Colin & Samir on YouTube's dominance, the perspective era of content, and Disney's Sora deal

next guests uh Colin and Samir from of course the Colin and Samir show. Uh living legends to the show. They're going to come and sit down here. Good to see you guys. Welcome. Welcome live.

How are you? Good to see you in the Ultra Dome. Good to see you. How you doing?

Um,

great to have you guys in person.

Yeah, man.

Finally.

Can I raise this cuz everyone just became very aware of my height when you shook my hand.

How do I person here?

I have the worst brain. I sit high.

This is I look like I'm under the desk right now. How do I raise you guys? Do you lean back?

Stay off the line.

Stay on the tight.

Stay on the tight. Stay on the tight.

You read my rider.

Yeah. I know. I know. But look, we're working. For a while, that wide was a 15 mm or something, and it looked insane. I looked way bigger than the ghost. Now, it's like evening out.

What an incredible holiday vibe here, guys.

Look at this. Look at this signed.

We got We got a signed uh holiday event.

Wow. That's going straight to the top. Straight to the top.

We were very very close to being uh in full Santa suits. I had

Christmas week. He fell for me. He's of course

with the belts.

I think we will be

with the bells on the sho.

I do think we will be doing uh the the same outfits uh tomorrow.

This is maybe the last time we wear suits this year.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Rest is anyway. It's been it's been a wild year for us. Been a wild year for you. Uh what what have been the standout moments uh for you this year as you look back on it as uh as two creators? I actually think we're in a standout moment right now in everything that's happening with Netflix and and Warner and like the conversation around that

I actually think has a lot to do with with YouTube creators and what has happened with YouTube and I think between that and then what we just saw with Disney and and Sora I think these are two topics that we it's worth getting into and giving our perspective as creators of what's

happening. I feel like the notable thing is in all the antitrust debate and conversation, everyone's like, "Look, look at YouTube. Look at all that watch time. Look at all that watch time."

Do you buy that? Do you buy the YouTube like like because there is a narrative in Hollywood that Warner Brothers and Netflix are too powerful together. It's too crazy. And then a lot of people are saying, "Hey, YouTube's like running away with the whole game. This is a sideshow." Um, where do you stand on it?

Yeah. I mean, look, Greg, Greg Peter said that as a quote just, right, that like even if you put these two together, it's still smaller than YouTube, which is such an interesting justification

of why the deal should go through. But I think the reality is like Neil Moan was just named Time CEO of the year. And I think

his positioning and what YouTube has done really well, two guys who've been on the platform for 15 years, his positioning is they build the best stage. You essentially evaluate it like an open mic night for the internet. It's just anyone can go on there and see. You literally don't know. We don't know if like the greatest piece of content could be uploaded today. YouTube has no idea.

And I don't think you can compete with that. The fact that they don't pay for content.

Yeah.

The fact that people will upload with the chance of getting distribution

and not even looking for the economics. The economics are there. Like if you can create content obviously that gets millions of views like there are many ways to monetize but

that's pretty dangerous in a good way for YouTube to sit in that place where like someone can just there's a guy who spent two years making a documentary about bird watching.

Yeah.

And was like I'll just put it on YouTube for free and it's incredible.

Wait, who is this?

His name's Owen Riser. It's an amazing documentary. It's called Listers. It's It has like almost three million views now. And

he didn't know how he wanted to monetize it. He had offers from streamers but just didn't want to do it. Yeah,

put it on YouTube and put his link in the description.

And he in the time we talked to him, which was like 2 3 weeks after he put out the dock, he had been Venmoed $75,000. Incredible.

That's amazing.

Which is unbelievable. But like that that this model of just kind of like I I don't think we talk enough about the fact that you can just upload a video or what we're doing right now is just being is just live. Yeah.

Right. And like to do that 20 years ago was impossible.

Yeah. And so I I think it's going to be really challenging when you're Netflix and you're, you know, spending money on something like Stranger Things and like you're you're placing a bet you're placing a bet that you think the audience will like it based on historical data or based on packaging actors and like old school Hollywood, you know, technique. Whereas YouTube's like, yeah, like I think you'll like this and if you don't, I'll just get data to figure out what you'll like next. Well, and I think that's why that's why Netflix and Paramount value this IP at to such an extreme degree because that's the one thing I feel like YouTube hasn't done because like creating really valuable IP I think takes decades. Like you have to build it up.

It seems like no amount of money can just create a new Superman or a new Spider-Man. And it feels like we would have gotten that out of YouTube just the broad economic forces or we certainly would have gotten it out of Netflix and we have it a little bit with Squid Game and Stranger Things to your point, but

it just with all the tech money, all the money, there's so much of incentive, but there's just no shortcut for okay, this has been my my dad watched this and I watched it with my dad and then I watched it with my kids and like I'm going when I think about YouTube IP, I think of like Miss Rachel, which is like I I think at some point she could trade herself out and and have an actor like

I think about Dude Perfect and Good Mythical Morning. Yeah.

So Rhett and Link with Good Mythical Morning. They're on 3,000 episodes right now of a morning show that people have grown up on. It's been around for you near two decades now. Like it's daily. I think there's there's a lot of value to what they've built. They've built like a big company with writers and like they could e either someone else could take over that show or they can sell this catalog of relatively evergreen content. Dude Perfect is expanding right now. They've been around also for almost two decades. They just launched Dude Perfect Outdoors. They launched a new podcast. Like

they can expand that universe uh pretty well. So I do think like really good IP is building on YouTube. It's all going to take time. But again, the amazing thing about the platform that is YouTube is that, you know,

I guess the question is like like you you pointed this out to me the first time you were on the show was that uh there are there are I forget exactly the stat, but it was something like like there's a ton of uh young kids where their favorite person is someone no one else knows. And it's sort of a referendum on like the Nimell phenomenon that you can be niche huge in that niche like you are getting stopped for a signature by that fan or

never heard of them

like like you know just a bunch of people that are like never

I mean the four of us could walk down the street here.

Exactly.

And there could be people who are like holy [ __ ] it's John Jordan

and then have to explain who everything about what you do to the next person.

The opposite can happen.

Whereas that's not true for Spider-Man. That's not true for Star Wars. There's certain things that have broken through too. It's it's household name level. And I think Mr. Beast has done that for sure. Um, Dude Perfect, yes, to some degree, but it just feels like it's a function. It's not saying that it can't happen. It's just a function of time more than money or anything else. And I think if Dude Perfect 20 years, super impressive, incredible,

but it takes 50 to be a 50 year old property. Like there's just no uh we had the acquired guys on the show and and we were talking about like why should we ring the gong for you? What is it? And and the metric that I was the most like envious of was uh they've been doing it for 10 years. Yeah. And it's like it's like

Yeah. I wonder I wonder if it's actually a function of you need like three generations to grow up on the content in order for it to be durable IP.

That is true. We're just getting to the point where there are creators like Retin Link or Dude Perfect that are are going towards 20 years.

Yeah. Right. So, we're seeing these creators do this for the first time.

Totally.

Well, I think on this like on the point of Netflix, YouTube, Warner, like we'll see what happens. But I do think it's interesting that Netflix in order to compete

is it needs to acquire a bigger catalog and maybe maybe with what they're doing and they're starting to also offer deals to podcasters.

Yeah. At what point at what point do they just open up the platform and say here's an upload button6?

Yeah. I whoa

I think there's going to be a creator program of some sort because even if you

that's more curated but but

I've heard you can do that on Amazon Prime. I I'm pretty sure if you have a document you can just upload and say goodart I think if you look what Netflix did with Mark Robber massive YouTube creator

they took his top 10 basically greatest hits from YouTube repackaged them they're on Netflix right now and it was a top 10 show on Netflix number one kids show

wow

they also signed a deal with him to make a new series a reality show

he also did a Christmas special with Elmo directed by another creator Daniel Thrasher so very cool

but that shows me that they have an openness to content that I don't think they would have been open to a couple of years ago that maybe they wouldn't have deemed premium enough.

Sure. Sure. Sure. But I mean, as a certain point, like just even just the AdSense is if you just took the AdSense from a Mr. Beast video, like that's enough to go shoot a Hollywood that that is the budget of a Hollywood 20-minute production.

The other Yeah, maybe. I think um it just feels like Jimmy's ad is very different than other people's ads. I think what you guys have probably experienced is sponsorship dollars are

are going to drive you know the the the majority of productions but uh my my concern with a Netflix and and as they move into podcasting is like their appetite for niche communities

because they tried this with fitness at one point they did a partnership with Nike where they were trying to compete essentially with Pelaton they're like maybe people come here to work out the audience was too small and like they don't do well with niche and our world like we just talked about is like

it's choose your own adventure from a media perspective and YouTube is great at that. Here's here's what points like like taking K-pop Demon Hunters and making it a national conversation, making Squid Game a national conversation. That's the game thing that uh that Netflix is missing and maybe their opportunity to grow watch time is there's nothing real time on Netflix at all. So much of the time that I want to watch content, it's like I'll watch some geopolitical like creator on YouTube or I'll watch like what happened F1 commentary reaction, right? And

Netflix does has nothing for me if I want to kind of understand what happened in the last 24 or 48 hours, right? And I just feel like a lot of watch time on the internet is that kind of more real time. There's like evergreen entertainment content that Netflix is dominant in and YouTube but YouTube has both and so I think that can explain some of the differential.

I think this actually it it it the conversation moves nicely into the Disney Sora thing and and largely because

some

What was your immediate reaction to the news

to Disney Sora? Yeah.

It's like it was going to happen. I'm surprised they're the ones who did it. But I think what what Col and I have been kicking around is like the video gamification of everything where even if you look at prediction markets, right? So like you guys obviously have a partnership with Poly Market and you look at KI Poly Market like everything is a video game, right? And if we look at the early origins of YouTube, it was video games. You look at the early origins of Twitch, it was video games. And I think our expectation as audience members is that all of our media is interactive. We can play with it. We can touch and feel it. And it's only getting increasingly more interactive. So the Disney Sora conversation especially like as generative AI has come into the picture. It's like generative AI itself is entertainment. So me generating images and videos is time I'm spending entertaining myself. Yeah,

right. It's not just utility, it's entertainment.

Yeah.

And I think obviously if you have this IP you guys just talked about like takes 50 years to build IP. Look at Disney's IP, it's hundreds of years.

You have this IP, how do you how do you monetize it? Well, what's really interesting, my assumption, I haven't read into this if this is what's happening, but with Sora, is that if you use one of the 200 characters that's licensed to Sora over the next 3 years, there's likely some fraction, you know, micro payment going back to Disney. And if it's not, I think that will be the model where essentially, yeah, I'll give you Mickey Mouse. Just give me like a fraction of a penny every time someone uses Mickey Mouse.

Now, like from an audience perspective, it's interactive media. it's more fun for me to to prompt and generate Mickey Mouse in the context that I want him. And then for Disney, like they have these this IP that can be generating like very small amounts of money, but you scale that out to like 30 million people using it or 20 million people using it. It's like

that gets pretty significant.

It's kind of move towards UGC in the same way that Netflix needs to open up a creator model. Let's open up our IP for a lot of creators. And like they said, some of it's going to come to Disney Plus.

Yeah. I just I I think it's uh I I thought it was smart for a lot of reasons. I think I I think OpenAI specifically needed some competitive edge around uh I think people were

Nano Banana has like really broken through. I have two account I have account I have an account that that I just have free models for the different labs. So I did the same prompt yesterday with Gemini and Chat GBT for an image generation and Gemini was like 10 seconds. chatbt on the free plan takes like I didn't even come back I didn't actually go back and see it but it took like multiple minutes and so having something that uh gives them a reason to drive a bunch of new paid subscriptions I think

uh and like specifically get the next generation

uh Disney products are like a drug for children they're addicted right um and uh and I think it's like adding a personalization layer that didn't really exist for Disney like you go to parks and you could like do a have a meal with a character or whatever and that was personalized or take a picture or something like that. But I think if you're Disney and you're trying to drive more signups to Disney Plus, more retention, more park visits, I think it's actually smart because if you put uh the only thing my three-year-old knows about AI, and he doesn't even call it AI, but he's like make a dino picture. He just that's like stuck in his head. uh because it's such a fun experience of like we take a picture, we take a selfie and then we just make it make us look like dinosaurs or whatever. He loves it, right? So Disney doing that and getting uh you know, I'm sure a lot of people will say this is like terrible and shouldn't happen, but getting a bunch of young people to have that experience of like making a Disney part of their like everyday experience in life, I think is going to be have like powerful downstream effects.

I feel like um Sora was a bit of a Napster moment for visuals. like Sora came out and sort of broke the mold of what we would expect and a lot of people started using the IP anyway and we were like wait like you're supposed to pay for this stuff.

Yeah.

Right. And then like a new model of streaming has emerged and I don't think artists are particularly

super excited about that model but they've adjusted

right and I think this is another moment

where it's like okay the way that we monetize this art has shifted because of technology and it has just happened and Disney in a way is now I think just coming over me like this is already happening. People are already using our IP in ways we didn't want them to

on Sora. So, let's just get involved,

some control

and create the new model. Let's come up with the new model for how we monetize.

I actually think even if you look at what you guys are doing with this show, like I I always think about a live show like yours as like your open source. You're giving open source material to the internet in a way, right? People can clip this and and play with it and and interact with it and talk about it and retweet it and it's like

it's it's a playable medium. And I would assume that there's some some clips of this show that have extremely high viewership that no one in this building made.

For sure.

For sure.

Right. And so that

some of the some of the clips with Yeah.

the best performing

if you probably took like individual assets that got the most views,

probably at least five out of the top 10 were posted by other people that were just

The most viewed clips of the Colin and Samir show are not made by our team.

Wow.

For sure. If you go on Tik Tok, search Colin Smeir show, you search some other interviews, like they are all clipped by other people in ways that we wouldn't have.

Or it's even reframed reframed around your show. It's reframed. We can't even compete with our own clips, you know? We tried to be like, "Oh man, that person already put it out.

We we tried to compete with the internet for our own clips of our own show and we couldn't compete." And that's where I think the perspective of like Disney and Sora is like, yeah,

just like here's material

content ID type system will come for clips and from AI.

I think I think it has to. I mean, I think I think YouTube has precedent with content ID. I think um I think we'll all as creators live in the world where we're like, yeah, you can use my the same way that Sora kind of showed it. It's like, yeah, you can use my face. But I think there will be there'll have to be a a revenue share model. Like I think for this to work properly and maybe nobody cares about this but

well it's not just revenue so it it's it's like multi-share because it can't just be what it is uh I don't know exactly if it is this way currently but there's the there's the thing about like I could be using some clips from your show and clips from this show and this but as soon as I put Mariah Care's like you know Christmas song in there like she's getting 100% of the revenue she owns it right uh and there's like only one claimant right now um but there'll need to be like slices where it's your face was on screen for this.

I don't want to say it, but I'll say it. It feels like web 3 was starting to get onto this with fractional ownership, right? Where you can tokenize yourself in a way of like,

yeah, if this token is used, I receive x%.

You may or may not actually need the blockchain underlying, but there's this idea of fractional idea of that where like Grimes gave her voice out, right? and like it was like a 50/50 rev share if you used her voice. And like I think that maybe will happen, but I I also think just the internet and like YouTube specifically I think will look pretty different in that not only will we say you can use my IP and my face, but I think you'll take like the full length episode of your guys show or let's say our show and I think you'll just type in,

you know, I got seven minutes. Can you just give this to me in seven minutes? Like you can use their voice and like their style of animation, but just like give me the give me the seven minute version of this. Yeah,

I think if you've ever played with Notebook LM, you start to see like how like manufacturing your own entertainment where I could go give me TBN, give me Colin and Samir and give me acquired last episode, but like summarize it all for my 21minute drive.

Yeah.

Right. Connected to Google Maps. It's like

Yeah. I'm always I'm always interested in where that lives. Like does that live in the consumer side or on the platform side or on the creator side? Because like we literally do that. We have a 20 20 to 30 minute cut down of the 3-hour show, right?

That we cut down, we edit

diet TV.

Diet TV. It's very Yeah, we it's been

It's so funny because I've seen people create seen other people create like diet versions of their show now.

And when when we were first like conceptualizing the show based on people's feedback of like I want the show in 20 30 minutes,

I was like, "Oh, we'll just call it Diet TVN." It's like all of all the flavor like like way you know way less calories and John was like diet like does that make does that make any sense? But

it is a good

it's like not an industry term. It's not an industry term, but no, but it makes it makes more universal sense. But anyway, I think you'll be able to make your own version of diet, right? And like

but you'll have to say yes to that. And and again, there will have to be some new way of like yes, so long as I'm compensated when that happens. But if it is

you, us, you know, Ben and David and you guys in one episode, like

also the question is who's weighted heavier,

right? Is it acquired? They're like the luxury brand of of they're the Rolex of the space.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's funny.

You may not even have to ask the platform to do it from an audience perspective. You think the platform just does it?

I think at some point, yeah, they're like, "No, we know better than you based off of what you've already told us in your behavior

potentially." But what what what what's odd is that the AI models, they're really good at a lot of things, but they they they have not yet been good at clipping. like like you don't want to go up against the internet, but I would say, you know, if there's five mega viral Colin Samir clips that that you guys didn't clip, they was those were clipped by humans, though.

Those are humans.

Those were not because as soon as someone could do it, they would definitely run, oh yeah, run the prompt over all their content. Let me put it out. I'll I'll try and monetize.

Decent platforms that can get you like 65% of the way there. But yeah, you're right. The framing

they're good as tools. They're good as tools alongside the human, but the editorial it's an editorial thing. there could be this show generated by AI, right? Like I'm just saying if you just look at the technology like we could ingest

news

and

figure out how to give it in like an audio

Yeah. form contextualized,

but it's not it's not as fun. It's like that has no I'm not

It's also nowhere near as special. Like there is something very special about what happens here dayto day and like changing and like feeling like you're here in the moment. Yeah. I think to clarify like I if anyone's listening to this being like oh my god there like this is the dystopian world of content like there is no world where I see

like this your guys show as an example

is like there is more room for interesting creative now than ever

uh if you are thinking about what is this is maybe a bizarre way to put it but what is like a uniquely human format

uh is it's why we've invested more in live events like we did our first big live event in New York in September and um

that was with Google, right?

They were a sponsor. Yeah. And it was super fun and it was great and there's 500 people in a room and and and I think

you feel like that is there's going to be a rise in live events for sure. Obviously, I imagine you guys are going to do some version.

You haven't cracked it, but

you'll do something where people can show up and people will die to show it. Yeah. Acquired obviously had 6,000 people in the Chase Center. Like

I think uh good creative will always win. But I do think back to the Netflix conversation, the the question is like who is the arbiter of taste in all of this?

And I think the old Hollywood uh world is like Hollywood is the arbiter of taste. We're going to show you what good is. And Netflix is that, right? They're going to curate stuff editorially. I think that still matters. I don't want to suggest it doesn't matter. I enjoy that. The other side is that the audience is the the arbiter of taste and the curators of what's good. And that's the

I would be I would as a Netflix subscriber, I would be excited for them to have a corner of Netflix that's just history content from independent creators just like effectively like providing

Johnny Harris.

Yeah. Stuff like that. Because I I've been on YouTube uh to fall asleep at night, I can't watch anything tech or business related because it just kind of you prompts a bunch of ideas. So I have to just like it's got to be like 30 years old. Like it's got to be like history. And something I've noticed recently is like there's a bunch of channels getting a lot of views that are getting served in the algorithm uh that are clear and I only clock that it's AI because they'll use images and then there'll be like a talk track

and there's a bunch of creators that have just nailed this format over the years. But I'm starting to hear like this battle wasn't just a a fight. It was it was a turning point in history and like very like clockable as AI. And so now, like in the same way on Amazon, as a consumer, you're like,

I just want to buy stuff on Amazon that's from brands that are over 50 years old because then I know that it's I know that it's not like somebody just,

you know, that's how I feel about Tik Tok shop. I'm I sometimes will get caught with a product that I'm like,

hm, maybe I want that, but if it's on Tik Tok shop, I'm like, I don't

blanket disendorsement of

Wait, is that not But like, do you guys Tik Tok a sponsor of this or something? No, no, we don't. We don't even have I don't even have Tik Tok installed.

These guys are in deep negotiation with Tik Tok right now.

I've never been met with the opposite for that.

It's the opposite. I actually hardest dig in this year.

No, we're we're bad creators. We don't have Tik Tok on our phones. We get some We have one friend that sends us Tik Tok links and I've never watched any of them.

Not a single one. That's right.

Uh I got to we got when Larry comes out and says like I fully control Tik Tok now. It's mine. I've got it here on my phone.

I trust it. You can trust it. Then I'll I'll give it a spin.

You know what is you guys don't have Tik Tok so we'll tell you about this. There is like AI creators now. And that is very bizarre and dystopian to me because they even me and maybe I'm getting to that age where I'm part of the cohort that can't tell but I can't tell.

Okay. And

oh, so you're not talking about like there is a creator that creates various animals being pulled over at DUI checkpoints and like that's their stick.

I'm talking about like an AI generated human

okay

creator who looks human. Okay,

there's this

are people in on the joke or

it's just the pace. They're not

they're not the pace and and the the tools really have opened up a world where it is easy to create. I mean, I've like I've seen these and I've been like, "Let's kill."

Is that sort of the biggest is that sort of the biggest trend of of 25, you think? Or I I I'm super interested like at a more tactical level, what's changing on YouTube? Like um because obviously we've been through like the 8 minute shift and then the 20 minute shift and and then uh you know like clickbait to like the counter switching to ABD and all the all these different little moments have happened. Like were there any is is it fair to say that AI is like the biggest the biggest change in 25 or was there another kind of meta shift that you sort of noticed?

One that we talk a lot about is the the shift from you know podcast being the meta when you think about the last presidential election to you know obviously like podcast played a major part uh if you look at the amount of podcast appearances and viewership that Trump got versus Kla Harris like it's just

the graph is unbelievable.

Yeah. I and I had this whole take during the election that it was about watch time too because the crazy thing is is that she not only would she would would come and go on uh like a smaller show with a smaller audience but she would only do a 45minut hit and Trump would be there for 3 hours and I'm like we know AVD like watch time is important we actually uh clocked and we wrote down how much time and I think for Trump it was like 16 hours available or maybe more and for it was like under two

and and it's just like as a voter if you want to just sit and be I want five hours of content from this person to make my decision. I'm going to listen to five hours of both and there's not five hours of one. That's a tough cell. Anyway, that looks extremely real. That I I would never

I don't know if I can show a camera. I don't even know what camera is looking at me right now, but Oh, there you go.

There you go. I don't know if you can tell, but like the the Well, so here's the thing that's going to happen is people are people are going to start to realize if this person has didn't post at all before 2025, they're not real because I feel like the this year the models got

enough in 2019,

check the early Instagram.

My understanding of how things have changed on YouTube

um is that like if I if I was to zoom back to when I first got on the internet, I think the amazing thing was like it was all information. We could access information in a crazy way. Like at least when I was a kid, we would go to like the library and go to the librarian and try and find like a a book about something.

And that changed when we could search Ask Jeieves or Google or AOL or Yahoo and like we could just find out things and that was crazy.

And I think the information era was capped with the rise of social media and like Facebook specifically. When Facebook came about, it wasn't just information about the world or fun facts. It was information about people

and information about people was like really interesting and and had gossip connected to it and had like voyerism connected to it. It was just like this fascinating world that mirrored celebrity culture. And that then ushered in the next era which was the attention era. And the attention era was kind of brought all the way forward by you know someone like Mr. beast Jimmy who was like here's human psychology and here's how these algorithms what they favor what what are the incentives of the internet and let's push that forward and that's like we got to that point with the meta of YouTube being all about information and attention and I think this next era that we're in and the biggest shift that's happened in YouTube over the past year has been a shift towards perspective information and attention void of perspective is just completely uninteresting

and I think that that actually wasn't the case you talk about like history YouTubers. We were talking to this car creator, James Pumphrey. He used to work at Donut Media and he was telling us like he could he at Donut they could get a million views of like the entire history of Volkswagen.

Yeah.

But that he can't do that anymore. He has to add perspective to it. The title has to be like why or how Volkswagen

how Volkswagen is cooked.

Yeah. Or how Volkswagen turned their back on us,

right? And that has perspective suggested. And I think we can access information now very easily through LLMs, through search, through anything. We can actually also access like attention driving things. Meaning like scrolling Tik Tok captures my attention. I don't think I'll like remember any of it or it just won't matter, but it can fill my need for something to capture my attention with. But but perspective, I think, is the thing that makes it stick in your brain of like

I'm coming to these guys to Jordi and John for their perspective. I can get this information other places. And so I think we actually saw that quite a bit on YouTube where

the Mr. Beastification, the kind of like big idea that drives a ton of attention is like still kind of interesting, but it's not as interesting as it used to be and and someone growth.

Someone like Marquez Brownley who does the smartphone awards, you're like dying for his perspective on what was the best phone of the year.

And I think he has a lot of longevity because his content is rooted in perspective.

Yeah.

Emily Sunberg's another great example. Like that's perspective. And so I think perspective has always mattered, but it feels like that era has really been pushed.

Using Marquez as an example, do do you think that which which offers more perspective or like waveform podcast, his podcast where he can kind of brief it's unscripted versus a review where he has the requirements to tell you the price, the value, the specs. uh does he have more a longer leash to give more perspective in the unscripted format or is there an equal amount of perspective because he is who he is and he brings his perspective everywhere.

I think Marquez in the face to camera is the is the best perspective of Marquez and people had problems with that like last year with um Humane.

Oh yeah.

People felt like his perspective carried so much weight that it could

bankrupt a company.

Same with Fiser.

Same with Fis.

Yeah. the car and it's like

but I think that also goes to show like how much his perspective matters and how much someone like that. So

he's I remember he said he said a bad he told us a bad review doesn't tank a company a bad product tanks a company of course but

yeah I mean all that to say again like I think if you're

I would be wearing a humane pin if it were not for the review. I mean, it it can accelerate a democracy.

Even if you look at like even if you look at like Ryan Tran and like his videos, they they lead with like something like a really fun idea of like I stayed in one-star hotels or something, but then his perspective gets layered within 30 seconds on top where he's like his

his job is to leave a fivestar review at this one place because like he wants to find the good in the world. And that even that is like perspective. Yeah.

Right. And so I think um

I think POV is like that's the era we're in on the internet. Like if you're just

delivering me information and POV can be style. It can be tone. Like I think you guys are a great example. There are a lot of people talking about what you're talking about. They're not talking about it in the style that you're talking about it with the same tone.

Yeah. When I think about the Mr. Beast copycats, I think like there's distinctly a lack of perspective, a lack of view. It is just like, okay, yes, like if Mr. piece does this and you clone it and rotate that piece. Like you have a slight iteration that's enough to get the views, but it wasn't actually something that was like inspired or trying to push.

I think you can navigate how to get views right now. Like you can navigate how to get attention on the internet.

If if you study if you study it enough, you know, you can navigate it, but it doesn't mean people will remember you.

What's the state of the thumbnail industry, the thumbnail subindustry? Well, well, on on that note, I feel like there's this emergence of the creator with short form video being so powerful for discovery,

there's an emergence of a content creator that might have 200,000 followers and no viable business or even path to a viable business because they have like a bit that they run that's really funny and so they can get attention in a certain audience, but then like the pathway to monetizing it, you see this with like certain kind of accounts on Instagram where it's like your pathway to monetizing is like online casino advertising. Exactly. Uh and so that's kind of like that's kind of like UBI for people that are funny online. It's just like you can

that is a hilarious that's unbelievable. Uh and I I totally agree with you. But that that's

and I actually somewhat appreciate it cuz there's this guy that

there's a guy who actually is sponsored by stake and he's hilarious.

There's a guy who is so funny. I just want him to

uh it's like agent something. Uh, well, I don't care what sponsor he has really. I'm not I'm not I don't I don't buy products based on like some guy that I see for 10 seconds. Uh, but I do Yeah. This like sort of UBI for people that are funny online right now is like gambling.

And

it's dark, but at the same time, there's a dark side to it, but

it is.

What's the light side to it? Just that people are making money.

Well, the light side is that is that on a personal level, I get enjoyment out of it. and like he's providing it. It's

effective. I mean, the same thing happened with sports sports podcasting. There's like a massive bubble in sports. The the the white pill is that like

there's a lot of people that have jobs podcasting and that's a pretty job.

The Chinese micro dramas, right? Like Chinese micro drama is like real short. Actually, on the drive over here, I saw ads for real short like big billboards for for real short. If you're unfamiliar, it's like

it's if soap operas were on TikTok um you know, it's a swipeable feed. Well, yeah. The crazy thing is those have been so successful and it's to me very much the same idea as Katzenberg's like short short form play.

No, it's not the same idea. That was when we went into I I'll never forget walking into the Quibby pitch meeting uh where they they invited a bunch of creators to come pitch shows

when when we walked into their office like the the the play there was like spend a ton of money on content. Like they were like, "We have a Spielberg movie and an Aaron Sorcin movie and

it's like $100,000 a minute for some shows."

Yeah. But they were not real short. It's it's higher than

Yeah. I don't want to totally discount what you said. You're right, Jordy. That like what they said in the meeting. I remember I'll never forget it. They were like I was like, "When does someone watch this?"

And they said, "When someone is waiting for the bathroom, like in line for the bathroom, they'll they'll they'll flip it on and watch like seven a seven minute increment of a show." And I remember being like,

but people watch people look at Instagram during that time. Like how are you going to pull me into

Yeah. I guess I guess I guess it's hyper it's hyper it's hyper competitive uh for that time. But

I think there's something to be said for uh slow content that's made in a slow format, which is like with production. I've been thinking about like fast and slow content. We make fast content from a production standpoint.

We show from a from a production standpoint. Like there's people that make content. John's content on tech historically was slow content. You would spend

two 3 weeks making a video. You'd put it out, you get a bunch of views. We're the opposite. Very fast. We're making

uh 3 hours of content a day with like 3 hours of prep a day. Um, and I think like taking the taking a a form factor like short form video and then putting a different type of content through it, which is this more cinematic, highly produced content, it works in the form of like real

real short.

Yeah, but they're fundamentally

they're spending a lot less. They're spending way less,

but also they're formulating it in a way where they're earning your attention every 60 to 90 seconds. There is a hook every 60 to 90 seconds to get you to keep watching.

You guys know how the economics work? No.

Okay. So how it works is like if you download real shorter drama box basically they're spending like typically $200,000 for a 90minute show right and it's that's cut into like a hundred slices and how what's happening is you when you download real short you're getting like tokens so it's kind of like roblox money like Robux right so you're getting these tokens and you have to buy more and the first 11 swipes are free you go past the 11th you got to make a payment you got to spend tokens to keep every swipe you're spending tokens.

And you know there's we interviewed a director on our show who's directed 20 of these and he is acutely aware of the fact that like some of his content has been viewed by 30 million people

and when you're making micro payments again at that scale

making 30 to 40 bucks if someone finishes

and it can be upwards of 30 to $40 if someone finishes the movie.

Huge.

So these and and the max budget is 200,000 to make these. Now, the content itself is like, you know, it's not it's it's soap opera content. It's not, you know, it's all speaks to like the most aggressive,

you know, just

versions of what people want on the internet. But, um,

the silver lining, the reason I brought this up, the silver lining is that people in Hollywood are working.

People who were directors, writers,

cinematographers, this is where they're working. So

I mean it's by no means a perfect model in terms of like compensating actors and people working but they are working.

Yeah,

there are opportunities.

So I can unlock coins right now on real if you want to read if you want to read some of the titles.

I'll read a bunch. American Sniper the last round. Okay. I was actually going to ask like uh you know is it all romanty or romance?

I think it's mostly romance.

American Sniper. That's that the last round. That does seem like something I would watch. Okay. I'm I'm down for that.

Uh step aside. I'm the king of capital. That also seems directly targeted. John gets that one shot for me.

It might have a geo tag on it. Seems like it does.

Maybe John, you get into acting in these.

Uh yeah, some of these are are a little uh a little scantily clad into maybe this Christmas. The billionaire married a homeless girl. That's kind of interesting.

Pulls you in. Didn't China just

They just banned that for the bann There's a very popular type like format for a show. basically the Hallmark movie.

Yeah. Like very successful guy marries or falls in love with like a very normal a normal woman. Um

and apparently China is like has a top- down mandate to like not do this kind of content because it's creating

unrealistic expectations. Oh, I'll be I will definitely just be randomly plucked from obscurity by a billionaire.

Interesting. And and it's like, well, like statistically that's not going to happen. So maybe like marry your high school crush and have kids and build a family uh instead of just waiting around for a billionaire to come pluck you out of obscurity because you've seen so many of those stories which is like a fascinating problem to have.

Yeah. Amazing stories are that popular that it's gotten to that point.

Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah. I I I do wonder like I mean we've had so many discussions about the like the downstream effects of Tik Tokification or YouTubeification or whatever Mr. Beastification. Uh I I wonder if we're going to be having that discussion in a year or two because it feels like people are just learning what real short even is.

Yeah, for sure. It's early the business is working now.

Um what what happens to a generation raised on it? Is it good? Is it bad? I don't know.

The the last thing I'll say just to close the loop on like what I think big metas that have changed on YouTube. Another one is uh length of of content and serialization. Meaning like creators are approaching YouTube as if they're making a show, like a series that you can binge. Cleo Abrams is a great example. Like Huge of True is a show. It has a format to it. Has an intro card that could similar to Mark Robber be pulled onto Netflix as an explainer show

that explains cool science formats. And

I I from the era even when I was watching you as a YouTuber, like we all weren't looking we knew we were making

content that fit a format that was, you know, should have been repeatable if we were at our best. We weren't making a show. No.

And now people are making a show. And a YouTube channel is a TV show largely because it's watched on connected TVs, right? Even our show over 50% of our watch time comes from a connected TV. And our average view duration is 48 minutes on on TVs. But you look at like Mark Robert. Thank you guys.

Hit the gong. Hit the gong.

You hit the gong for that. For the for the obscure YouTube metric that only the real ones recognize. Hit the gong.

Whoa. See that? That's how you hit the gong.

That's a great hit.

That was the hit of the day. Hit of the day.

Yeah. But like Michelle Car, Challenge Accepted, if you guys are unfamiliar with that, it's a show about taking on big challenges. She hung out outside of a uh a military airplane, recreated Tom Cruz's stunt, but that's one of many episodes that follow the same format that are 30 plus minutes in length. Yeah. So, help me help me square that with what I regard as YouTube's uh sort of organ rejection to overly serialized content. And I'll give you an example. Uh Johnny Harris, we're all fans here. Um bunch of really great, it is a show, there's a bunch of great content, but then when he goes and does, you know, I'm doing a three-part series, it seems like YouTube's like, we don't want your three-part series. We don't want your four-part series. And it feels like part two is the deathnell of a YouTube title and you should never put part three, part four.

And they say, "Hey, we we have playlist for you." I don't

My suggestion is not doing, you know, part one, part two, part three. Although a creator named Preston goes did an amazing series about building a mini truck for abandoned railroad that's three parts and it worked. It's great.

But but you agree with me that

you agree with me that you should not part two in the in the title. That speaks to a a packaging problem obviously that like you know on Netflix the show has title art

right and that's what gets me into it that's where I get the recommendation from and then once you get in I don't really care what the artwork is for every individual episode

it's like it's almost it would almost be better if you're if you're doing like a four-part series four four-minute episodes or something just drop a 4hour YouTube video I I saw somebody watch a 10-hour video just on Star Wars episode one you seen that one right

I think you'll see the UI changes come Okay. YouTube UI thing super chapters almost where it's like but it needs to live in one place cuz it feels like just if if the algorithm even has a bad day and it serves you part three before it serves you part two and you're on you're on part two, you're going to be like, "What am I doing? I'm not clicking."

I know this can seem minor, but uh they're either testing it or it's rolled out where you can now upload 4K thumbnails to YouTube and I think just higher resolution thumbnails. I think a lot of that is because now people are sitting and they're watching on their TVs and like if it looks like crap when you click on it like they are they are ushering this move across the platform for people to be ready for consumers to be sitting on their sofas and choosing what to watch.

I'd imagine someone listening would be like but but didn't you just say that like anyone could upload to YouTube and anything could happen. This feels like a high lift to make like a show, right? And it is but these creators have all been on the platform for a decade. So the suggestion for me is that like this is happening. If you watch like Hot Ones is a TV show, right? Um,

so I think you've seen it. It's it's happened over a decade, but it is like if you're exploring what is the now of YouTube, that is the now like it is people are making premium shows that are watched on TV.

Um,

and then the question is does Netflix come in and repackage and license those episodes?

Yeah. Or open the doors to a creator program, which I do think is a very very realistic path. It's not going to be anyone can upload,

but it it it's probably going to happen.

So, what's the state of the thumbnail artist today? Is it all AI? Are there people that have graduated from YouTube thumbnail artists and now they're doing uh Netflix thumbnails? Because I imagine thumbnails on Netflix, too, right?

Oh, they're insanely important. I mean, every time you lo if all of us logged into Netflix now, we might have

different versions of the same of same thumbnail.

Um, no, I mean, thumb I said it last time I was on the show. It's like they're the gatekeepers to to viewership. But I think

um

thumbnail artists are more like strategists now than than pure like designers, right? Because

it's more of thinking through the strategy of

what what will peique someone's curiosity enough to click. I I don't think we need to be like hyper hyperdesigned all the time, but there's there's some really great artists out there. There's actually I mean when I think about this, there's a thumbnail that comes to mind. U which is

stuck in your brain.

Yeah, it's stuck in my brain. It's a really good thumbnail from a basketball YouTuber named Jesser.

Oh, I know Jesser.

Uh and he went to go tour the new LeBron Nike facility and it's like kind of a similar thumbnail to Mr. Beast where he's like hanging out of a helicopter and you can see this like gold LeBron statue.

It's iconic.

Yeah, it's like two pixels

and it has 6.3 million views. But I mean I don't I watch some of Jester's videos. I like his like guess the NBA player videos. Those are awesome. But I looked at that and caught my eye and I clicked it. But was amazing is that it pays off in the first second. You watch it and you're like, "Oh yeah, there's a gold LeBron statue and this is a brand new Nike facility I'm in." And so

AI could create that thumbnail for someone else. But unless you actually did it, you got to do

but unless you're a Jesser and you pay it off upon hover because it's also like things autoplay on YouTube. It's not the hover is a very big deal that it's why that now from a you can't clickbait someone because a thumbnail is proven over a hover before you even click. It's like did this really happen? What does the video look like?

Yeah.

And the fact that he's standing there, that's a strategic move of being like, if I'm going to make this thumbnail and design it like this, it can't be so hyperbolic. It has to be pretty real that like

you got to set the expectation with the thumbnail and then match it, right? the bird watching doc listers. The thumbnail looks like a movie. It's like very lowfi, but there's text on it that reads very much like a movie that was shown at Sundance or something

and then you click on it and you're like, I had no idea this was going to be so incredible.

This is a very distinct smell in here.

It's not a bad smell. It's a good smell, but it's a very distinct smell.

People say that it smells like rubber

rubber. I would say if anybody in this room has ever been to India, it smells like when you get off the plane at India, this is kind of what it smells like. Let's go.

So,

you know, there's someone in the technology world that just got fired for saying that exact thing.

No, really.

This is a whole drama.

Who?

Uh, yeah. The CTO of Klein was uh was talking about a hackathon and it was a it was a lot of men in the room and it all went all back and forth and it turned into

Oh, that's a different thing. I'm I'm talking about like a childhood nostalgia for me of landing.

Yeah, that should I go ahead. As much as I would love to continue this conversation, the good news is we are podcast.

Uh I'm not sure when it's going to release, but we should wrap up.

Slow content.

Slow content.

Slow content.

Slow content and slow.

Uh but uh thank you so much for coming on. We can close it out. Uh and we'll be back tomorrow.

We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you for tuning in today.

And we'll be in properly dressed for the for the season.

We will. We will. Finally. Finally.

Finally. So, thank you for tuning in with us today. Goodbye.

We love you. See you tomorrow. Goodbye.

See you guys. Cheers.

See you.