I Won Creator of the Year

What's up guys, welcome back to Views. Today I am here with Jason Nash, is back, thank goodness.

And unfortunately Natalie is here, and we have a special guest. Jay, you want to introduce him? It's a big deal.

Yeah, this is Jim from Snapchat and he's crushing it.

You made it sound like he's 11 years old.

Jim's awesome, by the way. He's always so kind to me. Most people aren't, and he always takes the time to say hello to me. I've talked about you at one of your parties. We were just talking shop. I was picking his brain about the industry. Very smart guy, went to Wesleyan, which I was, we were there yesterday.

All right, hold on, let me set it up again. This is Jim Shepherd.

He's an exec at, you're an executive, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, I guess. I mean, I've been there for 11 years. I started my career in the William Morris mailroom, and then I went to CAA, and I was in the film business, and then I went to Snapchat, and I went, to VidCon in 2017 and I hung out with you guys. And I remember when— because like Jack Reed brought me.

Jack Reed, my old manager. Yeah, my man.

Yeah.

By the way, can I just say, so if you watch the vlogs and if you've listened to the pod, my old manager's catchphrase is Jack Reed, or my old manager's name is Jack Reed and his catchphrase is my man.

Yeah.

And he told me—

I don't believe this at all. And I confronted him about it.

I'm like, I think you lied to me about this story. He was saying that he was like buying coffee and then the cash register person was like, um, I recognize your voice. Are you the my man guy? And I'm like, there's no way. I'm like, Jack, we've mentioned this like twice in like a podcast and a video. And he goes, I swear to God, he had me say it to him because he knew I was the my man guy.

No way.

Yeah, I don't believe it. Jim, you think he's lying?

He's a funny guy. He is. He's got a lot of catchphrases.

Yeah, but this story specifically, it's got to be bullshit.

No, no, it's true. I was at Snapchat and I like my first job there is I like kind of connected Snapchat to the entertainment business and I did deals with like Disney and things like that. And then in 2017, I went to VidCon with you guys and Jack and like it was like the Beatles showed up when you were there. And that, I mean, I'm not just like glazing you like that was a moment when I was like, this creator thing is real. And then I went to the higher-ups at Snap and was like, We need to build this creator team out and really do this. And so now I lead the team that, that works with creators all like I'm all over the world.

Yeah, you're like the— you're the creator guy at Snap.

Yeah, well, it's, it's—

report to Evan.

Well, I report to the CFO, Derek, my boss. Shout out Derek.

And then he reports to Evan. Yeah, yeah.

Evan Spiegel, Evan, youngest billionaire ever.

The best.

My favorite.

Natalie loves him.

I love Evan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is he single?

No, he's married to Miranda Kerr, who's insanely gorgeous, who's so cool.

I got to meet her at a Snapchat event. So sick.

Really?

Yeah, she really got the life. Yeah, Evan's got like—

yeah, okay.

I mean, I don't, I don't know.

What did you say to her?

Uh, we just— I talked about how I'm looking for a girlfriend because, I mean, if you're gonna talk to anybody about that, yeah, it's a supermodel, right?

Like, yeah, she might be able to help.

Like, they can, they can help.

And if she knows older supermodels, right, they have kids.

We know you have a mother.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was my goal with Miranda. Miranda, if you're listening to this again, it's— you still have time. I'm still super single. But yeah, Evan, great guy, CEO of Snap. Wait, okay, so 2017, VidCon.

Yeah. And then after that, like, that's when we started to get real about having a creator team. And now the content partnerships team that I'm a part of, we— it's, it's like creators, it's celebrities, it's, you know, media companies like the Daily Mail, the Wall Street Journal, sports leagues like the NFL.

Yeah. You guys, you guys rolled out this like creator program where creators can get paid. Right, between snaps. And I remember I got onto it quite early and I remember I was so happy because all my, okay, so when I was on Vine, when I started on Vine, there was this guy, Jerome Jarre, I think I've talked about this. He had an incredible Snapchat following and he would always post his Snapchat views and he was always getting like a million views of Snapchat, which was crazy to me at the time 'cause I was like, he's posting a story and a million people are entertained by this. Like, and I was so jealous because I'm like, there's no likes or anything on Snapchat, so there's no pressure. He could just literally post whatever and he still gets the satisfaction of like people seeing it and him being able to entertain all these people.

So I remember me, Zane, and Scott, we were all like, fuck, like this, this, we should try to, we should try to get bigger on Snap. So every day, like, the thing that I was promoting the most through my vlog and through Vine was Snap. And I kind of did it in like a big I like definitely cheated my way to pump my Snap because I was, I had, there's one day I had to get in makeup for like this little video I was in and it looked like I got my ass kicked and I had this, I had this like, I had this sports account that I used to run or this, this theme account that I used to run on Vine. And I made a video, me in the makeup as my ass kicked. And I was like, I just got my ass beat. The full story's on my Snapchat. And it was 6 seconds and I would put my Snapchat at the bottom of it and I'd post that video on that theme account about 6 times a week. So like constantly reposting it, which grew my following on Snap to over 6 million. Wow. And then I used Snap for a little bit, and then when I got more into the vlogs, I stopped using it as much. I would use it to promote my vlogs, and then I really went heavy on it when like Jim came around and gave me the call and was like, it's time for you to start snapping away. And I was like, fuck yeah. I have like a following on here. I like, I, this is crazy, right?

It was like, it was like the luckiest thing ever.

Yeah, that's a story that we hear a lot. I mean, Snapchat invented stories and people sometimes forget that. And in the beginning, like, every celebrity was coming to Snapchat because we were the only ones that had it.

And then do you think you did more for DJ Khaled or, or DJ Khaled did more for you?

Tough question. People know him from his Snap stories.

1000%.

And he would like tell them he's going to show up somewhere and then like his, his like fans would come. I mean, that—

I think he skyrocketed like jet ski sales alone.

There was, there was a Wall Street Journal article that he got lost at sea and he documented it on Snapchat. And that was the moment when, when people, people really put us on the map. So maybe he did. I mean, look, he did a lot for us too. It kind of went—

I think it definitely went both ways because I would never know DJ Khaled as the personality. He's just a producer, right? But he's like so much more than that now. He's like, he's an icon.

Yeah. He's got catchphrases.

He's got catchphrases.

Yeah.

He's an action figure.

But then, you know, a lot of other platforms got stories and then it became harder. And we kind of had this second act when we put ads in stories, which you mentioned, which I'm so proud of because we started paying creators and they started just vlogging with their phone and you don't have to get expensive equipment. You don't have to edit long videos. You can just be yourself and you can make money with ads and you can post stories. And that's when we started to, I mean, we love a comeback. That was a comeback for us.

Yeah, that was insanity. What was the office like when Instagram stole stories from you?

That was a dark day.

Really?

I mean, that was a tough day, yeah.

Is Evan coming in and just being like, "Everybody get the fuck down here." I might've just blacked out that day.

But look, Things look, you can copy a product. You can't copy culture. And I think like one of the things that we've done a really good job of is work with creators one-on-one, have relationships with them, help them. I mean, like, you are one of the most successful people on the platform, which is funny because you're like the angriest too, because you're mad about your views all the time. And then Natalie, like, calls me and she's like, you got to come up to the house.

David's mad about views.

So like, I drive up to the house and it's like, that's one thing. That's one thing. And you're like pacing in the backyard and I've got to be like, it's okay, it's okay. You're one of the best in the world at this.

You still got it.

And so that's where we've tried to succeed, where I don't think a lot of other platforms do it to the extent that we have. So we just kind of dug our way out of it.

Can you sue Instagram for stealing something like that or no?

I'm not a lawyer.

Right.

The way that I understand it is, is if you're a company that makes running shoes. Yeah. You're going to sell a lot of running shoes if you're the only company making running shoes. But then other companies can make running shoes too. Sure. And that's just the case. I mean, the underlining code, I think that becomes more of a legal issue.

But you can't own— you can't own a—

I don't, I don't believe.

But to Instagram's defense, Like, it's kind of a thing now that all these apps do, right?

Sure.

Someone innovates and then you adopt.

Yeah, I guess I just— the question was like, can you own—

can you patent that? I don't believe so. I think you just have to focus on what's right for us. And I think, like, you know, we're really proud of that, that Stories is a part of the DNA of Snapchat. But I think, like, putting ads in them was like step 2 that really got a lot of people coming back, posting, you know, vlogging.

But other than— other than the social media posting aspect, aspect of it. Like, there's like a crazy stat that I read about you guys about— because you guys are a messaging app at first, right?

Yeah.

Still to this day, you guys are first a messaging app.

Yep. Snapchat opens to the camera and people are coming in first and foremost to talk to their friends, and then they stumble across your content and, you know, they stay forever.

They're blown away.

Watch it, watch it.

They're like, this is, this is more than just a messenger.

Yeah, yeah. Um, okay.

Yeah. So then, but yeah, so, but there was like a stat that was that there are more daily users than like— it was— this was like a couple of years ago. So when like Twitter was still really popular, it was like more daily users than Twitter, Instagram, TikTok combined or something.

And I remember that stat. I don't know what the latest version of that is. I know that I could start spitting stats and it would be boring, but there are some crazy stats like we reach a billion people.

How often?

Every month.

Every month you reach a billion people?

We reach 90% of Gen Z in, I think, over 25 countries.

Wow.

So we really have a lock on teen messaging.

Holy fuck.

And yeah, you know, many of them are making content every day. They're sending snaps every day. It's an engaged audience.

It's really interesting.

It's a big place.

It's interesting how different stories are in different countries. Yeah. Like when we went to like the Middle East.

Yeah.

The stories there are like someone— it's almost like a livestream.

Yep.

Like someone will put a phone down, like how— like I'll upload like 90 to 100 frames a day, but there's people in the Middle East that are going above—

it's wild. 200 sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're posting everything they do. I mean, there is, there is a lot.

And people are engaged with it, like really, really, really engaged.

People in the Middle East love Snapchat.

I mean, is it bigger there than here?

It's hard to compare. It's, it's, it's one of like Saudi is one of our best markets.

Really?

And the Gulf is, is, is really amazing for us. And the creators there are wild. Like when we do events there, like we do these Snap Schools where we bring creators to the office or to like a, like an auditorium and we teach them best practices of Snapchat. And we've done these Snap Schools all over the world. And when we do them in Saudi, it's like the main event. It's insane. Yeah. We sell them to brands, you know, brands come and sponsor them.

Oh, wow.

It's pretty wild.

Yeah.

So it's a huge deal there.

Is that something to do with the way that people are in the Middle East? Like a little bit more guarded or something? Like maybe not so like out there?

I've, I've talked to our Middle East creators a lot. I've been to Saudi, I think 5 times now. I've gotten a lot of their feedback and They say a lot of the things that people all, like, all over the world say, that they really resonate with the fact that it disappears. They resonate with the fact that there's not a lot of pressure to have to post this thing and then it's on the internet forever. I hear a lot that they like the idea that people can't necessarily see who you follow all the time. They feel like they're on stage all the time where people can look through and be like, who do you follow? And judge them. And the no likes, the no comments, thing really, I think, like, resonates.

So the disappearing thing is incredible. Yeah, it's so like, so no pressure where it really is. And that, that I think is like the thing that I complain about the most, like, on other platforms is, uh, fuck, I just, I just heard the word analysis paralysis. Yeah, analysis paralysis, right? Like, I, like, it's just like I just start overthinking every video to the point where I'm not posting anymore. And like disappearing after 24 hours. Fuck yeah. Like I haven't overthought a single thing on Snap. Good thing or bad thing, I don't know.

Jim, I haven't put any thought in your platform.

Jim's like, yeah, we've been wanting to talk to you about that. It's very evident you're not overthinking anything.

You can make the quality just a little higher. I'm just kidding.

We're here because Snap just had an award show, the Snappies. Yes. And I got to win, I guess, the biggest award of the night.

It was unbelievable.

Creator of the Year. I'm so happy that we got to talk about it.

I won. This is I'm a champion.

What happened?

I don't know.

I can't believe I didn't even start it like that.

I didn't even know you were up for anything.

Oh, it was a secret.

What happened? Were you nervous going in?

Well, well, yes, super nervous.

You were?

But okay, so this is your first annual—

We've never done this before. We've been wanting to do this for a while. Since we had the idea, every other social media platform has done some like award show.

Yeah.

So, so, but, but we finally had ours last night and David won the biggest award of the night. The creator of the year.

And it only cost me $50,000. I had to slide it into Jim's pocket. No.

That's not true.

But yeah, no, it was—

Did you prepare a speech?

Well, the speech actually stressed out Jim.

His speech ended up being great, but in the beginning, he started mentioning all these people that he thanked that were not me. And I'm thinking like, I'm the one that Natalie calls when David's mad and I have to come up here. And it's like, am I not gonna get mentioned? And then at the end, he did dedicate the award to me, and The Hollywood Reporter talked about him dedicating the award to me.

There you go.

So I was happy.

Monica and Brooke were very key components to Snap, and I was thinking parts of the Snap team. And as I was thinking the other people, I could feel Jim's anxiety.

I was creaking in my chair.

He was about 40 feet away from me, but I could feel it.

I'm like, oh my God. I don't know how I had this much time to think, 'cause I was so nervous on stage. But like, that is where my head went right away. I was like, Jim is nervous right now. I'm not going to thank him. But yeah, no.

Then I was like, and most importantly, I have to say, I thought you had the best speech of the night. You think?

Oh, wow.

You thank the Snap team. You were gracious about everyone. You thanked me. You were nice about Matt Friend, the host. You said nice things about him. My little boy's become a man. He's a gracious, kind human being.

Thanks. So somebody came up to me right after and they were like, dude, Where was the Natalie shout out?

Oh yeah.

Came up to Natalie too.

And I was like, I was waiting for you to be shouted out.

And I guess he just doesn't care enough.

Yeah, I was like, oh, I didn't even— I didn't really think about it. But now that you've said it that way, what else did you say?

Shout out Views Podcast. I went into depth. I spoke about the podcast for 45 seconds. Okay. No, it was pretty—

I don't know.

I get so nervous up there.

I would too.

I mean, I can't imagine.

Mark D'Amelio and Heidi D'Amelio. Gave me the award, which is really cool. Yeah, because I gave Charli her Kids' Choice Award. Yeah, about 5 years ago. So it was really cool. And I got to sit next to JoJo Siwa. Okay. Which is like, you know, she's— this is a crazy fact— she is now the age I was when I met her.

Right.

How crazy. And I met her like 7 years ago. Yeah, she's 22. Yeah, I was 22 when I met her, like this fucking— and I really resonated with JoJo. We were having a conversation and she was talking about how she's just like, I'm just tired all the time. Like, she's just like, I just been doing this for so long. And it felt like I was talking to myself. Yeah, it was really crazy. And like, but granted, she's been doing this way longer than me. Um, and then yeah, we just talked about how long we've been doing it. And she was like, we were talking about each other's age because we didn't know how old we are. And she's like, I know you're like really old, but like, but like you look younger. She's like, you look 30, but I know you're really old. I'm like, well, actually I'm 29, JoJo, so surprise, surprise, motherfucker. Um, but yeah, no, it was really great talking to her.

Wow.

Yeah, she invited me to go play golf with her, so I may take her up on that. So that'd be really lit. Um, but yeah, it was a great night. Jim crushed it.

Who voted?

It was really quick.

It was just a committee of people that voted. I did not vote. Who was on the committee? People across— I didn't get to vote. Well, next year, if you want to, if you want to vote, you can be on the committee next year.

How do you, how do you get into the committee?

We had a team of people that picked the committee.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. I haven't got this far yet, but I thought also, I thought you looked good. You had a nice, you had a nice jacket on.

I didn't think I looked good, but I appreciate you saying that.

You got to go. Well, it's better than some of the events you've come to. Yeah.

Well, you said that. You said this when we went to When we go to our Cannes dinners.

Yeah, David and I have been to a lot of Snapchat events.

Okay.

We do a Cannes Lion dinner every year. And basically Cannes Lion is a tech conference. It's not a black tie affair, but people dress to impress. They wear like nice linen suits.

I wear a full-length gown every year.

I remember the first year we had the dinner, David shows up in like parachute pants and a trucker hat.

Yeah, but I think you're supposed to do that as like the creator. You're supposed to be like, hey, there's that idiot. Seperate yourself from the execs. So the people that want to stay away know that they should stay away.

Adam Sandler move.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, Adam Sandler, like, can do it a lot more because he's Adam Sandler. Yeah. But I don't know, I always like that. I always like when people just, like, dress themselves.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Or there was the LACMA dinner. Remember the LACMA dinner?

Oh my god. Where—

so you had your Halloween party on the 31st of October.

The last one are we talking about?

And then the last LACMA dinner, it was the next night.

Well, it's like a gala, right? This is like hosted by DiCaprio.

It's an art and film gala.

Big deal, Snapchat has a table.

Everybody's there. Bryan Coogler, like every director, fucking, we've talked about this, big, big event.

So I got up that day, I got a haircut, I was like getting all dressed, I get to the event, it's like 5 PM, and then Natalie calls me at like 5:15 and she's like, David just woke up. And the red carpet had started and I'm like, what? And to your credit, I think you got there by like 5:45. I got there. Collar situation over the jacket on the red carpet.

It wasn't even that I woke up. It was I had plans to hang out with my friends at around like 6, and they were on their way over to my house. And then, and then I just had to call and be like, I'm so sorry, guys. Like, I have a dinner. I had no idea. And I was fucking— I completely spaced and forgot, which was like, it's a crazy thing to have something after Halloween night. But we got through it. Well, Natalie, I think at the time Was throwing up, diarrhea, one of the classics.

I was severely hungover from our Halloween party, but we made it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you stepped it up for the Snappies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was like, no more of this. I got there early. I was ready to go.

You did great.

Thank you. Well, thanks.

What did you think when they called your name?

I was like, I just blacked out. I was just like, I don't know. Every time like a moment like that happens, I'm like, I can't wait for it to be over.

Yeah.

Like there's like, and the best part was when when I said goodbye on stage.

Yeah.

And then like, Mark, like, you know, you know, like when you're— when you're on an award show, like the person that gives you the award, like wraps their hand around you to like lead you out of the place.

Yeah.

I was like, here's the hand of like God, like rescuing me. Like, that's the best part is like when it's like when they're ushering you offstage, it's like you've done it. You don't have to be scared anymore.

I thought it was a fun room because it was so many people that love Snapchat and I heard some people being like, oh, they're there should be more celebrities there. And I'm like, that's not the goal. The goal is not to like, to like make this the Vanity Fair Oscar party. The goal that we had was to celebrate the like creators that love Snapchat.

That's nice.

And I think, I think we did that. And I think it felt like a community. And it was, it was David speaking to a room of people who watch his stories and are on Snapchat actually, and like understand what he's done on this platform. Yeah. So I thought that was cool.

And now, We're so tight that you guys are coming to sponsor my birthday, which is gonna be so exciting.

So exciting.

Snapchat is the one thing they do really good other than, you know, just the app stuff is they're, they're really good at putting on events and just like looking clean. I also think that like the logo just looks so clean, the yellow, it just looks really nice and fun. And they're a, they're a big, big sponsor at the birthday party this year.

Yeah.

Really?

Yeah.

Can you reveal?

I don't even know what to reveal.

It's kind of my birthday party at the same time that it's—

wait, what is the theme?

The theme is a summer soiree. It's butter yellow is the color, which is perfect for Snap.

Perfect.

Oh, it's like Cannes.

It's like a South of France, Cannes, Saint-Tropez theme. So lots of yellows, lots of tans and whites. It's gonna be gorgeous, Jason.

Really?

Gorgeous.

Musical performers?

Well, they are coming.

I have one performer that I've wanted for the last—

ever since we started throwing parties, he's been saying, I need this performer, and this performer has not been able to commit for the past like 3, 4 years that we've been doing these events.

And now they're down, but now they're like too far out. Yeah, it's too far out to like assume they're down.

Yeah, right.

I'm trying to think who it could be.

Can I say? No, because I'm just gonna jinx it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, you guys, I can tell you, you can just cut it out.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that'd be really cool.

That's amazing.

I mean, just not to give it a. Give it too much away, but, like, a band. A band playing in the backyard is the best. Like, with the drums, with everything.

The last party that I came to, I left at, like, 10:30 because I needed to get to bed. And I was going down in the golf cart, and there was these two guys in the golf cart with me that tried to get in, and they couldn't, and they were from Australia. They told me, and they— someone DM'd them that they could get them into David Dobrik's party. So they came all the way from Australia and then they were asking me like, what I do. I was like, not telling them, but I just think it's hilarious that people come from all over the world and stand outside your house and they want— I mean, you've developed this brand.

It's really crazy.

The best parties in Los Angeles. So we're really excited to be a part of it. I think that, you know, we're good at photo booths, so I think we're really excited to do that. And the team at Snapchat is like, they know about your parties and they're so excited to work with you.

That's going to be really fun. So fun. What other party experiences have you— oh, my favorite is you came with Jack Reed once.

We did.

And you're like, I'm never going with Jack again.

Jack's getting a lot of play right now.

Yeah, he showed up, he showed up, he showed up with my, my old manager Jack Reed, my man. Again, he, he likes to come up like fashionably late and I need to get here early, which is not the thing to do at these because the door gets so stressful.

Yes, yes.

Like get here, get here right when it opens.

That's not my vibe. I want to be—

I like being here early too. The gym was stuck outside for way too long.

Next year there's got to be like a VIP entrance above the hill or something.

Yeah, I mean, technically it's all VIP because—

yeah, I'm just gonna get here early next time.

Yeah, you come up to the house a lot, carve yourself a path through the neighbor's house.

And yeah, I know, or yeah, or literally gym entrance. Yeah, I mean, a lot of my friends get there like 2 hours before and they're just like, just hang out. Yeah, or like help you, even help set up. There was this one guy that came that we didn't know that came to the house, walked into the house like 7 hours before.

Oh my gosh.

And he was like, I'm, uh, he went up to each of us and like to Natalie he'd go, hey, I'm here. David, David called me to help set up, which I would never do. Um, and then he went up to me and was like, hey, I'm here because Brooke called me to help set up. And he like threw our names to each of us to make it seem like he was there to help set up for the party. Yeah, it was very suspicious. And he was like, if you guys don't need me, I'll just be back later. And that was his way of like sneaking in. We were like, whoa, this is fucking terrifying. It was really, really scary. And such like a silly way to try to sneak in. It just doesn't even make any sense.

Insane.

Yeah. Like, it's like this isn't 1991. Like, you're gonna have to come up with a way better plan for that.

You're like the Great Gatsby.

Everybody—

No, no, no, it's not.

You're like the party guy.

It's not that. It's, it's just like us. It's, it's not like that. Oh, it's a bird. It's not that crazy.

It's a good party.

Yeah.

It's just a good, good, good way to spend the night. Yeah, it's a good way to spend the night. It's not fucking Vanity Fair Oscars.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just a really good party.

Yeah, it's like the Snappies.

It's—

nothing can be as good as the Snappies.

What do you think about— what do you think about like Snapchat, like the future of like media and all that? And like we were talking before about how, you know, Hollywood's kind of dead and—

Yeah, I mean, I think we're really excited about the Stories revenue share. That's been a huge success. I mean, we're really excited about Spotlight growth, which is like our version of like short-form video. Yeah, like Reels. And there's so many stats that that's grown tremendously. I've noticed that David's been posting more on Spotlight.

Yeah.

And then we just launched creator subscriptions where fans can pay for content.

Right.

And that's another huge business. And so I don't know how I feel about like showing my ass.

I'm going to have to do it.

You could—

you could figure out other things to show.

No, no, it's— it's PG, right?

It is moderated the same as the rest of the app.

Moderated.

So yeah, yeah, so the idea is that it's, it's not—

this is a classic Snapchat question. Like, obviously, like, when I was 16, 15, like, let's not beat around the bush, we all use Snapchat, you know, to talk to people we liked.

Yeah.

How closely moderated are those pictures? I mean, are they stored anywhere?

The media-trained executive in me wants to say to you right now—

We've seen them.

That the safety of our community is the most important thing to us. And we take these things very seriously. And all of those things are true.

Yeah.

What I would also say, though, is that I think we, we spend a lot more time thinking about what we're pushing to people in content that they don't follow and making absolutely sure that that's safe. And then I think angling more towards value and privacy when it comes to like you snapping with your friend. However, when it comes to minors and it comes to people that could be in danger, we're very serious about making sure kids are safe. That's like we've made it really hard for kids to talk to people that don't follow them or they are not friends or talk to people that you don't know. Like there's a family center now where your parents can get involved. So like when it comes to kids, we're really, really careful. When it comes to adults—

When I was most promiscuous, I was a kid. So I'm glad you guys got my back.

It's not just about promiscuous. It's about keeping kids safe and making sure that kids aren't like, you know, getting messages from people trying to do, you know, like illegal things. I think that's where we really are trying to be safe.

So I have a question. Are you hiring at Snap?

Because I think You want a job because you're sick of David?

I think my role here is evolving to other places.

You still have to deal with me.

That's true.

What's happening?

I'm probably leaving.

I'm ready to go.

Yeah, you're leaving? Yeah, I'll go with you.

Okay, great. We need two roles, Jim.

Wow, this is breaking news.

I didn't even know about this.

He doesn't even care.

We're breaking news on the podcast.

What happened? Did you guys have a fight?

She could never leave. Also, can I just say, you've got to stop doing the not responding to me.

At after like 8 PM.

First of all, it was 11 PM. He blows up my phone.

It's not 11 PM here all day.

Guess who decided to take a nap all day yesterday while I was here?

You know why I took a nap all day? Because I was told we were watching Lord of the Rings at 7 PM. So yes, at 4 I was like, gotta buckle down because it's going to be a bumpy night. So I took a nap, and then when I woke up, guess who's Ferrari here starting up in the driveway? Natalie's. And I'm like, oh, so we're not watching Lord of the Rings anymore? So yeah, I took a nap honestly for the sake of friendship because I thought we were all gonna get together and fucking watch.

No, no, I'm sorry.

And then I texted her, like, look at all the blue messages I texted her.

Oh my god.

Yeah, he does this when I'm leaving, when I'm not there.

7:19 PM. Okay, the messages go from 7:30, 7:54, 7:54, 8:07, 8:09, 11:04, 1:12. 1:12 AM. But like, the ones before 10 PM, you gotta respond to.

I know, it was just yesterday, I was like, you know what, I'm going home today and I'm putting my phone down.

But it's just like, can you at least call me and just be like, hey, I'm like, it's not, it's not, it's not fair.

No, it is fair.

No, it's not.

I'm with you all the time.

But like, you know that I get most of my work done at night.

That sounds like a really big personal problem.

No, sounds like a personal problem for you.

And I responded the next morning. I was the smartest kid.

Don't be nervous, Jim.

They do this there all the time.

So I will be taking Natalie back to the office where she's gonna work at a shutdown.

Shut the fuck up, she is.

She's coming with me.

There is a seat in my car for Natalie.

Jim, in my old age, as I get older, I need some more stability in my career, you know, and I don't know if this is giving it to me anymore.

Natalie had to sit premium economy for a flight somewhere and she goes, my old job used to fly me private. I'm like, when you were fucking—

when you were a nanny and you—

I love that they flew you 20 minutes to go to Six Flags with a kid. That was completely different.

Uh, yeah, that did happen.

So Natalie has—

Jim is so checked out. He's like, what are these people saying?

We're hiring Natalie. She's coming back to the office.

What would she be good for there, you think?

Yeah, I mean, I've known Natalie for 10 years. I've worked with Natalie a lot. We've talked about how to deal with you. I trust you guys have power bonded, and we will find something for Natalie to do. I trust you. There's lots of work to go around.

Thank God for David. That's how Natalie has her best relationships with people.

See, there we go.

Yeah, like, I love Natalie because you're so difficult.

Yeah, that's why.

Although, you're the girl— every time she calls me, she wants money. She's always asking you for money.

I know, I know.

That's my job.

She is a good manager.

She's a good manager in that, in Yeah, because you need money. You got a lot going on here. You have a lot of people to pay.

Yeah, I'll call Jim when views are down for the day and I'll be like, "Jim, dude, I have a mortgage." And you've got people on laptops out there. Doing nothing.

You got a lot happening.

Taylor and John, what the fuck are they doing? Taylor's on her laptop 5 hours a day.

I feel like—

I'm like, "Taylor, what are you doing?" I don't think you pay her enough.

You need to pay Taylor. She does everything. She's organizing your life. She's unboxing Amazon packages.

You're throwing ping pong balls at her face.

in the Snapchat stories.

That's true. I mean, I do. I think Taylor's paid perfectly. But yeah, I think Taylor does a lot more than meets the eye. Taylor, I mean, Taylor's like number one personality hire of all time.

Who would make more money in a subscription-based thing, Natalie or David?

Natalie.

Really?

Sucker.

Bullshit.

I don't know that David would commit. No, look, I think David could be amazing at this. I think you would have to be like, what is the— utility that my fans are going to gain from subscribing to me. And I think if you figure that out— look, we all know David has a nose for money, so I think he can figure it out.

I just have a tough time like separating free content to a paywall. Yeah, like it's like, how am I going to step up? Like, what am I going to do where people feel comfortable? I don't know. I've never done that.

You could get that six-pack back and then—

Natalie, work that a little bit. For the love of God, no one wants to see my six-pack.

Can anyone join subscriber thing?

Yeah.

So right now we've been rolling it out slowly. And the goal is to get it to as many of our Snap Stars as possible. Snap Stars is what we call like verified creators.

Got it.

We want to like roll it out responsibly so we just don't flood the system. But everyone in the US has access to be able to subscribe right now. Got it. So the goal is to make this thing big.

Jim, who's the biggest on Snap?

Well, people ask me this a lot. People ask me if David Dobrik is the biggest person on Snap, and I always say, like, define biggest. Like, you don't have the most followers.

Biggest, Jason, sorry.

You don't have the most followers, but you have a lot of followers. You have like 6 million plus.

Well, who's the most followers? Oh, Kylie.

I think Kylie Jenner is. But you have consistently, I think, been the most successful on Snap. I mean, the game on Snapchat—

When you say most successful, do you mean number 1 or number 2, 3, 4?

But there's lots of number 1s in different categories. What you are the number 1 in is you've probably driven the most time spent in your story the last 5+ years. And so most people, more people are spending more time in your story than probably anyone else. I mean, you're at the very top. And so people love seeing your daily life with your friends You've— you're the one of the most successful creators on the platform, which is hilarious to me how you're— how you always complain about views, but that's another story.

Well, that's because I'm gonna release some secret information here. Yeah, when I first got onto the program, yeah, when I first like got back into Snap, yeah, I was one of the first ones to hop on. So I think I was— I was most of the peephole, and I wasn't vlogging also at the time, so I think people could only find me on Snap.

Yeah.

So people were finding me on Snap and the amount of views I was getting was like unfathomable. Like there were stories where I was getting like 6, 7, 8 million views.

Yeah.

And I'm talking like, like clicks in, like I'm not talking like, like the overall number for the day will read like 300, 400 million views because it'll combine all your views from all your stories. But like the, the actual big number would be like 7, 8 million, which was like individual people, which is fucking unfathomable. Especially because, you know, my goal was always a million. Yeah, Jerome. But yeah, that was like, that was like real prime time Snap. That was like when I got on early. I mean, look, those were the golden days.

We—

but it's still incredible. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to—

what's the most you made one month on Snap?

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know either.

I don't want to say.

You would know better than me.

I don't want to say. Jim always is like, no. Jim's always like, go ahead and say it.

I mean, I could find out.

We rolled out the ads to creators slowly to make sure that it, again, was like responsible. And then there was a time when like David was one of the only people that had it. And like that's when he did really well.

Only person to have this ad program.

And then—

About maybe like 20 others.

And then to his credit, a lot of creators wanted to do what he's doing. And now there's like thousands of— creators all over the world.

How many, how many would you say? Like over 5,000?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, there's thousands of people all over the world that have this.

Wow, that's sick.

And so there's more competition. And then the other thing, and this is like internet philosophy, but like stories is a great format for when you follow someone and you wanna see everything they did today. It's not a great format to discover content. And people are voting with their time and they're voting for short-form video. And there was a stat that I heard today that people who post a Spotlight every day grow their audience 10 times faster.

Spotlight is like the Instagram Reels, like it's Reels. Yeah.

And so I think the combination of Spotlight to have more people find you.

Yeah.

And then Stories for the people who really care about you and want to see everything you did today. I think that's the combination that we get really excited about.

How many people are on Spotlight a day, would you say?

I don't have the numbers offhand, but it's grown. I think the stat, one of the stats we released we've produced is it's grown 30% year over year.

Oh, wow.

So, and the other thing is, think about Snapchat. It opens to the camera and then you go over and there's the stories page and then you go over and there's Spotlight. So there's, there's a design issue in just fewer people are going to go to that last page.

Yeah.

Like TikTok opens to Spotlight, to the Reels.

It opens to TikTok.

Yeah.

And we have all these pages. And so one of the things we've really focused on is getting more people quicker into Spotlight and moving Spotlight more front and center in the app. And I think when we do that, more and more people will find David through Spotlight. They'll follow him, given the numbers that show that that's true. And then when they follow him, they're gonna see his stories every day. And then if you wanna do like I'm Creator subscriptions, you can do that and they can pay. So I think like the ability to find you and then like really do a deep dive and see the six-pack, I think that's what we're kind of looking for.

Why don't you guys, I mean, this probably wouldn't work. I obviously thought of it, but like, why would you guys not give the crew, the person that's using the phone, the option of what it opens to? So you can customize it.

That's an idea that's come up. It starts to get complicated when everyone in the world's apps look different.

Okay.

But we have thought about different places in the world. For instance, like India, they love short-form video.

And so thinking about— So that would make sense for it to open up.

Thinking about different places and how it could be different. I think that that's definitely something that we've thought about.

The one idea I had Um, and I wish we got to do this is— oh wow, Jonah just got followed by Mark Wahlberg. That's kind of cool. Breaking news, Jonah just texted me, these A-listers are coming for your fat funny friend you discovered. Breaking news, Mark Wahlberg is all in on Jonah.

Um, the one thing I really wish I could do with you guys case that like could have been like a legal issue. I don't know what it was, but I really want to do like a filter that is sponsored by a brand and everyone in the world can play it. It's like a Wheel of Fortune or something, and only 1 or 10 people win it a day. And like one person gets $10,000 a day, and you're like filming yourself and it spins. You get one spin a day, everyone in the world gets one spin a day, and then one person wins and the reaction's captured and they could post on other social medias and the brand gets crazy awareness because everybody's playing it. Um, I feel like that'd be so that would be fucking cool, and I wish we got to.

I think we could figure it out. We would just need—

You said that 3 years ago.

We just need to find the right brand. We need to find the right brand. Really? Yeah, that's the key. And I think like brand deals and creators working with brands is something that we're trying to do more of.

That's a really expensive thing for a brand, 'cause I feel like they're going to get so, they're probably gonna get 100 million people looking at this thing a day. Like it's going to be crazy.

Yeah, I mean, where most of our efforts are is on the other end, which is like what brands tell us all the time is that they wanna just find creators are already organically mentioning their product, find that content and then turn that into paid media, turn it into like an ad. And so we're, we're really building out the tools to do that. So for instance, if you tagged a brand that you don't necessarily work with, they could then find that piece of content and they could put paid media like against that content. So we're trying to do that at scale. What you're talking about is like a special circumstance that's not going to happen for everyone. It's going to happen for you and a brand that really loves working with you. And then like, let's get the folks on our sales team that work with that brand and figure out how we can do it.

If you actually think it's possible.

I do.

Okay, then we can totally do it with this brand I have in mind.

All right, let's talk about it.

It could obliterate. Jimmy, we'll do so well.

We're making deals on the podcast right now.

Let's do it.

No, it's illegal, sorry, brother. You're just going to have to sit there and enjoy the, you're just gonna get to use the filter first, how about that?

That's what I want.

I have a question. —How does Snapchat— I mean, I know now that you have like the monetization program and there's ads that are slotted in, but like how does Snapchat actually make money?

—We make money in a lot of ways, but like when brands buy ads on Snapchat and they run in public content, we get a share of that. So we make money that way. —Also ads will pop up in your messages. —That's new. Thank you, David. You should work— like maybe we can hire both of you. Sponsored snaps is our newest ad format. Brands can basically send like direct chats and the engagement has been insane. And in certain circumstances, like Calvin Harris sent the Snap and it was his, his like a record label doing the ad for his album. But when people saw Calvin Harris in their chat feed, they were like, I'm opening that. Yeah.

And so how many people does that reach?

I don't remember offhand what that reached. Reached, but you have to imagine Snapchat reaches over 500 million people every day, like a billion people every month, and then the number one reason they're coming is the camera and chat, and so when brands show up in the chat page, it's super powerful.

Sorry, you just said 500 million a day, a billion a month. You're saying unique viewers? Yeah, I think— A lot of those 500 are repeating throughout every day.

These stats change constantly, but I think the latest is that we reach, There's tech terms, there's DAU and there's MAU. DAU is daily active users. Of course. Right, so that's like people that are coming every day and we're at like 500 million. When you go to MAU, so monthly active users, we're more like a billion. So it's a lot of people. Wow.

Well, Jim, congrats on starting Snapchat and taking it so far. Thank you for joining us on The Views Podcast.

And congrats to you for creator of the year at the Snappies.

And on the trophy, there's no year or anything?

Oh, that's a good note. No, I love it. I'll say your name.

It just says Creator of the Year David Dobrik.

So like, it could be any year.

It could be any year. Technically, I've won it for every single year.

Yeah, you have every year that they've had it.

All right guys, go check out Jim on Snapchat. I don't know, you want Snapchat, Jim?

I'm on Snapchat.

Okay, the funniest part about the Snapchat team, yeah, is they're all Older, obviously. They're like, other than the CEO, they're like up, like above 40, right? No, like my team. I'm talking like all the people that invest in staff, the people that are like at the Cannes dinner. Oh yeah. A lot of those people.

Yeah. Are seasoned in their careers. But I do think like the creator managers, a lot of the folks that work with creators directly every day. Oh yes. They are like of the culture and they're young. No, but way cooler than me.

Yes. But what I was getting at is even like like the investors that are like in their 50s or 60s, whatever, that are at these dinners will be in group chats on Snap.

Oh yeah.

And you never see that at he like anywhere where it's like an old, like an older person like very easily is operating Snapchat. Even when I see Jim on Snap, I'm like, how'd you figure this out?

I'm a boomer that has figured out Snapchat somehow.

Um, my whole family is on Snapchat. My parents Snapchat me every single day. They vlog the day. Yeah.

They send it to me just because it's, oh yeah, I've seen of Homero's posts.

Yeah, Homero's on Snap?

He Snapchats me every day, my dad. Really? Because he knows you're on there.

He should be on there. Well, yeah, of course, he's going on to—

He should be on the partner program. Yeah, he should be monetized.

This is why Natalie should work at Snapchat. So her whole family can be monetized?

All right guys, that's all the time we have. Thank you, Jim Shepard, for joining us. Thank you, Jason Nash. Go check out his daily vlogs. Go check out Natalie's Snap, I guess. Check out my Snap. And we'll see you guys later. Bye.