By Bending Spoons,Kayla Cobb

Copyright thewrap

Hey Creatorverse readers,

When Digital Brand Architects first launched as an influencer management shop in 2010, no one took it seriously.

“Year one, people laughed at us,” Raina Penchansky, the partner, co-founder and CEO of DBA told me last night. We were surrounded by smiling influencers and creators holding cocktails as they celebrated the company’s 15th anniversary. People aren’t laughing anymore.

DBA is a great example of how much the creator economy has transformed in the past decade and a half. The management agency now represents big names like Patrick Starrr (4.8 million YouTube subscribers), Aimee Song (7.2 million Instagram followers) and The Home Edit (6.4 million Instagram followers). Through its acquisition by UTA in 2019 — an early investor in the creator economy — the agency can cater to almost any way their talent wants to expand, whether that involves touring, book deals or deals with traditional film and television.

The expertise of a well-established agency can be transformative to creators. That was the case with Matt Newman, a hair stylist who has 3 million followers on TikTok and 1.7 million followers on Instagram. Newman started posting on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic when his work came to a halt.

“I sort of fell into it,” Newman told me.

Newman met his current agent through his social media friends and used her as a resource while he was working with his previous team. After that team “dropped the ball” on a dream partnership, Newman moved to DBA. Within six months, that partnership became a reality. Now he’s moving forward on a big idea that’s still under wraps but that he’s confident will revolutionize the hair industry.

“I used to walk around Manhattan with a backpack full of curling irons to earn $30 a blow dry for 10 girls a day,” Newman said. “With social media, you keep posting, let all the creativity flow and the opportunities that are fit for you can come back at you.”

Though Penchansky has seen the industry drastically evolve over the past 15 years, she still thinks we’re just scratching the surface of what the creator economy will become.

“You’ll see more niche creators as the space expands and expands … And I think you’re going to see longform content on YouTube really become more significant. But then I also think you’re going to see even shorter content,” she said. “These are genuine people who are creating a connection. That is the future.”

Now onto the rest.

Kayla CobbSenior Reporterkayla.cobb@thewrap.com

AI has been scraping YouTube videos, and how-to creators should be worried

This comes from an Atlantic investigation that found tech companies downloaded more than 15.8 million videos from more than 2 million channels to train their AI models — all without those creators’ permission, of course. This practice also goes against YouTube’s terms of service. Nearly 1 million of them were how-to videos, an insight that indicates this cottage industry of experienced professionals teaching their followers may be at risk

Vimeo will be acquired for $1.4 billion by Bending Spoons

The European software company plans to take the video platform company private once the deal closes. A spinoff of CollegeHumor, Vimeo started as a haven for indie filmmakers. But over the years it’s had a hard time keeping up with YouTube. Just last week, its CEO Philip Moyer announced it was laying off 10% of its employees.

News Creator Corps wants to teach influencers how to be journalists

During an era filled with news deserts, a nonprofit from Rachel Lobdell and Jay Rosen is trying to help creators stymie the spread of misinformation. The organization announced an eight-week fellowship program this week, which will teach 20 creators important journalistic skills like how to read a lawsuit and decipher a study.

Chosen creators will get a $5,000 stipend to support their work. Though the organization is considering audience size as it selects its creators, News Creator Corps is more focused on creators who are interested in sharing information with their communities. Creators will be chosen on Oct. 8. Sign up here.

Platform Updates

Meta is adding Community Notes to Facebook, Instagram and Threads

Basically, Meta is crowdsourcing fact-checking. Once a user applies and is accepted as a Community Notes user, they will be able to put a note on a post that they believe is inaccurate or misleading. That note can include background information or their own insights. Other users will also be able to rate the helpfulness of notes, which Meta will track. So far, over 70,000 contributors have written over 15,000 notes.

Roblox is entering its TikTok era with Roblox Moments

Moments, which launched in Beta last Friday, lets users capture, edit and share their Roblox gameplay moments. These shortform videos can then be watched on the Roblox app by other users.

That’s not the only major development the gaming platform unveiled last week. Roblox also announced new text-to-speech and speech-to-text functionality, real-time voice chat translation and a partnership with the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC). That last part is especially noteworthy considering the growing concerns around the platform’s young fan base.

YouTube rolls out multi-language dubbing to all creators

Soon, every YouTube video can be accessible to anyone around the world. The platform will be expanding its multi-language dubbing option to millions of creators around the world in the coming weeks. This is a massive deal as entertainment becomes more globalized. YouTube found that, on average, creators who upload multi-language audio tracks saw that over 25% of their watch time came from viewers who didn’t watch in the creator’s primary language.

Movers and Shakers

Patreon taps a Verizon and TikTok veteran

Lina Renzina has been named Patreon’s head of top creator management. Previously, she worked as Verizon’s head of creator strategy and marketing, and before that she served as TikTok’s global content partnerships lead for three years.

TikTok and Twitch streamer Vanillamace signs with UTA

The creator, who has 4.3 million followers on TikTok and 546,000 followers on Twitch, has partnered with the agency for all representation.

Who to Watch

This one is near and dear to my heart. Keith Lee — the TikTok influencer with over 17 million followers known for his unfailingly honest food reviews — has a new season of his show “Reheat.” Lee blew up by visiting local struggling restaurants and fairly assessing their food, and in “Reheat,” he visits some of the places that blew up after his review. Lee is one of the few good parts of the internet, which is why it sucks that his latest show is nearly impossible to find. Find it on Microsoft’s YouTube Shorts page.

Creator Power

What good is a newsletter without a shameless plug? This week, I spoke to “Challenge Accepted” host Michelle Khare along with Adobe’s Jared Carneson, Meta’s Megan Bycel and Smosh’s Alessandra Catanese about how creators came to be the future of entertainment, the importance of brand partnerships and platform diversification and how AI may impact the industry’s future. Check out these serious smarties here.

Bonus Content

Hasan Piker Will Never Run for Office (via Wired)

Kids Content Creators Are Repackaging Their Videos for Streaming — and Reaping the Rewards (via TheWrap)

Andy Roddick Has a New Title: ‘YouTube Guy’ (via New York Times)

Want more? Explore WrapPRO now.

This report provides a weekly deep dive into the creator economy. It highlights key trends, political and technological developments, data points and industry leaders all with the goal of making you smarter about this constantly evolving space.