Good morning. As promotion for their short film Spooners, comedy creators Grace Reiter and Ryan Micho have been releasing spoofs of popular internet interview shows, from Wired’s Autocomplete to Variety’s Actors on Actors.
But with Hot Ones and Chicken Shop Date notably missing from the promos…we’re starting vegan rumors.
Welcome to Ryan Trahan’s (Rental) Crib
Ryan Trahan (left) and Haley Pham (right) raise $11.4 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital over the course of their cross-country 50-day daily series / Ryan Trahan
Ryan Trahan and Haley Pham have officially concluded their “50 States in 50 Days” series, capping off a month and a half of staying in a different Airbnb each night with a final stop in Hawaii.
They started the series with the goal of raising $1 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Over 170 million views later, they smashed it. Let’s roll the tape →
They raised $11.4 million total.
More than 42K individuals and companies (including Lectric EBikes, Starbucks, Shopify, and more) donated.
The top donation? $815K from Staple Games.
The scale of Trahan’s most ambitious summer series to date has impacted the creator industry across genres.
Fan-made content has become its own niche. Per Trahan’s request, fans created tons of content in support of the series.
Nine days in, 18,500 fans helped Trahan’s Joyride candy brand set the Guinness World Record for “most photos of people holding candy uploaded to Instagram in one hour.”
One fan, TrueJabo, made a fake commercial for Joyride that got over 120x the views his usual videos earn (and a comment from Trahan himself).
The Airbnb creator space has a new high water mark. Airbnb owners who hosted Trahan and Pham have reported an uptick in property interest.
Hosts like Thomas McGee from Connecticut and Kelsey Krapp from North Dakota made videos thanking Trahan for the promotion and committing to making more content about their properties to keep up with demand.
“About a day after [Trahan] posted, we actually had people show up to our Airbnb,” McGee said.
Creators across the industry are launching series and challenges of their own.
For example: Lifestyle creator Neriah Dynamite was an early donor to the 50 Days series, giving $11K to St. Jude and earning a shoutout from Trahan. With the donation, she committed to uploading twice a week until she reaches 1,010 videos.
In the month since her donation, her channel jumped from a few hundred subscribers to 3K and gained 125K views.
Big picture: Trahan’s fundraiser was one of the largest in YouTube’s history, not far behind Mark Rober and MrBeast’s Team Trees and Team Seas campaigns, which raised around $25 million and $30 million in 2019 and 2021, respectively.
Comedy Creator Hosts Editing Competition
Jenny Hoyos is challenging editors to make a Short in her voice and style / Jenny Hoyos
Family-friendly comedy creator Jenny Hoyos is launching a one-week editing competition on August 15 through Roster. The goal? Find her next editor.
Why she’s doing it: When hiring previous editors for her YouTube channel (with 9+ million subs), Hoyos found that portfolios and resumes didn’t reflect an editor’s ability to match style.
“I used to edit for people and I hated having to edit on people's vision, which is why I want to work with people who naturally are aligned with my humor and style,” Hoyos told us.
Here are the rules:
Participants will have a week to turn seven minutes of raw footage provided by Hoyos into a 30- to 60-second YouTube Short in her signature style.
The top 10 make it to the next round. Hoyos will then select the top three—who will receive cash prizes of $1,000, $500, and $250, even if they don’t end up working on Hoyos’s team.
Not-your-mother’s LinkedIn: The non-traditional hiring path is becoming the go-to for creators. In May, Airrack hosted his own hiring competition on Roster, offering $100K to the winner. And streamers like Ludwig have offered to hire clip farmers as channel editors.
FaZe Banks Steps Down as CEO of FaZe Clan
FaZe Banks is accused of a meme coin pump and dump scheme / FaZe Banks
On Monday, Richard “FaZe Banks” Bankston announced he’s stepping down as CEO of FaZe Clan following allegations he was involved in a meme coin pump and dump scheme.
Bankston denied the claims, but he said he’s stepping down to distance other FaZe clan members from the fallout.
“The fact this is affecting the guys at all is whack. So for the time being I’m gonna be stepping away from not only FaZe, but all this internet sh**. It’s destroying my life inside and out,” Bankston said on X.
Big picture: Bankston’s departure continues what’s been a rocky chapter for FaZe Clan. Once considered a dominant force in creator-fronted gaming—from covering Sports Illustrated to going public in 2021 at a $1 billion valuation—the esports and media company has struggled in the face of controversial NFT and crypto ventures. It was acquired for $17 million by esports company GameSquare in 2023.
🔥 Press Worthy
YouTube updates its profanity monetization policy: Videos with strong profanity in the first seven seconds are now eligible to earn full ad revenue.
Spanish streamer Ibai breaks the Twitch record for most concurrent views with his creator boxing event, La Velada del Año V, bringing in over 9.3 million concurrent views.
Lifestyle creator Demetra Dias releases a clothing collection with Aéropostale.
Logan Paul, Jake Paul, Sketch, and more creators help launch a breath mint brand called Breath Death.
TikTok partners with Westfield Malls and Curb to increase its presence on screens outside of phones.
