The Mid Week Creator Roundup: MetaHuman, 100 Thieves & New Creator Hires
This week in creator news featuring companies, creators and new hires
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Creator’s Digest! This is our first one and over time, this will become a regular thing and I won’t count what edition I’m on.
This will be a mid-week round up of the latest creator news straight to your inbox every Wednesday!
I love the rule of three, so we’ll start with companies, creators and then quick hires in the world of creators.
With that, let’s just jump into it!
Companies & Creators
Epic Games launches MetaHuman Creator tool
Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite and many more games just launched early access to their MetaHuman Creator tool. It’s built on the Unreal Engine, also built by Epic Games, and enables people to create realistic animated human characters within minutes. Previously what would take you a big budget and months of agency work now can be done by one person and this tool. To learn more, here’s an article.
Valkyrae & CourageJD become co-owners of 100 Thieves
For creators, ownership is the goal. Your stock, likeness, marketability is what keeps these platforms afloat. If you think about who your favorite content creator is, chances are they are on YouTube or TikTok or Twitch, but they probably don’t have ownership or stock in that company. YouTube is owned by Google, TikTok is privately held (so only employees of TikTok own shares) and Twitch is owned by Amazon.
Rachell “Valkyrae” Hofstetter and Jack “CourageJD” Dunlop are now co-owners of one of the biggest brands in the world, 100 Thieves. From gaming teams to merch to media buys and big investors like Drake, Scooter Braun and more, 100 Thieves is a huge brand in the gaming industry and is very quickly (if not already) a household name. So bringing on these two owners is a huge move for 100 Thieves and specifically for Valkyrae and Courage.
Valkyrae started as a Gamestop employee and is now one of the biggest streamers in the world. To learn more about her story, I wrote about here back in December!
And to learn more about the new owners and how this came about, watch below:
Ludwig Ahgren, aka Ludwig on Twitch just ended his month long 24/7 stream
If you’re a millenial or basically older than 16, you’ve probably heard of the Truman Show. The concept is basically having the camera on you 24/7 for your whole life. That means no breaks. Camera is on when you’re sleeping, when you want me time, etc.
Ludwig did just that and started a subathon on March 14th (basically the same thing as a marathon but for driving subscribers on Twitch). He cooked, played games, and even got a hair cut all on stream. Fans flocked to his channel. And he is now the most subscribed to channel on Twitch surpassing Tyler “Ninja” Blevins who formally held the record.
Personally, I have a bit of soft spot for Ludwig because he went to the same university as me, Arizona State University and actually started streaming playing Super Smash Bros on Twitch while he was still a student. Go Devils. To learn more about his come-up as well as the parameters of the sub-athon and his meteoric sub growth, go here.
Creator Company Hires
Zola Mashariki leaves One Community to join Amazon’s Audible Studios leading the company’s original programming efforts. Audible is the best place to listen to audiobooks and is now rolling out original programming sometimes read by your favorite celebrities. You can read more about Audible originals here.
Priscilla Baffour joins TikTok as new head of diversity & inclusion for the EU region. She was formerly head of D&I at The Financial Times . To learn more about the new hire and move, read here.
Toby Faulkner moves from Facebook to Discovery+. Toby is now focusing on partnerships and content at Discovery. He’s been in the industry for over a decade and has worked as a producer on shows you’ve probably seen like Undercover Boss and Dancing with the Stars. Discovery+ is the newest streaming service at a little over 3 months post-launch but bringing on an industry vet like Toby is a great move for the company. Learn more about the move here.
That’s it! Thanks so much for reading and if you have any feedback, feel free to comment below or respond via email to this. I love to hear from readers. And if you want the latest, follow me on Twitter @CreatorsDigest.
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See you on Sunday with another creator deep dive - this weekend edition is gonna be a fun one.
And remember you’re awesome.
