Good morning. After filing for bankruptcy in 2017, Toys R Us is coming back with over 100 stores across the US.

Five of those stores will feature a creator studio, where brands and creators can film toy-related content and host IRL events. Finally, a place to film blind box reviews in peace.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

Not who you’d expect. Hi everyone, Syd here. This week, I joined our team on The Colin and Samir Show to rank 16 of the world's biggest celebrity YouTubers and crown the best channel.

From Cristiano Ronaldo to Matthew McConaughey to Kylie Jenner, we came away with one conclusion: name value alone only gets you so far.

Here are three qualities that separated the best celebrity YouTube channels from the rest →

Clear identity: Does the creator make it easy to understand what viewers will get from their channel? Bollywood director Farah Khan has grown an audience of 3M+ subscribers in two years with a clear, repeatable format that operates like a TV show distributed on YouTube. By comparison, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo has 83M subscribers, but his channel acts more as an aggregator of clips, promos, and the occasional vlog, with view counts that often dip below Khan’s. 

Audience connection: Beyond reach, does the channel build depth with viewers? Actor Matthew McConaughey rarely shows his face in his videos, instead posting five-minute audio clips of poems and stories, many of which don’t break 100K views. F1 driver Lando Norris, who founded motorsports channel Quadrant, uploads more direct and personable vlogs that give viewers greater access to him and his life.  

Consistency: Can the creator keep delivering on the channel’s promise? MMA fighter Israel Adesanya has posted consistently for five years with relatively low-lift reaction content. For comedian Kevin Hart and basketball player LeBron James, both of whom recently launched golf channels, the question is whether hour-long, highly-edited videos can be sustained at a consistent cadence.

How I see it: Take away the celebrity status, and the same principles apply to creators. The strongest YouTube channels have a distinct identity, give their audience something they actually want, and deliver on that promise consistently. The best also understand how to translate those fundamentals into content that feels native to YouTube. 

To see our official ranking (and who my personal favorite is), watch the full episode here. Did we miss one? Hit reply and let us know.

Wesley Wang, the film creator behind viral short film nothing, except everything and animated short Violet and Marlowe, recently launched his own film studio, Wesley Wang Media.

Its first project? A YouTube competition series where one creator will win $100K to make a feature film. 

“This studio system is broken, and I don't want other people to go through that,” Wang told us. “I actually want to see people get their dreams made.”

How it works:

“We want to make the audience feel like they're a part of everything that we do,” Wang said. “They're not just bystanders watching the series, but also understanding the story behind the story and falling in love with the people making the films.”

Why he’s doing it: Wang’s own experience working within the traditional studio system inspired him to build an alternative.

“I was experiencing a lot of creative difficulties and bureaucratic inefficiencies in the studio system. It’s not anyone’s specific fault, just a byproduct of Hollywood being outdated in general,” Wang said. 

This competition is his way of giving other young filmmakers a different start. 

Sponsored by Artlist

The Artlist $250K Seedance 2.5 Challenge set out to answer a simple question: Can AI video stop people from scrolling and make them feel something?

The results are in, and these winning creators proved that when cutting-edge technology meets intentional storytelling, cinema-grade production is completely within reach. From tragic surrealism and dark comedies to sharp documentary parodies, each winner brings a unique point of view that will completely change how you think about AI filmmaking.

Get inspired by the breakthrough talent shaping the future of production. Watch the winning films.

Hannah here. Two years ago, I interviewed musical comedy creator Morgan Jay as his live show was taking off on socials and turning a profit for the first time in his 17 years of comedy. Back then, he was nearing 1M Instagram followers and prepping for a 1K-person show with a videographer and keyboardist.

A lot has changed since. Jay now has 5M Instagram followers, another 11M on TikTok, a team of seven, and several world tours behind him.

This weekend, I saw Jay perform to a sold-out show at LA’s Greek Theater—a 6K-seat venue—where the crowd sang back signature lines like “can I get an ‘l-o-l’ or a ‘ha-ha-ha’ or an ‘l-m-f-a-o’ or a ‘ja-ja-ja’ if you’re Spanish.”

Walking up to the show, where people sold bootleg merch along the sidewalk, it was clear Jay’s fanbase had grown. But I wondered whether the intimacy of his show had scaled with it. Turns out, it has → 

Why it works: As Jay has grown, he’s folded more of himself, the band, and his audience into the act, toggling between earnestness (sharing stories about buying his mom a house and mourning the loss of his dog) with unseriousness (a song about popping pimples he calls “pop music”). 

Even as Jay books bigger venues, the possibility that anyone in the audience could become part of the show makes the experience feel a lot smaller.

What’s next: In two weeks, Jay embarks on a tour across Asia and is releasing a YouTube talk show, Music Therapy, made with Live Nation and featuring guests like Yung Gravy and Josh Johnson.

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