ICG Creator Chat

Today Hank and Anthony are going to talk a little bit about why I have YouTube stories are actually different, and might be a good thing, about how long it has taken (and will take us) to learn how to be better at using the internet, and about how the YouTube algorithm is encouraging longer content (and why that might be bad for users, and actually one of the biggest competitive advantages YouTube has opened up for a competitor). Also, as always, we'll talk about the music industry and how...

Today we're talking to Jeffrey Cranor who, along with Joseph Fink created one of the first, most successful, and most influential fictional podcasts of all time, Welcome to Night Vale. If you don't know about Night Vale, it is a small town in the desert and it is very dangerous and creepy and you do not want to be an intern at the radio station. It's hilarious, surreal, and horrifying, and it exploded into the podcast world, rapidly changing everyone's minds about what can work in podcasts....

Today Anthony D'Angelo and Hank Green chat about the goings on in online video, including a quick note about YouTube Rewind, but also a lot about DEFY Media closing down, how it works, what it means, and how vulnerable creators are to the corporations that we work with. We'll also chat about a bunch of other stuff, including YouTube's recently launched snapchat/instagram-like Stories feature, an interesting step for the platform that might be really fun, but also might be really not what we...

Today we're going to have a fascinating conversation with Franchesca Ramsey, who has floated between being a YouTuber and creating for traditional media. She's had viral comedy videos, and successful hair tips videos, but also she's done stand up comedy, been a commentator on The Daily Show and produces a series for MTV. We're going to talk about how viral success led her to legacy media work, how she picked her agent, how to keep from feeling so alone in this business. We'll also talk some...

Today it's another chat between me and Anthony D'Angelo, the Executive Director of the Guild. We talk about what YouTube's outages made us think, and what the EU's Article 13 legislation means for the internet (spoiler, it's not good.) But also we've got thoughts on Logan Paul's new movie coming out, but Scare Pewdiepie remaining shelved, what that says about YouTube, and what it says about the maturation of our industry. Finally, we've got some thoughts on what Shane Dawson is up to, and...

Today we're talking to William Osman, along with Cameraman John, makes ridiculous videos documenting his work making ridiculous things....whether it's a vaping beanie, a remote controlled living dog, or the over-powered shopping cart I hit myself in the crotch with at VidCon. If the creations weren't enough, the videos are shot and produced with a subtlety that most mistake for simplicity immersing the viewer in the process and making them feel like part of the team. It's so good, I love his...

Today it's another chat between me and Anthony D'Angelo, the Executive Director of the Guild. We talk about the new Memberships feature on YouTube, how to decide where to go on tour, brand deal controversies, specifically BetterHelp but also just generally what responsibilities creators have, the current state of Net Neutrality in the US, and YouTube's new advertising product where YouTube algorithmically constructs ads for advertisers. Yikes.

Anthony fills in for Hank while he's on his book tour and sits down with Pat Graziosi from Life Noggin. They talk about animation, what it's like creating a live show for Twitch and about some of the creators in the earlier years of web video influenced them.

Lover and critic of film and media Lindsay Ellis has been making video for about as long as I have...so, like, a long time. But she only started on YouTube about three years ago. Her videos take a huge amount of work and are extremely watchable and compelling even though they're frequently over 30 minutes long. That means the way she has to fund her content, and now her small business, are different from your average YouTuber. Also, as a progressive woman with strong opinions, she is no...

Today Anthony D'Angelo, the executive director of the ICG and Hank will be talking about SO MANY THINGS. What's going on with Fortnite, how do we port the boxing livestream model to anything besides boxing, a little known but fascinating YouTube controversy in the K-pop world, ICG Discount codes for Buffer festival, SAG-AFTRA's deal with the new streaming platform Zeus, apologizing for your old racist tweets, and YouTube overtaking Facebook as the second most visited site on the internet....

Today is another chat between ICG Executive Director Anthony D'Angelo and I and, of course, the big news now is that Facebook and Twitter had the worst day ever in their existence on the stock market. Facebook lost more value in one day than any company ever has before. What this comes down to is "bad actors" trolls, russian hackers, bullies, and conspiracy theorists, and the markets seem to be waking up some to the severity of some of these problems. So let's talk about that! But also about...

Today we're talking to musician, creator, but most relevantly CEO of Patreon, Jack Conte. We're going to talk about some of the most successful and innovative campaigns he's seen on Patreon lately, whether he sees paid membership features from Facebook and YouTube as a threat, how Patreon and he, as the CEO, handled their misstesps half a year ago, how we are all being expected to be able to handle negative public discourse about us, and also how he manages to run a big ol' company with 170...

Today, Anthony D'Angelo, the Executive director of the ICG are going through the news of the last two weeks since VidCon. That means Instagram TV, Alternate Monetization launches, and YouTube's Thumbnail Science Experiment!

Echo Gilette is an artist and YouTuber who has a channel that mixes personality-based content with videos about art, art supplies, reviews, and tutorials. It's a great mix, you get connected with the creator, but she's also filling a need for an existing audience. There's a lot of strategy here. Echo is also just on the edge of turning her channel into what she calls a "Businessy Business." That's an exciting time for a channel with 150 videos, 350,000 subscribers, and a few recent viral...

Anthony D'Angelo the executive director of the ICG and Hank break down some events from the past couple weeks. We'll go through the Instagram algorithm, net neutrality, YouTube subscriptions and more.

Our guest today just celebrated his 10 millionth subscriber and the arrival of his diamond play button. Jordan Maron, also known as Captain Sparkles, is not a guy who suffers from a lack of drive. He started his career as a YouTube gamer playing Call of Duty, but ended up being part of creating the massive wave of Minecraft content on YouTube. Jordan's Minecraft music videos have gotten....a lot of views. But he also understood that that situation wouldn't last forever. We're going to talk...

We're doing a new thing here on Creator Chats...once a month, I'm going to debrief a bit with Anthony D'Angelo, the Executive Director of the ICG about what he's up to, and what big news things are happening in the world of online video. For example, in this podcast, we'll be talking about the history of MCNs, how that's different from the way agencies work, YouTube's new self-reporting tool for monetization, the benefits of exclusive brand deal representation. And we also talked about why...

Kati is an actual mental health professional, a trained therapist who also makes YouTube videos about mental health. We're going to talk some about her own strategy for growing her channel, picking topics, and dealing with content that is less...well...correct. But we'll also discuss some of the challenges internet creators are likely to face, both in terms of the constant stress, and also how we are unfortunately likely to tie our self worth to our numbers, which isn't great, since roller...

Anthony D'Angelo has been making YouTube videos for even longer than I have, and he's been studying online video, culture, and media academically for the last four years. And now Anthony is taking a new step, taking on the role of Executive Director at the ICG. After two years, Laura Chernikoff is stepping down, and Anthony will be taking her place. You can find out more about that change by checking @ICGuild on Twitter. Anthony and I never have uninteresting conversations, and I'm really...

Elle Mills is one of the biggest and most universally celebrated break out creators in recent memory. Every video is a story, and we're going to talk to her about some of the craft that goes into telling those stories and how she imagines her creative process. We'll also talk about how she has, even at such a young age, repeatedly re-invented herself, and managed to find success each time. Elle's success started on Twitter, and continues there, where a huge percentage of her engagement and...