CREATOR NEWSLETTER
Issue #188 | November 23, 2023
Happy Thanksgiving y’all.
It’s November again, so once again time for the most problematic holiday (though Labor Day is running a close second…as is the new holiday I made up yesterday to celebrate Insider’s heel turn with its Cracked.com-circa-2017 headline: “From Thanksgiving to Labor Day, these 9 holidays have surprisingly dark origins.”) What are we grateful for this year, folks?
I, for one, am not in the celebrating mood. There’s a tribal casino in the San Joaquin Valley where I’m spending the holidays that stays open through Thanksgiving, which I can’t stop thinking about. That’s so bleak. Like something straight out of the new A24 Showtime series “The Curse” from Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, who co-star alongside Emma Stone. And even typing this out, I realize this sounds like a pitch from a coked-out network exec who threw some darts at a Gen Z Film Twitter mood board, but I’m very thankful to everyone involved for bringing us some of the darkest HGTV-inspired satire and late-night performance art of the decade.
THE COMMENTS SECTION
“Happy Thanksgiving people!! Enjoy your time with family and/or friends! Keep politics talks with family/friends to a minimum😅. Either way, enjoy your long weekend! To my fellow creators, No celebration for you, get back to work! Higher CTR & holiday deals, go make some dough.🤣”
–X user Kam (@iKam11) on Thanksgiving
The premise of “The Curse” is as nasty as it is relatable: A millennial couple Whitney and Asher (Stone and Fielder) are eco-conscious home-flippers with reality TV aspirations. Enabled by a college friend turned producer Dougie (Safdie), the couple and their camera crews descend on the fictional town of Española, New Mexico to help renovate (read: gentrify) the indigenous community with Whitney’s “passive” homes and $10 lattes. Even before Asher gets himself “cursed” by a local kid selling sodas in a parking lot, you know these characters are fated for a life of misery. Whitney’s slumlord parents will always rub against her self-perceived altruism; Asher’s barely concealed rage (Fielder is channeling Antony Starr’s Homelander from “The Boys”) and micropenis are incompatible with his desperate desire to start a family with Whitney; Dougie’s truly tragic backstory makes him double down on his most toxic instincts. (His previous pilot, “Love to the 3rd Degree,” styles itself as “The Bachelor” meets “The Masked Singer,” except the lead is a terribly scarred burn victim.)
“The Curse” is supposed to make you queasy and uncomfortable; a reflection of modern living where the cost of celebrity status is self-delusional virtue-signaling, no matter how blatantly disingenuous or exploitative your intentions.
So how does it all connect? Looking at the estimated annual $215 billion “creator economy” as it stands today, it’s hard not to get the same sense of A24nfreude – defined by Webster’s Urban Dictionary as “the sense of absurdist vibes deteriorating baroquely”– invoked by “The Curse.” Platforms claim to support their users by constantly rolling out new “creator fund” initiatives, patting themselves on their backs for spotlighting diversity, but show of hands: How many of you have ever made money from one of these programs before they shutter unceremoniously, making way for “Creative” ad-rev splits?
Who is sitting down this year giving thanks to Elon Musk’s Creator Program (available to Premium subscribers only), or to SAG for forcibly enlisting them in their strike for better working conditions, resulting in four months of lost revenue and reach on behalf of someone else’s union?
Actually, that’s a ludicrous question, because it presupposes that creators can afford to take off for Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July, Labor Day, et. al, instead of grinding through all of it, attached to their computers via some invisible umbilical cord made of algorithms; the stars of David Cronenberg’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
And YET! Despite all my righteous indignation on behalf of their plight, my timelines and Inboxes are full of artists taking time out to express sincere gratitude: for their fans who support them, for the community of content creators, and yes, even for the mercurial platforms without which they’d never have been able to do what they love for a living. That’s humbling.
So maybe this year I’m grateful for two things: “The Curse” for pointing out the obvious flaws designed into influencer culture, and for the IRL creators who have chosen a different path to defining success.
– Drew Grant, Managing Editor
NOTED BY LON HARRIS
The Matt Rife Blowback Shows the Painful Transition From TikTok to Netflix
Why it’s not always easy to shift between platforms.
By Lon Harris, Passionfruit Contributor
SPONSORED
Illuminate your creative vision with Lume Cube
The best ring light on the market just got better. Lume Cube‘s special edition Ring Light Pro in White looks just as good as it performs, elevating and enhancing any creative space. Experience a new level of creativity with the best cordless ring light on the market.
IN THE BIZ
- Noice has revolutionized its live streaming platform by launching a unique multiplayer prediction game, offering an interactive and engaging experience for spectators.
- Announced by Instagram head Adam Mosseri on his broadcast channel, Instagram has globally rolled out a feature allowing users to download Reels from all public accounts.
- Google’s AI chatbot Bard has enhanced its YouTube integration, allowing users to extract specific information from videos, like key points or recipes, without watching them. This upgrade, while convenient for users, raises concerns about its impact on content creators’ revenue, especially when bypassing paywalls or ad views.
- Sam Altman has been reinstated as the CEO of OpenAI only days following his departure, marking a significant turn in the company’s leadership during a period of rapid growth in the artificial intelligence sector.
TOOLS REVIEW
The Best Early Black Friday Deals For Creators Who Want To Escape The Hell of Black Friday
Get your shopping done before Black Friday to avoid the hell of the mall.
By John-Michael Bond, Passionfruit Contributor
PERSONALITIES
Colleen Ballinger Is Back and Wants You To Move On From the Toxic Gossip Train
‘Toxic Gossip Train (Fall Vlog remix).’
By Steven Asarch, Passionfruit Contributor
CULTURE
What We’re Thankful for This Year
We’re taking a look back at some of our favorite pieces from this year.
By Passionfruit
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING
- Just Trust Ash watched the 2019 murder mystery “Knives Out”.
- Newfie Movie Reactions reacted to 2023’s biographical drama “Oppenheimer” for the first time.
- The Media Knights delved into an alien invasion by watching 2002’s “Signs.”
- Jen Murray went with a legal drama when she watched 1992’s “A Few Good Men” for the first time.
YOUTUBE MADE ME DO IT
If you’re already sick of your family or just need something immersive to veg out to, we recommend Night Mind’s walk-through of Welcome Home, an unfiction experience taking the form of a website dedicated to archiving a piece of anomalous lost puppet show.
Copyright © 2022 Passionfruit, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you signed up to get the latest tips, tricks,
and trends in the creator economy from Passionfruit.
Have an idea for our next big story or want to get featured? Email us at tips@passionfru.it
Don’t want to hear from us anymore?
Click here to unsubscribe
To view in your browser click here
