first rose to TikTok fame in 2021, making videos about being a young mother with her trademark deadpan humor.

Last year, the 25-year-old creator joined other “mommy vloggers” in deciding to not show her kids’ faces online.

Big picture: Althoff’s podcast appears to be the next step towards centering her content around her unique personality, a move certainly not without precedent.

From chicken shops to bedroom sets, the venue of choice for celebrity interviews has shifted dramatically, as “career creators” are finding success in podcasting.

Sponsored by .Store

The Simple Switch Behind MrBeast’s Merch Store

For someone who’s spent more than a decade laser-focused on making videos, to call MrBeast passionate would be an understatement.

“I just wake up and obsess over this one thing with my entire soul and it’s great,” Jimmy recently told Colin and Samir.

With his obsession comes an attention to detail. Through experience, MrBeast has learned that small tweaks can make the biggest impact.

Consider his merch store, which Jimmy recently migrated to a .Store domain. Sound familiar? That’s because we did the same with presspublish.store a few months ago.

The change is helping us and Jimmy meet our audiences exactly where they are—enriching our online brand and making it as intuitive to our customers as possible.

A branded .store URL is more than just a digital glow-up. It translates to real results: 12% lower CPA, 1.7x more clicks, and up to 2.1x more impressions, according to a year-and-a-half-long study run by the .Store team.

Hear what Jimmy had to say about the decision to migrate to .Store here.

Sneaker Creators Collaborate to Open New Store

Last weekend, sneaker creators and Michigan natives Connor Gorman and Hasan Habhab together opened up their sneaker store SHOP near Detroit.

The pair first met through a “penny series” Gorman was filming. Gorman brings his dedicated YouTube community (where he’s been uploading videos for over 12 years), while Habhab brings six years of experience as a small business owner.

Similar to Cool Kicks in Los Angeles, SHOP resells popular, sold-out sneakers from brands like Jordan and Adidas, and the store's main main marketing channel will be through the creators' content.

👀 Creator Moves

• Nebula is hiring a thumbnail designer to create engaging thumbnails for partner creators.

• MrBeast is hiring a creative writer to research trends and write challenges for videos.

• Ididathing is looking for a short-form video editor to support their TikTok and Shorts content. Can be remote but must be able to communicate with their Australia-based team.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Hasan Piker interviews 2024 Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson on his stream.

• Anthony Padilla spends the day with Kris Tyson.

• Twitter replaces its trademark blue bird with an “interim X logo.”

• Here’s how a global basketball brand built and manages a membership program with recurring revenue from 1,000+ paying fans.*

• Under The Desk News starts a Patreon to support their commentary on the “good news” cycle.

• Karl Jacobs drops new Vans sneakers at Journeys.

• TikTok’s music streaming app could prove a worthwhile competitor to Spotify.

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