Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI SCROLL: BranFlakezz & Kelsey Soles share influencer secrets, Yahoo's creator program + Cierra Ortega apology

Transcript

MINI SCROLL: BranFlakezz & Kelsey Soles share influencer secrets, Yahoo's creator program + Cierra Ortega apology · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  Hi everyone, welcome to Mini Scroll, the daily Internet
• 0:04
  culture podcast bringing you the biggest stories from social
• 0:07
  media, the creator economy and the digital space every Monday
• 0:11
  through Thursday and sometimes Fridays like today.
• 0:14
  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
• 0:18
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll,
• 0:22
  everyone. All right, let's just get into
• 0:24
  the stories. I have no updates, but as
• 0:26
  always, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 0:29
  It helps us grow. Leave us an Apple review or
• 0:32
  leave us a comment on Spotify. Buy us a coffee if you want to
• 0:35
  support the pod and help keep us going.
• 0:38
  And let's get into the stories for today.
• 0:40
  So the first story that I have for you guys is that Bran Flakes
• 0:43
  has opened up about how he grew his platform to become a full
• 0:46
  time influencer. Bran Flakes stays transparent
• 0:50
  about his influx and saying journey.
• 0:52
  OK, so Bran Flakes is a big tick tocker.
• 0:55
  He has how many followers does he have now?
• 0:57
  1.3 million followers. He went viral a few months ago
• 1:00
  when he was talking about his income breakdown as an
• 1:03
  influencer. And he was really transparent
• 1:05
  about like how much he made last year and the percentages that
• 1:09
  like went to his team that went to his management.
• 1:11
  So he has posted a new video that a lot of people are also
• 1:15
  talking about where he explains how he was able to make a
• 1:18
  transition from working 9:00 to 5:00 to being a full time
• 1:21
  influencer. And he did this, he says, by
• 1:24
  prioritizing documenting his life over living his life for a
• 1:29
  period of time, obviously. Sounds sad but really the reason
• 1:31
  I was able to become a full time influencer was I prioritize
• 1:35
  sharing my life over prioritizing living my life.
• 1:38
  When I meet that is. When I worked 9:00 to 5:00 I was
• 1:40
  just an average adult. I got up in the morning, got a
• 1:42
  coffee, went to work, sometimes would work out, make dinner,
• 1:46
  watch TV, go to bed. Weekends would hang out with my
• 1:48
  friends. My life at first did not change
• 1:51
  that all the same, but what I would do every morning was OK.
• 1:53
  What parts of today am I now going to share?
• 1:56
  Oh, I'm going to a new restaurant this week with my
• 1:58
  best friends. I should share what I ordered.
• 2:00
  Going to the grocery store this week?
• 2:01
  Oh, let me do a haul of all the groceries I bought and then do a
• 2:03
  video of what I cooked for dinner.
• 2:05
  I'm going on a date this week. Let me talk about my current
• 2:07
  dating life. So I was still living my life,
• 2:09
  but I was putting emphasis on how was I going to share that
• 2:12
  online. I really like that he's opening
• 2:14
  up about this, especially in this industry.
• 2:17
  I like that he's talking about how he worked hard to get to
• 2:20
  where he is. I think there's such a stigma
• 2:22
  around influencing, especially TikTok in particular on the
• 2:26
  inside, like as in people who have kind of made it, I feel
• 2:29
  like there's a lot of pressure for them to almost portray this
• 2:32
  image that like it just happened to them because for a lot of the
• 2:35
  early Tik Tokers, it did. There is definitely a stigma
• 2:38
  around the career of being an influencer and the desire to be
• 2:42
  an influencer. And I think that stigma is a lot
• 2:44
  less when it just appears that somebody was interesting enough
• 2:48
  that they built a following organically or their personality
• 2:51
  was good enough that everybody wanted to follow them or
• 2:53
  whatever. So I really like how Bran is so
• 2:56
  honest about how hard he's worked for this and how much he
• 2:59
  wanted it. That is something I resonate
• 3:01
  with a lot. I am constantly out here talking
• 3:04
  on my TikTok about how badly I want this business and this
• 3:08
  career to work. You know, like, I have no shame
• 3:11
  in the game. Like, I am trying so fucking
• 3:14
  hard to make this work and it is so challenging.
• 3:17
  And everyday I'm still like, I have no idea if this is going to
• 3:19
  take off or if this is actually going to work.
• 3:21
  And I'm not embarrassed to admit that.
• 3:23
  And I think in certain industries, certain circles and
• 3:25
  certain countries like Australia, there's a lot of tall
• 3:28
  poppy syndrome here, you know, where people feel it's a little
• 3:31
  bit embarrassing to be seen trying, but I don't care, OK,
• 3:34
  I'm a striver, I'm a Trier. And I like that Bran is talking
• 3:38
  very openly because to get to the level, like Bran has 1.3
• 3:42
  million followers, OK, that's a lot of followers.
• 3:44
  But aside from his follower account, he is incredibly
• 3:46
  relevant in the influencer space right now.
• 3:49
  And it's that relevancy that you almost can't put a price on
• 3:53
  because there are a lot of people on TikTok who have 1.3
• 3:56
  million followers, OK, But they are not getting invited on every
• 4:00
  single brand trip. They are not making just shy of
• 4:02
  $1,000,000 a year. They are not in these circles
• 4:05
  and getting these opportunities. And so I like that he is
• 4:08
  showing, like, yes, I have built something for myself.
• 4:11
  And of course, there's always an element of luck in anyone's
• 4:14
  success. But like, I have worked so
• 4:17
  fucking hard for this. This was a strategy.
• 4:19
  This was a plan. I wanted to be an influencer.
• 4:22
  Here's how I've done it. Bran isn't the only one who's
• 4:25
  been opening up like this lately, though.
• 4:27
  Creator Kelsey Souls has also been sharing very openly lately,
• 4:31
  which has also been a big topic of conversation on TikTok, about
• 4:34
  how she intentionally built her TikTok career by posting up to
• 4:37
  20 times a day while she she was working her nine to five.
• 4:41
  I actually see this trend of Tik Tokers speaking openly about how
• 4:46
  they worked for this and they tried for this and they they
• 4:49
  sought out like influencer fame. I see that as similar to what
• 4:54
  we're seeing with a list celebrities who are admitting to
• 4:56
  getting their work done. You know, it's like for an A
• 4:58
  list celebrity, the embarrassing thing, the stigma is around the
• 5:02
  fact that they are getting more work done than we probably know
• 5:06
  or think. And I think of course, there's a
• 5:07
  similar stigma. It's not the same, but there is
• 5:10
  like a similar level of stigma around influencers who didn't
• 5:13
  just, like, happen to fall into it, you know, who actually, like
• 5:16
  tried to become famous influencers.
• 5:19
  We're in an era of transparency. And I know we've talked about
• 5:22
  this before, but I believe a lot of it comes down to the fact
• 5:26
  that everyone is so burnt out right now.
• 5:28
  The world is absolutely fucked. And so there's never been more
• 5:32
  disdain for people who are privileged, who have money and
• 5:36
  fame, like an influencer, like a celebrity.
• 5:38
  And so to bring them back down onto Earth, they have to start
• 5:41
  being a bit transparent about things.
• 5:43
  Otherwise we're all going to turn on them even more.
• 5:45
  We're already turning on them, but like even more so I do think
• 5:49
  this is maybe not like an intentional strategy from them.
• 5:52
  I think a lot of it is probably subconscious.
• 5:54
  It's just like in general, they're probably reading the
• 5:57
  room a little bit. There's probably a bit of a
• 5:59
  temperature gauge and it's influencing how they interact
• 6:03
  with the public. OK the next story that I have
• 6:05
  for you guys is that Yahoo is slowly transitioning from a
• 6:09
  publisher to a creator platform in March 2024, Yahoo launched
• 6:14
  its creator program, which is a quote program giving writers an
• 6:18
  all in one platform to publish, monetize, connect and grow their
• 6:21
  businesses by sharing stories to the Yahoo News network of more
• 6:25
  than 185,000,000 monthly US visitors.
• 6:29
  In addition to elevating and established creators, the
• 6:32
  stories they share will allow Yahoo News to expand its content
• 6:36
  categories presented in a fresh format.
• 6:39
  So that is from Yahoo's announcement on this transition.
• 6:42
  OK, so Yahoo Creators is essentially like a distribution
• 6:46
  channel for creators to reach Yahoo's giant audience while
• 6:50
  also giving Yahoo some relevancy in the creator economy.
• 6:54
  According to Digi Day Quote, the program allows creators to
• 6:57
  publish original content directed to Yahoo's site and
• 7:00
  access tools like ad monetization with A5050 revenue
• 7:03
  split. Each creator has a dedicated
• 7:05
  moderator from Yahoo's creator support team that gives feedback
• 7:08
  and vets content in real time after it's published.
• 7:11
  So on the Yahoo homepage since it launched, you'll see there's
• 7:15
  a creator vertical now alongside kind of like all their regular
• 7:19
  news. It's actually like a very cool
• 7:20
  idea. The program has been really
• 7:22
  successful. Just last month, the company
• 7:24
  reported that Yahoo Creators had its highest revenue month since
• 7:28
  launch. And now kind of the update on
• 7:30
  this is they're offering more editorial control to creators.
• 7:33
  So they have a full dashboard similar to what you would see on
• 7:36
  like the back end of YouTube. Creators can upload directly to
• 7:39
  the platform without kind of the red tape of traditional
• 7:42
  publishing. There's Commission opportunities
• 7:44
  based on what they're publishing, if there's affiliate
• 7:47
  links and stuff. So it's really becoming like
• 7:49
  this full-fledged platform. There's only, I believe, 135
• 7:53
  creators right now in the program, which is why they can
• 7:55
  have like a dedicated person working alongside them, but
• 7:59
  there are apparently hundreds of creators on the wait list.
• 8:02
  I wanted to talk about this just because it's very interesting.
• 8:05
  I think this whole concept, I mean, it literally marries like
• 8:09
  all of my interest when it comes to my work experience, right?
• 8:12
  Like publishing media, trying to figure out how to make new media
• 8:16
  work, the creator economy, kind of combining all those things.
• 8:20
  I think this is a really interesting idea.
• 8:21
  Obviously Yahoo is like a news aggregator and their GM has said
• 8:25
  that they want to remain an aggregator, like a publisher.
• 8:29
  They're not trying to be like a content distributor.
• 8:32
  But you know, it sounds like it sounds like they are honestly
• 8:37
  starting to give some social platforms.
• 8:39
  So they could be giving some social platforms a run for their
• 8:42
  money, especially ones like sub stack.
• 8:44
  You know, there's a big boom right now with newsletters, but
• 8:46
  now that it's no longer novel, it's so hard to grow and it's
• 8:49
  really hard to monetize if you don't have a big following.
• 8:51
  So this is a really cool initiative.
• 8:53
  I guess it's not totally unique. There's other publishers that
• 8:56
  have creator programs as well, but I just thought the sites
• 8:59
  into Yahoo and like what they're doing and how it's working for
• 9:02
  them. I don't know.
• 9:03
  It's interesting, at least to me as the owner of a media company
• 9:07
  that exclusively talks about Internet culture and the creator
• 9:09
  economy. All right, the last word that I
• 9:11
  have for you guys. So we have been getting requests
• 9:15
  to cover Love Island and I do feel like Love Island is a blind
• 9:19
  spot for me and pop culture. I'm sure if I started watching
• 9:22
  it, I would be like obsessed with it.
• 9:24
  OK, but I have not watched it. So it's very much a blind spot
• 9:27
  for me. However, Love Island Island *
• 9:29
  Sierra Ortega has apologized now for using a racial slur in a
• 9:33
  resurfaced social media video and in other posts.
• 9:37
  And that has been all over my feed.
• 9:39
  This whole situation around Sierra has been all over my feed
• 9:41
  so I figured I would give you guys a little bit of insight
• 9:44
  into this. Sierra Ortega is a Love Island
• 9:47
  contestant and while she's been away filming the show, fans
• 9:50
  found a few instances of posts on social media and which she
• 9:54
  used an anti Asian slur. So there's one in 2015 in her
• 9:59
  Instagram caption and then there's a few screenshots that
• 10:02
  are circulating. It's obviously hard to verify
• 10:05
  these, but it seems she posted something with that same slur on
• 10:08
  her stories in February 2023 and then a follower replied to her
• 10:12
  saying girl that's a derogatory term for Asians.
• 10:15
  And then Sierra allegedly wrote back.
• 10:17
  I just got educated on the topic, immediately deleting.
• 10:20
  I never knew the history of that word but will for sure not never
• 10:23
  use it again. Thanks for letting me know.
• 10:24
  But then in 2024, she posted another story allegedly of her
• 10:28
  getting Botox done in which she used the word to describe why
• 10:32
  she wants to get Botox around her eyes.
• 10:34
  And then there's another screenshot circulating from that
• 10:37
  same year from the DMS. Again, hard to verify this where she
• 10:41
  allegedly used it. And somebody replied saying this
• 10:44
  is derogatory. And she allegedly replied saying
• 10:47
  oh man, thankfully that's not how I used it.
• 10:50
  So all of this has been blowing up literally all week.
• 10:53
  While Sierra was away on Love Island without her phone 2 days
• 10:57
  ago, her parents made a statement.
• 10:59
  The backlash that their daughter has been getting, they wrote
• 11:01
  quote. As Sierras parents, this has
• 11:03
  been one of the most painful weeks of our lives.
• 11:05
  We've seen the post, the headlines, the hurt and the
• 11:07
  hate. And while Sierra hasn't seen any
• 11:09
  of it yet, we have. And so have the people who love
• 11:12
  her. We're not here to justify or
• 11:14
  ignore what surfaced. We understand why people are
• 11:17
  upset, and we know accountability matters.
• 11:20
  But what's happening online right now has gone far beyond
• 11:22
  that. The threats, the cruel messages,
• 11:24
  the attacks on her family, her friends, even her supporters.
• 11:27
  It's heartbreaking. And no one deserves that kind of
• 11:29
  hate, no matter what mistakes they've made.
• 11:31
  Around the same time, it was announced that Sierra was
• 11:34
  leaving the villa for, quote, personal reasons.
• 11:37
  And now 48 hours after she got back to the US, she has taken to
• 11:41
  social media to address the whole situation in a video and
• 11:44
  an Instagram story. And I do want to note that in
• 11:46
  the video, I'm going to play a clip of it.
• 11:47
  But I do want to note that in the video, she does address the
• 11:51
  screenshots that are circulating, but she seems to
• 11:53
  imply that they're not totally accurate.
• 11:55
  She doesn't say that, but she doesn't fully admit to them.
• 11:58
  So that's why I'm saying it's like hard to verify if some of
• 12:02
  the screenshots that are circulating are accurate or not.
• 12:05
  Like people can so easily fake screen shots so I don't know.
• 12:08
  I am not the victim in this situation.
• 12:11
  While I was in the villa, there were some posts that resurfaced
• 12:14
  from my past where I was very naively using an incredibly
• 12:18
  offensive and derogatory term. And before I get into the
• 12:21
  details, I want to first start by addressing not just anyone
• 12:24
  that I have hurt or deeply offended, but most importantly
• 12:28
  the entire Asian community. I am deeply, truly, honestly so
• 12:35
  sorry. I had no idea that the word held
• 12:39
  as much pain, as much harm, and came with the history that it
• 12:44
  did or I never would have used it.
• 12:46
  I had no ill intention when I was using it, but that's
• 12:50
  absolutely no excuse because intent doesn't excuse ignorance.
• 12:55
  It just doesn't. And I just need you to know that
• 12:58
  I am so sorry, but this is not an apology video.
• 13:03
  This is an accountability video. And I think right now there are
• 13:07
  tons of things floating around, different screenshots with
• 13:10
  different time stamps and fueling this narrative that I
• 13:14
  sort of doubled down once people tried to correct me and was
• 13:17
  like, oh, like, I don't know, I'm still going to use it, but I
• 13:20
  just thought was not the case. Like, the truth is that in that
• 13:22
  moment, the lesson was learned. What's been extremely, extremely
• 13:26
  difficult is the way people are approaching my family and my
• 13:29
  loved ones. You know, they have had ice
• 13:32
  called on them. My family doesn't feel safe in
• 13:35
  their own home. I'm receiving death threats.
• 13:38
  Like there's no need to fight hate with.
• 13:40
  Hate. Obviously I cannot accept this
• 13:42
  apology. Any opinion I have on this
• 13:45
  apology is literally a moot point because it's not for me.
• 13:49
  But we need to stop weaponizing ice against people.
• 13:53
  This is sick. OK, I talked about it yesterday
• 13:56
  or the day before in the episode about Adam McIntyre.
• 13:59
  But calling ice on somebody in this current climate is so scary
• 14:04
  and disgusting and I feel like it is an act of violence in and
• 14:07
  of itself. But yes, Sierra has addressed
• 14:10
  everything and I have seen quite a few people say that the Love
• 14:14
  Island producers, whoever is in charge of vetting and background
• 14:18
  checks needs to do a better job because this is the second in
• 14:22
  the same season, the second contestant to go home or get, I
• 14:27
  guess kind of have early removal.
• 14:29
  Removal. Yeah, I guess removed early.
• 14:32
  Removal's the right word. Yeah, like due to controversial
• 14:37
  comments that have circulated online.
• 14:38
  Anyways, guys, that's it for Mini Scroll today.
• 14:41
  Thank you so much for listening. I love you guys.
• 14:44
  Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
• 14:46
  Please buy us a coffee if you feel so inclined to support us.
• 14:50
  I love you guys. Have a good weekend and I will
• 14:52
  talk to you on Monday. Bye.