TeaTalk: Please Don’t Buffer Football

1. 🥊 Netflix’s livestreamed boxing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson was viewed by 60 million households. Paul won, but the streamer was the big winner as it pushes into live programming.

2. 🏈 Speaking of Netflix livestreaming, next up are two NFL games that will stream on Christmas Day. In a surprise move, Beyoncé is set to perform during one of  the halftime shows.

3. 📱 Bluesky is soaring in popularity as people leave X. The app has hit 20 million users and is gaining a million new users per day.

4. 📺 Starting next month, Disney is rolling out free ESPN content on Disney+ via a new tile on the streamer… even if you’re not an ESPN+ subscriber.

5. 🎉 Google has named Partiful — the new go-to app for planning events — as its app of the year. Party time for Partiful.

Comedy-sketch duo Cooper and Curry have been going viral on YouTube and TikTok for years with their hilariously inventive skits. But Curry is also a killer filmmaker, having recently dropped the feature-length movie Milk & Serial (starring both Cooper and Curry) on YouTube… for free. The 62-minute film blew up, scoring 1.2 million views on YouTube. Oh, and fun fact, he made it for only $800. Inspiring.

So, of course, I asked for some insights:

How would you describe That’s a Bad Idea?

“That’s a Bad Idea is a blend of grounded and relatable humor with a s**t ton of chaos. It’s unhinged and unpredictable but relatable everyday content. Our goal was to take everyday situations and put them in a wacky, bigger-than-life, unhinged world through a one-minute and 30-second sketch.”

Milk & Serial was a big success. What made you want to explore horror? Can you talk about the similarities between that genre and your usual comedy content?

“I think that setting up a joke and setting up a scare is a similar brain function because when you're setting up a joke, or at least what we are always trying to do is, ‘Okay, where are we going with this where the audience thinks it's going one way,’ and then we bait and switch, and it's actually going a different way. And that's how you get to laugh. The same thing with scariness is how can we make someone uncomfortable when they think that they know where it's going, but it's not, and then you're uncomfortable with the situation.”

What advice do you have for brands wanting to work with digital creators in the comedy space?

“Our best advice is don't take your product too seriously. Don't take your brand too seriously because if you want to get views online, if you want to go viral online, you need to let content creators tell the story through their authentic style. That's the best way for your brand to stick out amongst all the other brands. Let yourself be silly. Don't follow these strong rules that you have. There are no rules. We're doing things differently. Let it blend into your creator’s audience.”

You can check out That’s a Bad Idea on YouTube and TikTok.