Good morning. This week marks the unofficial start of Hamptons Private Chef season on TikTok, with the niche’s most well-known creator Meredith Hayden (aka Wishbone Kitchen) entering her “fourth season” cooking in the Hamptons.
As #privatechef has ballooned to 1 billion views on TikTok, other creators including Rob and Kara Fauerbach have joined her in showing a behind-the-scenes look of what it’s like working in some of the nicest kitchens on the internet. “This is my Super Bowl,” one commenter wrote on Hayden’s video.
Disguised Toast Launches Patreon to Fund eSports Team
Disguised Toast / Twitch
Gaming streamer Disguised Toast started a Patreon this week to help fund his eSports organization, Disguised (DSG).
Backstory: Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang started a Valorant team in February with a $500,000 budget. He said his expenses soon doubled to $1 million after Wang picked up a second team to compete in League of Legends in May.
But like much of eSports at large, Disguised has struggled to bring in money. So far, Disguised has tallied no revenue. To get back some of the money Wang’s lost, he’s taking on more sponsors on his personal streaming channels, developing merch for DSG, and, as of this week, launching on Patreon.
DSG’s Patreon supporters (there were 800+ paid subscribers when we published) will have access to the team’s financial information, including how much players and staff are paid.
“Everyone that plays and works on DSG has taken a pay cut from their previous job because it’s something they believe in,” Wang said. “I’m super grateful they’re taking a chance with us and I’m hoping with Patreon we can bump everyone’s salary up a little bit.”
FYI: Wang started a League of Legends team after the North America Challengers League was dissolved, leaving its players without a team.
“As someone who's been playing League of Legends for a decade, I wanted to pick up some of these players that are jobless to see if I can keep their dream alive and maybe bring some excitement back to the League of Legends scene,” Wang said in a recent video.
Zoom out: eSports has been bleeding cash, with many sponsors pulling support as profit prospects dwindle and some teams laying off staff or folding altogether.
News Roundup: Platforms Cast a Wider Net
Ninja / Redbull
This week, several platforms made splashy moves to win over more creators—and creators recognized their power. Here are three headlines that caught our eye…
YouTube lowers eligibility requirements for its Partner Program. Creators now only need 500 subscribers and 3,000 valid watch hours (or 3 million Shorts views) to monetize their content, opening up features like paid chat, tipping, and channel memberships to creators who are earlier in their journeys.
Ninja criticizes Twitch and streams on Kick. The gaming creator tweeted Monday that “it’s time we give the power back to the creators”—taking aim at Twitch’s controversial new simulcasting ban just three days after his first Kick stream.
Instagram beefs up its Notes tool. IG’s Notes previously allowed users to leave a message that mutuals see at the top of their IG inbox. Now, users can share music clips and translate Notes into different languages.
MrBeast Notches Record Viewership Thanks to Multi-Language Audio
MrBeast / YouTube
MrBeast released his latest video on Saturday—and it’s already his channel’s fastest-growing upload ever.
As his manager Reed Duchscher noted, the video passed 47 million views in its first 24 hours, 5 million more than MrBeast’s Squid Game remake (his most-watched video to date).
One contributing factor? Multi-language audio. At launch, viewers could toggle between more than a dozen different dubbed languages, from Vietnamese to Arabic.
FYI: We previously covered how YouTube is rolling out new audio features to help creators “supercharge” their content.
🔥 Press Worthy
The D’Amelio Family starts a new talent management company.
TikTok brings its content to gas stations.
Digital commentator Jules Terpak explores how tech companies and creators are currently tapping into the “loneliness market.”
Reddit preps employees for public backlash after API pricing changes lead users to strike.
Gaming org One True King launches a new venture that will publish games from indie creators and studios.
Stunt creator Daniel LaBelle launches merch brand.
Whether you’ve got a merch brand or dream of starting one, you can get your own .Store domain here—and see which top creators are already using one.*
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