Johnny Harris on creator life, transparency and what YouTube can do to bolster trust

If you aren’t already following René Ritchie’s channel, Creator Insider, go there now and smash the subscribe button. In the latest episode, René goes deep with Johnny Harris in a wide-ranging 40-minute interview. It’s a must-watch for aspiring creators or anyone curious about how this all works. There’s a lot of solid creator journalism 101 here about the biz model and riding the capricious algorithm, but hang in there for some more novel thoughts about trust and how the platform itself might actually be able to do a lot to facilitate building transparency and rigor. Also, a refreshing reminder that often the best accountability watchdog is the audience – who Johnny credits with his own channel’s evolution when it comes to showing his work.

But wait, there’s more

As promised at the end of the last post, a link dump - which is less garbage-y than it sounds. In fact, there’s a good amount of treasure in the robust bullet-point list below, from getting out the vote in South Africa to how universities are stepping up support for students on the creator path.

• Amahle Gebane realized she cared about politics in South Africa, so in 2023 she started posting about just that to her TikTok channel. Now her work is reaching 161K followers. She’s just one of many influencers now laser focused on getting out the Gen Z vote in a country where TikTok has11.83 million users above the voting age. [rest of world]

• Facebook, aiming at remaining relevant, hosted 20 creators last week in New York where they handed out pamphlets that read, "We are not your mom's Facebook," but rather, "a hub for all things culturally happening in the platform's underground." 😬 [Axios]

• YouTube may just be bigger than TV. At least that’s what they said at their mid-May upfronts. The real real: Audience is huge, but advertising hasn’t quite caught up. YT execs are hoping they can turn that around by introducing some new “scarcity mindset” driven models and premium pricing via YouTube Select. [Digiday]

• FOPC (Friend of Project C) Cleo Abram (Huge If True) shares her definition of a journalist and, spoiler alert, it doesn’t include working for a media company. [YouTube]

• Not only are academic institutions like ASU and UT starting to embrace the creator path, big deal/oft-cited success case Mr. Beast announced a partnership with East Carolina University to establish a creator credentialing program. [ECU]

• ICYMI, here’s a good summary of how GumRoad plans to invest in creator-led businesses. [MediaVoices]

• Speaking of the biz side, Hank Green would like to know how much TikTok is paying him. [NYT via Mashable]

• Misinformation is a thing and the creator journalism space is not immune to fostering agenda-driven #fakenews. The latest coordinated campaign re: birth control is a reminder that we need to continue to be vocal and transparent about what real, rigorous independent journalism looks like. [Teen Vogue]