Get Out (Leave)

Welcome to the Friday edition. Our friends Yes Theory and Max Rantz McDonald are on the ground in Poland and Ukraine helping with citizen relief. If you'd like to support their efforts, you can donate here. 

–Hannah Doyle

Emma Chamberlain Quits YouTube… Sort of

"Because YouTube has been so time consuming over the past four years I haven't developed any hobbies outside of it. My whole life was being a YouTuber," Emma Chamberlain said last week on her Anything Goes podcast.

In the episode, the popular vlogger shared that she’s felt burnt out on YouTube, and is taking a break to focus on her podcast and coffee company.

She said that she took to YouTube in 2017 because she needed a creative outlet to distract her from her depression and anxiety, and making videos became that healthy, productive distraction.

Fast forward to today, and it’s no longer as freeing as it once was. “I’m taking a break so I can fully heal my burnout,” Chamberlain said on her podcast. “I never cracked that code on how to do it in a healthy way.” 

She tried to combat burnout last year by changing up her video production, experimenting with editing styles and uploading less (she went from uploading 130 videos in 2017 to 40 in the last year). 

"The thing about YouTube is that anything is possible—you can make any type of video you want,” Chamberlain said. “And because of that, I never see myself leaving YouTube for good, but I definitely see myself leaving the way I used to do YouTube."

Our Take

Emma's YouTube uploads, and the community she's built with them, are the engine that drives every facet of her business. If she stops uploading, it risks hurting the business. This places her and many creators in a work cycle that can be detrimental to their well-being. 

We expect (and hope) to see a trend towards seasonal content. Intentional scarcity can drive advertising rates up for creators like Emma while also allowing them to take much needed breaks.

What’s Going on in Party Shirt’s Discord?

The TikTok creators, who go by X and Ivy, are music and creative partners, producing singles, merch, and comedy vlogs. They’ve become known for their “Fact or Cap” series, where they test TikTok trends to see if they’re real or fake. 

Last month they launched SUPERSTARS, an NFT project that will give their most die-hard supporters early access to their upcoming projects, including an NFT party, cook book, movie, and merch. 

“Engaging with the community will play a key part in our content—from holders submitting which trends or foods to test, to making exclusive content for them,” X said in an interview with The Publish Press. “And as we expand beyond just social media, we’ll look to our holders for ideas, advice and feedback and share in success together.”

By the Numbers

20.1 million → followers Party Shirt has on TikTok.

6,939 → members in the SUPERSTARS Discord.

500+ → NFTs slated to mint so far.

Party Shirt shared more with us about their SUPERSTARS project, and why they chose to get into NFTs. Check out our exclusive q&a at the end of this newsletter👇

Our Take

Creators starting a community on web3 is a way for them to establish a place where everyone participating has ownership not only in the NFT but in the direction of the brand. Party Shirt isn’t creating for their community, they’re creating with them.

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TikTok Raises its Video Duration to 10 Minutes

The double-digit video length is the app’s latest update, up from its three-minute video maximum.

So far it’s had a mixed reception on Twitter. One user noted “Just like Instagram lost its identity as a photo platform, TikTok might lose its appeal if the feed is full of long-form video. The short, fast content was what kept you hooked.”

Our Take

This feels like a candy store deciding to sell broccoli. We may see the broccoli on the shelf, but most people will keep eating the candy.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Lofi Girl is giving away 10 scholarships.

• Instagram is discontinuing the IGTV app.

• Tinx collaborates with Craig’s LA for take-home ice cream pints.

• The maker of Fortnite expands into music.

• CoComelon becomes the second YouTube channel to hit 130 million subscribers.

• Johnny Harris explains the backstory behind Russia invading Ukraine.

Q&A: Party Shirt

The following interview, conducted via email, has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Few creator ventures are more popular than an NFT project right now—why did you think that was the right move for Party Shirt?

We’ve been fascinated by all things crypto/web3 since 2017 and have watched a ton of projects come and go. After seeing the recent rise and popularity of NFTs, we knew that we could figure out a way to tie it all together with the brand and following we’ve built up. As we started to expand the Party Shirt brand into books, movies, etc. we finally felt like it was the right time (especially since it's still so early/new) to utilize the developing technology to build a community around all of the crazy projects we’re working on.

Your 20 million+ TikTok following spans many demographics—how did you come up with SUPERSTARS offerings you knew the community would like?

In short, SUPERSTARS is an NFT project where we’re taking our brains and brand into the evolving world of web3. It’s the first TikTok-born collection (that we know of) that’s incubating a fun and creative community fostered by our 21 million followers. 

We strategically built our roadmap in a way to showcase tangible short-term offerings along with more big-picture/long-term offerings. For example, we’ll be hosting our first annual SUPERSTARS NFT LA week party on March 31st and dropping our 1st merch collab with the talented Connor Tomatoes right after our mint (both things that are already in the works and will be completed within the next two months). 

On the flipside we also have the long-term offerings such as our Cook Book + Movie that will take a lot longer to deliver on. Ultimately, this will be the vehicle that drives all things Party Shirt moving forward and the current roadmap is the first part of things we plan to do, while knowing that once the community has been more solidified, we’ll focus on what the SUPERSTARS community wants to do.

How do you see SUPERSTARS in relation to your TikTok content? Do you think you’ll put more emphasis on one or the other in the future?

I think the beautiful thing about what we’ve built and what we’re building is that the two don’t need to be separate things. We’re excited to continue to merge the two together. We also have a new series that we’re trying to build that will hopefully bring more attention to the web3 space in an easily digestible and fun way.

What SUPERSTARS project are you most looking forward to? The cook book? Movie? Party Bus?

Our most exciting project hasn’t even been announced or put on the roadmap yet, but it involves bringing a Fortune 50 company into the metaverse and we’ll be sharing some “alpha” soon enough. ;)