Together with
Side chuckle. As the writers strike nears its third month of picketing, some late-night TV writers are returning to their roots in comedy clubs. Since stand-up isn’t “restricted by the strike’s guild rules,” it’s creating a safety net for those looking to make ends meet during the downtime. That is, until their snow-globe-making business on Etsy takes off.
In other news… Hot Ones turns 300, Space Junk taps its audience, and a new type of creator takes over Snapchat.
Top Trends
Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe
ENTERTAINMENT
Hot Ones blazes to digital glory
The Future. Hot Ones, the genius yet modest interview series where celebrities answer deep-dive questions while eating very hot wings, has hit 300 episodes — proving to be a runaway success of last decade’s pivot to digital video. With the brand expanding its ambitions with a wings-and-sauces-for-all dining footprint, Hot Ones may soon take on Buffalo Wild Wings and Wingstop for fast-casual glory.
Brand backdoor
Hot Ones is on a, well, hot streak.
The show, created by Chris Schonberger and produced by Complex, has over 8.6 million followers across socials and has gobbled up billions of views across YouTube and TikTok.
That’s thanks to the potent mix of its almost game show-esque nature, its evolution as “a badge of honor” among celebrities, and host Sean Evans’ thoughtful interview style (he’s also eaten over 3,000 chicken wings).
Hot Ones has become one of the most important stops on press tours — a reputation kicked off by early guests like Kevin Hart and Charlize Theron and capped by Cate Blanchett’s stop on her Oscar tour last year.
Now, Hot Ones is taking it another notch up the Scoville Scale (IYKYK). It’s partnering with Grubhub to deliver its wings in the NYC area — all slathered in the brand’s namesake sauces (which are also available at retail).
Who’s hungry?
ENTERTAINMENT
Space Junk lets the audience rewrite with AI
The Future. Space Junk, an animated adult comedy that premiered last month, includes fans in the writers room via the blockchain and AI. While the community-storytelling features won’t work for most shows, Space Junk (like other projects such as Runner and The Fringe) hopes to prove that fan-generated narratives could be a fun new genre in and of itself.
Animation & me
Created by Workaholics co-creator Dominic Russo, Space Junk follows a group of astronaut garbage collectors, voiced by Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) and Tony Cavalero (The Righteous Gemstones)... with storylines possibly co-written by you.
A branded NFT from Toonstar, the show’s production company, allows holders to craft story pitches with an online AI version of one of the robot characters, Wellbecca (the AI is trained in the world of the show).
The stories generated with the Wellbecca chatbot can then be posted on Toonstar’s blockchain and upvoted (using the “f*ck yeah button”), with the top-voted ones quickly working their way into the show’s narrative.
So far, the gambit has been pretty successful — Toonstar reports that the show has 15x the engagement of its last show, The Gimmicks.
It looks like everyone wants to feel like they’re part of the writers room.
TOGETHER WITH WELLCORE
Better s*x (sleep and motivation)
40% of men have low testosterone. But are you, or a dude in your life, one of them?
Wellcore will give you some answers. They’ve developed a discreet, convenient, and effective way to test and restore testosterone levels. And you don’t need to leave your man cave to make it happen.
They offer:
Blood collection and painless testosterone injections
A dedicated clinical team and scientifically-validated program
Free shipping
Real results
Their science-backed program can help boost strength, Zzzs, mood, fat loss, blood pressure, and yes, s*x.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Snap #118 // GIF by Kate Walker
The rise of influencers who can’t stop Snapping
The Future. Verified users on Snapchat, dubbed “Snap Stars,” are making a lot of money on the platform by posting incessantly and giving up privacy. The always-on lifestyle won’t work for every creator, but for those willing to broadcast their lives, Snap Stars may be ushering in a creator-economy future defined by letting fans feel like they’re living life with you.
Click cash
It’s easy to make money posting Snap stories… if you never stop posting.
According to Insider, influencers like Alyssa McKay, Leilani Green, and David Dobrik post 100 to 200 photos and videos each day, showing every moment of their lives.
Creators say it’s a relatively low-lift way to make money, posting authentic content that really doesn’t need to be edited or curated… and knowing it’ll disappear in 24 hours.
That’s provided a huge windfall, with McKay making over a million dollars since Snap’s mid-roll ad monetization feature rolled out early last year.
Of course, there’s one major tradeoff: privacy. Several creators told Insider that they’ve given up on the concept in the name of making money. And for them, it’s a lot less intensive than livestreaming on YouTube or Twitch, especially since they can schedule when posts will appear on their stories.
Either way, it seems we’ve all willingly created our very own Truman Show.
TOGETHER WITH GROWTH DAILY
Your marketing secret sauce
What do 57,000 world-class founders, CEOs, and marketers have in common? They get the most impactful growth marketing news, tips, and tricks sent to their inbox every morning for free. AKA they subscribe to Growth Daily! (It’s like the WSJ for marketers.)
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
Media, Music, & Entertainment
The actors union (SAG-AFTRA) and the Hollywood studios (AMPTP) may extend their new-contract talks a week past tomorrow’s deadline — keeping the entertainment industry on its toes a little longer over a potential actors strike. Read more → deadline
As the writers strike powers on, Netflix is leaning harder on the South Korean entertainment industry for new films and TV shows… but that has only exposed how overworked and underpaid talent and employees are in the region. Read more → latimes
Max has finally reverted to crediting writers, directors, and producers separately (as opposed to the nebulous “creators” grouping) after an outcry in Hollywood. Read more → variety
Fashion & E-Commerce
Beyoncé has bestowed the honor of selling exclusive Renaissance World Tour merch to Amazon Music. Read more → complex
Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS label is opening its first brick-and-undies stores in LA and NYC next year. Read more → businessoffashion
London-based apparel and accessories brand Troubadour crafted a collection of four bags made solely from recycled PET (the stuff used to make plastic water bottles) so that they can be easily recycled. Read more → fastcompany
Tech, Web3, & AI
Virgin Galactic completed its first-ever commercial spaceflight — a crew of Italian government personnel conducting research on microgravity. Read more → engadget
Inflection AI, which recently released its first chatbot, Pi, has raised a massive $1.3 billion round from the likes of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to make “conversation the new interface.” Read more → forbes
Fed-up, people are leveraging AI and voice cloners to troll robocallers and scammers. Read more → wsj
Creator Economy
TikTok is challenging users to make ads for its brand partners, which may get picked up by the brands to use on the platform’s For You page and might even get you paid. Read more → tubefilter
CivicScience reports that using TikTok as a search engine is declining among Gen Z and millennial users. Read more → tubefilter
TikTok creator Alix Earle is launching a scholarship program with the business school of her alma mater, the University of Miami. Read more → tubefilter
Like what you see? Subscribe Now or Partner With Us
Today's email was brought to you by David Vendrell.
Editing by Nick Comney. Publishing by Darline Salazar.