MayDay

As I move away from focusing so much on Star Wars I have been thinking a bit about how Disney/LFL interacts with me and others who work 'with' the brand... ie people whose living is based at least partially on talking about Star Wars. There's not a point to this; it's just that I've been reflecting on the past 10 years and I know some people may find the insights interesting. Nothing really scandalous within, for those looking. First of all, I think people over-estimate how much Disney talks to us. In my case, it's not at all. I've been in the space for nearly a decade, and am definitely one of the larger channels on my platform, and I've never spoken to, or heard from, Disney or LFL as an organization. Literally not once, with the exception of screeners/review books. I've interacted personally with authors / others / had Pablo publicly shame me on twitter once lmao (which he apologized for later), but never worked with 'the brand'. This is, generally, how I prefer it, and is the case for most. I'll come back to this later. The exception to this is with Star Wars video games. Back in 2017 (and a few times since then) I attended several "Star Wars Creator Events"... mostly EA events, and back then they typically invited most of the larger Star Wars creators. I had just started on YT that year but I blew up quickly -- I can't speak to older events, but I think the Battlefront 2 review session had invited pretty much every YouTuber with 50k+ subscribers. It was wild. Obviously there were a lot fewer of us back then, but it was still 15+ people, a mix of lore / gaming channels. Those events were super fun. For the uninitiated, typically you do get flown out and put in a hotel to review a game -- sometimes to test and provide feedback. This either comes near the games release, if you were just doing review work, or earlier if you were giving feedback; either way, EA would usually do this around E3, and it would be not just for their Star Wars brand but for Sports, the SIMS, Battlefield, etc. As a note, it was always very fun to go to the hotel breakfast in the morning and see the difference b/w the Sims table and the FIFA table and the BF table, etc. I met hundreds of creators this way and they were all overwhelmingly cool. I also met many friends that way. We usually stayed in Hollywood. In the past couple of years I think people have rightfully pointed out there is somewhat of a conflict of interest here -- the events are usually fun, usually in California, and represent a very real benefit (exclusive coverage) for the creator. Is it not thus in their (our) best interest to be a good creator for the game and to make EA (or whomever) look good so we/they get invited again? Honestly, it's a tough question. I never personally felt that pressure, I was one of the lore guys and was very critical of some of the games... including BF2... but it's not a critique without merit. EA always made it clear that we should say whatever we want, and that access wasn't tied to honest opinions, and I believe that, but I understand why some are skeptical. The last event I went to was Jedi Survivor (and a brief thing for Ubisoft in Toronto). I would go again, if asked. Over the years they invited fewer YouTubers to the EA events in particular (though there were a few of us who usually went) but more and more the focus was on TikTokers/lifestyle creators versus traditional content focused YouTubers. I don't know how they selected down the YouTubers - I do know LFL and Disney do have the power to exclude some people, which may have been the case sometimes, but also I think they generally chose people who made the best use of the opportunity. @SWBFUpdates for example would of course be invited, because he was going to give very good feedback, and his videos would have good information to players, even if it ended up being very critical of the game. The only EA company I felt did not operate in good-faith and in best interest of the players in selecting who to work with was EA Capital Games who made Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes. SWGOH had/has EXCELLENT content creators (I became friends with most), and they shuttered their creator program completely. SWGOH is an expensive game so the creators have a test environment was a massive boost to the community. I know some EA fandoms do not look favorably on the Gamechanger program but I think for Star Wars it's a net positive. The one black mark was probably related to the release of BFII and its monetization issues. We were misled about how the game would be monetized and our reviews did not accurately reflect how the game launched... again, this wasn't an issue for me as I didn't really talk about that and didn't do a traditional review iirc, but I also don't think that was the intention of the devs who provided the builds for us at all; I think it was probably a last minute tweak made by the business guys. The community manager at the time faced a lot of abuse (including the most downvoted reddit comment ever lmao), his name was Matt and he was a super nice guy - I felt bad for him. As for my above point on creator selection... in general, YouTubers of my type - those who built their channels on content rather than personality - are definitely valued a lot less by brands vs other creators. I am not a totally faceless creator, though most of my content doesn't have me in, but I'm content based, and that's not a very attractive thing to most brands. It doesn't bother me, as I have never wanted to be an influencer, but brands are definitely gravitating more to that type of person... which I think makes sense. I have always had a big and high quality audience, but most are there for what I do versus me in particular. I think things will continue trending in that direction as AI continues to proliferate. But back to Star Wars specifically as a brand - they are in a somewhat unique position as they really don't need to chase views. There are a few limited creators it appears they do like to work with consistently, but generally they seem to handpick for enthusiasm and dedication of both the creators and their communities, which is why you see them so active on Twitter and with a focus on podcasts. Often though if someone is at a Star Wars event or doing something Star Wars related it's because they're with another brand. I was going to go to SWC the Covid year, but it was because EA offered me the passes, not Disney/LFL. One time I went to NYC for a drone company called propel lol, that was fun. The area where I have personally been frustrated with Star Wars, other than the natural jealousy of missing out on some cool events, is being kicked off the screener list. For those who don't know, anyone can apply for screeners - ie early review copies of shows and movies. For me, it makes my job much easier, as it allows me to prepare content in advance. It's easy to apply, I've helped probably a dozen people do it, and they're generally open to creators of whatever size and format (print, video, etc). I still don't know exactly why I was kicked off, but a few years ago (around Bad Batch S3?) I stopped receiving screeners (which anyone can apply for), and about a dozen Star Wars authors unfollowed me. It's very possible it was because I'm a bit of an ass on Twitter, but I personally believe it was because of the open feud I had with several Wookieepedia admins, including some who falsely accused me of sexism and transphobia. Which is of course ridiculous for anyone who knows me. I've applied again, without success. My other theory is that it's related to the copyright stink I've long kicked up. Somewhat ironically I actually prefer it this way from a work flow standpoint, but like many other people in the space I have an ego and it's the slight I find most annoying. It's very possible it's just a coincidence and they simply reset the lists and didn't think I should be on it anymore, which is their right, but it is what it is. Some brands definitely do value their creators more. On the gaming side, EA obviously does. I really appreciate how Halo does its community spotlight and even embraces those who are very critical of the brand. Notwithstanding some of the above, as a whole Star Wars has been good to work with. I mean, it's always really cool to make content about something already loved, but I've also had a really good experience when it comes to copyright. Thousands of Star Wars videos are uploaded yearly featuring extensive content from their films and most are not copyright claimed. I've literally never encountered a rights holder who does it better. People make hundreds of thousands... millions of dollars... talking about, selling, repackaging the SW brand. It gave me a career, which is pretty cool.