Welcome to Created, the newsletter that’s more satisfying that closing 27 tabs on Chrome. Here’s what we got for you:
- MKBHD calls out company for stealing his voice to sell products
- How The Hacksmith made $1,000,000 in a week
- Outlier of the week
MKBHD Calls Out Brand For Stealing His Voice
Marques Brownlee called out a brand named Dot.Cards for cloning his voice to sell their products in an ad.
Talk about shady. But is this part of a bigger trend? How are platforms dealing with this?
Quote: “There are real companies who will just use an AI-created rip of my voice to promote their stuff,” Brownlee said. “And there’s really no repercussions for it.”
The Trend:
- 2023: Joe Rogan was deepfaked in an ad for a product called Alpha Grind.
- 2023: MrBeast was deepfaked in a scam offering $2 iPhones on TikTok.
- 2024: Tom Hanks warned fans about AI ads promoting "wonder drugs" using his face and voice.
Why It Matters:
The problem isn’t AI voices or deepfakes themselves. It’s the lack of regulation.
Imagine brands paying for an AI-generated version of Brownlee’s voice with his consent (assuming AI voices get to be as good as natural).
That gives creators new income streams with lower production costs.
But without safeguards, shady companies will skip that step and use deepfakes without approval.
Our Take:
Platforms need to move faster to regulate this before it gets too out of hand.
YouTube added new tools within Content ID, including a way to identify synthetic-singing for artists.
But we need a more robust Content ID for voices and faces, not just music. And we need it across all the major platforms.
Otherwise, more creators will be “selling” products they’ve never heard of.
How The Hacksmith Made $1,000,000 In A Week
For 18 years, James Hobson (aka The Hacksmith) created gadgets from Marvel movies and Star Wars on his channel.
Then, he did the unthinkable: he made $1M in just one week by selling mini lightsabers.
I recently interviewed him to dive deeper.
Backstory:
- 2015: Hobson quits job to focus on YouTube, with just 70K subscribers and $100 a month in ad revenue.
- 2016: Hobson posted his Captain America Shield video and grew to 500K subscribers in a month.
- 2021: He spent $5.5M buying and renovating an 18-acre campus to make even bigger videos.
But as he grew to 15M subscribers, so did costs. Hacksmith now spends $300K per month. He needed a better way to make money.
His Solution?
The mini-saber lighter based on his viral lightsaber videos.
- Kickstarter: Pre-sold over $1M worth of mini-sabers in a month.
- Launch: When they finally went live, Hobson sold another $1M worth in a single week.
Why He Did It:
- Unpredictable Income: YT AdSense wasn’t reliable enough to fund his 20+ person team and projects.
- Vertical Integration: After driving traffic for sponsors, Hacksmith decided to do it for his own products.
- Product Expansion: this is just the start. He has an entire product line on Hacksmith.Store to go with it.
Our Take:
Hobson’s pivot to selling his products is something more creators are doing to avoid relying solely on YouTube income.
For example, MrBeast made $100 million from Feastables in 2023 and Kurzgesagt gets 40% of its revenue from selling merch through its videos.
But the key is: the product has to be routinely – yet naturally – mentioned in your videos so it doesn’t feel forced.
The Hacksmith already made videos about lightsabers. So, creating mini-sabers was a natural and lucrative next move.
🎯 Weekly Roundup: Thumbnails
Here’s why we love these YT thumbnails. Hopefully, they inspire your next one.
- Perfectly compact office under the stairs builds instant curiosity (Man Made)
- Door pulling grenade pin shows moment of tension (Tyler Blanchard)
- Realistic-looking AR layout of YT creates intrigue (Colin and Samir)
- Minimalist design + text emphasize the claim about MSG (Joshua Weissman)
🚀 Weekly Outlier
This video by David Hartley has got 1.2M views which is 4 times higher than the channel’s average. Here’s why it took off:
- Instant Curiosity: Within 10 seconds, you learn a massive British hit might be stolen — you're hooked instantly.
- Juicy Controversy: A heated songwriting battle between Robbie Williams and an unknown musician keeps the tension high.
- Emotional Story: Ray Heenan’s heartbreaking personal story pulls you in and keeps you invested.
🏆 The Created Referral Program
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Trust me, these books are packed with more tips than most paid courses.
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