Some of YouTube’s top-performing creators gathered at Metrograph in New York City on Thursday, November 13, for the first-ever YouTube Creator Premieres showcase.
Stars such as Cleo Abram, Julian Shapiro–Barnum, Mark Vins, Michael Collins, Kinigra Deon and Trevor Noah were in attendance. Shapiro-Barnum, host of the web series Recess Therapy and Celebrity Substitute, was the host for the night, and creators previewed new content that will be launching exclusively on their YouTube channels in the coming weeks and months.
Shapiro-Barnum announced that he will be hosting YouTube’s first weekly late night show, Outside Tonight With Julian Shapiro-Barnum, which is slated to hit the platform in spring 2026.
“We’re setting it in public parks and on street corners. So, these shows are live and free,” Shapiro-Barnum exclusively told Us Weekly. “We want you to walk down the street and hear Rosalía singing, and you turn a corner and she is singing, like, in Chinatown. We want to give people this amazing thing they can stumble upon and create community, and YouTube as a place to house these amazing, ambitious, long-form projects is the perfect spot for it.”
Shapiro-Barnum shared with Us some things he thinks people don’t truly understand about being a creator.
“Creators are like entrepreneurs in a very real way,” Shapiro-Barnum said. “So many other creators that I’m friends with are, like, editors, producers, directors, advertisers in a lot of ways, and I feel like it’s this crazy, multihyphenate job that I think there’s a lot more to it than sometimes it looks.”
Keep scrolling to hear what other creators had to say about the common misconceptions people have about their careers:
Cleo Abram
A former Vox video producer turned YouTuber, Abram now hosts the Huge, If True series on YouTube where she breaks down complex science and technology ideas and topics.
“You know, between us and all of Us Weekly, if you listen to Netflix’s earnings calls recently, one of the things that they seem to say is basically Netflix has shows and YouTube has videos,” she told Us. “And I would say that was true once and now is no longer.”
Mark Vins
The Emmy-winning wildlife and adventure filmmaker is the cohost and founder of Brave Wilderness, a YouTube channel that has amassed over 21 million subscribers in its 10 seasons.
“I think maybe the biggest misconception about being a modern creator is that we’re all business owners … so making a film like Reef to Ridge not only was a labor of love, but there [were] a lot of financial instruments that we needed to pull off to do a film of this scale and to live with it this long and now go into the release and distribution phase,” Vins told Us. “Creators, almost exclusively, are all self-starters. So, we have to learn the ropes as we go. While you may pick up the video camera with an artistic intent, by the time you make it to top creator level, you also have to become a very successful entrepreneur.”
Kinigra Deon
The content creator is known for producing feature-length comedies, dramas and fantasy series, and it was recently announced that she will direct and lead a new film project titled Sundown in collaboration with Tubi and Kevin Hart’s Hartbeat production company.
Deon told Us that people often think her job is easy — but that’s far from the truth.
“After they watch a video, they think you filmed it and posted it. No, we work hard coming up with the concept, staying relevant, the research,” Deon explained. “I’m always on YouTube. I’m always thinking of ways to become more creative. I’m always trying to build. I’m trying to help other creators. It’s truly a business, and it takes every single bit of my time. And so for those who want to be creators, it is a lot of hard work, and you have to have a passion for it.”
Michael Collins
Stand-up comedian turned golf caddie turned ESPN analyst, Collins now cohosts Caddie & The Kid alongside former MLB player and close friend Ken Griffey Jr.
“Everybody thinks it’s easy. They think it’s quick and easy. That’s the biggest misconception about being a content creator, is people think, ‘Hey, it’s going to take two minutes? Come on, it’s quick,’” Collins told Us. “No, it’s not a two-minute thing. If you want to create really great content, then you got to look at like, ‘Hey, this is a job.’ This is a job. It might not be 9 to 5, the hours might be a little bit different, but the work you got to put into it, and the commitment you got to make, you got to be all in.”
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