Welcome back. Today we’re talking about golf YouTube, which happens to be one of my favorite things. Fore—I mean, warning—golf puns ahead.

–Hannah Doyle

What Does a Smart Collaboration Look Like?

We saw a good (good) example last week. In a rare occurrence for the sport, apart from major tournament highlights, golf creators Good Good and Rick Shiels landed on the YouTube trending page with the launch of their collab series.

The details: Good Good flew to the UK to film a week’s worth of videos with Rick Shiels. The first video, a knockout challenge, debuted Thursday.

Zoom out: Both Good Good and Shiels are big in the golf world but target different audiences. Good Good, a group of six golfers, started in 2020 and has become one of the fastest-growing sports channels on YouTube. Their highly engaged young audience has clocked 154 million views on Good Good’s 268 uploads, most of which prioritize entertainment over technique.

Rick Shiels has been on YouTube since 2011. He’s among the most-followed creators in the genre and makes more education-based content (think titles like 5 simple ways to fix your golf slice) for an older audience.

What makes this a smart collab? Good Good and Shiels played to their strengths—high-quality golf content for passionate audiences—without sacrificing growth. Good Good’s audience got Shiels’s education, Shiels’s audience got Good Good’s entertainment, and anyone watching got relevant golf content that likely introduced them to a new creator to follow.

Our Take

Small creators often seek collaborations with bigger creators (regardless of niche) to enhance their sub count, but this tie-in shows there’s value in going deep instead of wide. The best collaborations are ones that 1) can surprise and delight (and stay relevant) for both target audiences and 2) focus more on the content than video performance metrics.

Sororities Infiltrate the FYP

Ready or not—and we’re definitely not—Bama Rush is back on TikTok with Pref Night outfits, rush bag hauls, and enough ENewton and Kendra Scott jewelry to last a lifetime.

Last year, Panhellenic recruitment at the University of Alabama became a viral sensation on TikTok and beyond. But watching young women go through rush did more than send shivers down the spine of any former sorority president—it also surfaced conversations about race, class, and toxicity within Greek life across the country.

So when Bama Rush returned this weekend, so too did #BamaRush. The hashtag has tallied 1.1 billion views and brought new faces to FYPs everywhere.

Some familiar characters from last year, like Darcy McQueeny, are back, along with new favorites like Gracyn Edmondson and Kylan Darnell. Fervent RushTok viewers follow the process through hashtags, waiting impatiently for the drama to culminate on Bid Day (which is this Sunday).

Our Take

Bama Rush plays out like a reality show, and the trend proves there’s an appetite on TikTok for return viewing, even with a year in between seasons. Will it have the same impact this year as it did last year? Time will tell. But if it does, perhaps accounts like The Hype House or Stapleview comedy might follow suit by, say, making videos from each cast member’s account and telling a story together through a hashtag.

Sponsored by Jellysmack

5 Creators Tapped to Host Pinterest-Exclusive Shows

Exciting news! Your favorite creators are coming to Pinterest. Our friends at Jellysmack are partnering with Pinterest to launch five new shows hosted by leading creators Emmeline Mayline Cho (Emmymade), Karina Garcia, Lauren Riihimaki (LaurDIY), Liz Fenwick, and Crowned Ladies. Topics range from cooking and interior decorating to beauty and fashion. Jellysmack collaborated with the creators to develop, produce, and distribute each 18-episode series.

The partnership offers the creators opportunities to strengthen their brand and broaden their distribution to a platform with tons of opportunity (and over 400 million monthly active users).

“Pinterest is a wonder-filled platform packed with cooking and meal inspiration,” shares Emmy. “Now, I have the opportunity to contribute to that realm of inspiration for Pinterest’s food-loving community, and that’s so EXCITING! And I can’t wait to share my adventures in the kitchen.”

Check out this post to learn more about the partnership and explore this exciting slate of new shows.

WaPo's Newest Columnist Is a TikToker

The award for legacy newspaper with the most digital cachet goes to The Washington Post, thanks to a robust TikTok following and having Taylor Lorenz on the payroll.

Now, the paper is doubling down by adding more Gen Z-focused talent to its lineup. The latest: TikToker Jules Terpak, whose commentary on social media and its effects on our lives has gone viral time and again.

Last week, Terpak and WaPo announced she’d start an advice column for the paper, fielding questions on how to live life online.

Our Take

Despite the reach, acclaim, and income creators can build for themselves on social platforms, traditional media (even with all the downsizing of the last decade) still wields power.

One byline at a major news publication can add more legitimacy to your brand than hundreds of self-published videos, which is why—even if WaPo pays ¼ what brands pay for content—creators still seek legacy media’s stamp of approval.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Liza Koshy will join a Netflix movie also starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron.

• TikToker Nick DiGiovanni is set to appear on Selena Gomez’s cooking show.

• Corridor Crew debuts its first Netflix Show.

• Meta is paying creators up to $3k to test a new livestream platform.

• HubSpot is looking for its next group of podcasts and applications close on August 12th. Grow your podcast on the HubSpot network—apply today.*

• How Dream SMP changed TommyInnit’s life.

*This is sponsored advertising content.