The Garden Harvest: 6/13/25
Your weekly digest on the intersection of the Creator Economy and Legacy Media.
Welcome to the inaugural Garden Harvest! That’s right, our beloved Reading Garden has blossomed into something cooler and more dynamic.
What does this mean for you? A richer, better experience.
Each week, we’ll still gather and curate the freshest insights from the worlds of Creators and Legacy Media, so you can stay rooted in what matters and spot new opportunities where others can’t. It’ll just be… more fun.
So, without further ado, here’s what’s sprouting this Friday:
FRESH CLIPPINGS
MLB x Jomboy Media
Major League Baseball plants its flag in creator territory by acquiring an equity stake in Jomboy Media. This partnership gives Jomboy official access to MLB and team IP, opens the door for merch collaborations, and even brings the league’s own platforms into Jomboy’s orbit.
That means that The Warehouse Games, Jomboy’s backyard-inspired sports league, will now feature current MLB stars, blurring the line between big-league action and creator-driven content.
The MLB spent years trying to distance themselves from creators, but the numbers don’t lie: with 2.1 million subscribers, 93 million social engagements logged just last year, and nearly 400 million lifetime video views, Jomboy evolved into much more than a mere YouTube channel.
We’ve spoken at length about how legacy institutions can thrive by teaming up with creator voices, and this is yet another piece of evidence for the playbook: share your soil, co-cultivate content, and let creator energy drive your next growth spurt.
Unicorn
New company alert! Unicorn just launched to help creators build YouTube shows with a fresh hybrid model: think content studio meets talent agency. Founded by Scott Dunn (ex-Doing Things Media) and Chris Gera (BuzzFeed vet and Doing Things producer), Unicorn signs creators first, then builds shows around them, rather than boxing in talent into pre-set short-form formats.
Why this matters: too many digital stars hit a ceiling on TikTok or Instagram, struggling to translate viral fame into sustainable, long-form storytelling. Unicorn flips the script by focusing on YouTube and ad-driven series, splitting IP and profits 50/50, and even housing custom-built sets in Brooklyn.
Unicorn is betting that cutting out middlemen (and cutting in creators) will be the blueprint for the next generation of digital studios. Keep an eye on their growing roster and their goal to roll out a dozen more talent-driven shows.
When is TV going to be on YouTube?
Joshua Cohen’s post isn’t talking about programming paid by YouTube, or something that airs on broadcast and gets released on YouTube simultaneously, or even creator content that is born on YouTube. He’s asking when will the first major TV show completely bypass legacy media and launch directly on YouTube.
His argument makes sense.
It checks every box: global delivery, a built-in audience, and living-room reach. Squint hard and you can even spot the seedlings of a space that could host full-scale TV. But today’s ad-only budgets can’t yet match the multi-million-dollar price tags of prime-time series.
So, will it ever happen? And how long before YouTube greenlights its first tent-pole show? Odds are we’re still far away, but it’s worth thinking about.
GARDEN VIEW
An oldie but a goodie.
Two years ago, Colin & Samir sat down with Ali Abdaal and got asked point blank: If someone in their 20s wanted to quit their job and become a creator, what advice would you give them?
In their answer, you’ll hear things like “Who’s the audience?” and “You have to balance what you want to do with what the audience and platform want you to do.” Honestly, we couldn’t tell if they were speaking to YouTubers or Hollywood writers…
So there you have it, if you’re still on the fence about the creator struggle, you might find in this video that creators and legacy media have more in common than we like to admit…
HARVEST QUOTE
“It got absolutely wrecked”
- Citrix software engineer Robert Caruso, explaining how the OpenAI chatbot was summarily beaten by an Atari 2600 running Atari Chess, a game for the system built in 1979.
Ouch…
But also, a reminder about what AI is great at, and what it’s not. Large language models are good at words and patterns, but when it comes to step-by-step logic or memory-heavy tasks, not so much.
See you next week…