Hellooooooooo creator friends!

Hope everyone is having a great week! It’s officially my favorite season, Spooky szn. It’s freakin’ bats.

How could you not love this season? From the crispy weather perfect for sweatshirts and jeans to the leaves changing (4 seasons gang stand up), I’m in my glory right now.

But enough of this weather talk. Let’s dive into the latest in creator economy news, and try to find out why TikTok is making children take the equivalent of steroids.

Creator Economy News 🚨

This week in the creator world, children taking steroids because of TikTok, MrBeast partners with an NBA team, YouTube kills off Premium lite, Spotify brings on more AI, TikTok flirts with a paid subscription, and more.

• Will I ever stop calling X, “Twitter”? Probably not. But the platform looks to test some livestreams with the help of Paris Hilton. Now that’s hot. 💅 

• MrBeast’s chocolate bar brand, Feastables, has partnered with the Charlotte Hornets as their official jersey patch partner. From UFC to baseball and now Basketball, creators are continuing to work their way into the mainstream. 🏀 

• The kids aren’t eating Tide pods again, but they are taking some weird, untested drugs to make them look huge. Similar to steroids, these drugs are not only dangerous but they’re being pushed to the masses. With almost 600M views, most of which are from under 25-year-olds, organizations call on TikTok to put an end to the craze. 💊 

You should see these 👀

• R.I.Premium-Lite. Never heard of it? Yeah neither did I, but apparently, YouTube had a “diet” version of their Premium feature in Europe, which pretty much only included ad-free videos. Honestly, I’d sign up for that. I don’t need YT music #Spotify4Ever 🪦 

• And why am I team Spotify? Because of updates like this… Spotify has integrated even more AI for creating playlists, and oh my god if you haven’t used this yet please go do it. I just did a little road trip and this feature was insanely fun to play with. 😍 

• And while YouTube cuts a paid feature, TikTok, of course, adds one. TT is apparently testing an ad-free subscription for $5/month. Nice, now we can pay for the youths to be fed content about random drugs (jokes)!

Creator Spotlight 🔦

Meet Chris James!

If you want to take a peek into the type of TV that I was consuming as a child, look no further than Chris’ videos.

Chris is a comedy commentary creator who covers all of the shows that a mid-90s baby like myself would be consuming. From Lizard Lick Towing to Mind Freak, Cribs to Home Invasion, Pimp My Ride, and beyond, I feel like I’m hopping into a time capsule when I scroll through Chris’ videos.

Chris’ videos caught me almost immediately. His style of comedy and tone of voice is super relaxing but also hysterical. It makes for an easy but engaging watch, sprinkled with a touch (okay maybe the whole bottle) of nostalgia.

Chris has been pushing out content for over seven years. Graduating from skits to reaction content seemed to have been the ticket for Chris. After four years of the skit-type content, you can see Chris beginning to pump out some solid numbers on his videos when he transitioned into reactionary stuff.

This transition seemed to lead Chris into the core type of content that he creates today. Taking his commentary and reaction to the classic show, House Hunters, you can see the views on this four-year-old video took off, ushering in the new era of Chris’ content.

And if you don’t find Chris’ growth story impressive, maybe the fact that he owns every VHS copy of Babe might be enough to impress.

Definitely go check out Chris and dive into his killer content, it’s well worth the watch. And plus, you get to watch the shows that I consumed as a child, and you can probably realize why I am the way I am! 😂 

Want to go even further? 🚀

If you’d like to keep learning about topics like the ones shared above, stick around! But more importantly, check out the links below to further your development as a creator. 😎

1. Sign up for CreatorPad

2. Join our free creator community

3. Find a personal mentor to learn from