News

YouTube and Instagram star Anwar Jibawi is getting into the restaurant biz.

The comedic creator, who is repped by Shots Studios, has officially cut the ribbon on a brick and mortar eatery in downtown Los Angeles dubbed Anwar’s Kitchen.

While Jibawi first announced the venture late last year (see below), it takes on new significance now as indoor dining resumed in Los Angeles yesterday at 25% capacity. Restaurants have been shuttered for roughly the past six months after California suffered a particularly brutal Covid surge over the winter.

Anwar's Kitchen grew out of an Igtv series of the same name -- conceived in quarantine -- in which Jibawi and his mother, Amal Jibawi, welcomed viewers into their home to prep dishes including shawarma, hummus, sesame chicken wings, ramen, and more and other. In addition to in-house seating, Anwar's Kitchen offers takeout in biodegradable containers that can be ordered directly or through third-party services including Grubhub,...

Ceaselessly controversial vlogger Jake Paul, who for the first time yesterday addressed the FBI raid at his Calabasas home in a now-deleted YouTube video, is under new management.

The 23-year-old has joined the Shots Studios network and will be managed by the company’s co-founder, John Shahidi. Shots, of course, is the talent management and digital production studio that represents some of social sphere’s biggest stars, including Lele Pons, Anwar Jibawi, and Hannah Stocking.

Beyond his digital acumen, Shahidi is no stranger to working with stars facing personal and professional turmoil -- making him something of an ideal fit for Paul. Previously, Shahidi has worked with pop icon Justin Bieber, who has had numerous run-ins with the law, as well as boxing icon Floyd Mayweather, who has faced numerous domestic violence and battery convictions..

"I can't comment much, but I can tell you that I am excited,” Shahidi tells...

The results of the 9th Annual Streamy Awards are in, presented tonight live at the Beverly Hilton and streamed worldwide by YouTube. The Streamys honor the best in online entertainment and the creators behind it. The annual event brings together the biggest names in online entertainment for a night of celebration, discovery, and recognition. This year’s show included appearances by Emma Chamberlain, David Dobrik, Paris Hilton, Derek Hough, Casey Neistat, and Hannah Stocking, among others. The Streamys, which went host-less for the first time, featured the show’s inaugural collaborators. Emma Chamberlain coached this year’s Breakout Creator nominees on how to give a good acceptance speech. Diy creators Mr. Kate got distracted while presenting the Lifestyle award and re-designed Joey Graceffa’s table. Rosanna Pansino was joined by her friend iJustine for some live cookie decorating prior to presenting the Health and Wellness award.

Engineer Mark Rober unleashed...

The ninth annual Streamy Awards are nearing, with Dick Clark Productions, Tubefilter, and YouTube revealing the nominees.

David Dobrik leads the pack with 11 nominations, Escape the Night: Season 4 follows with 5 nods, while music artists Lil Nas X and Lizzo are among the first-time nominees. Also picking up nods are Emma Chamberlain, Lilly Singh, Jada Pinkett Smith for Red Table Talk), Jack Black for JablinskiGames, Ninja, and Gordon Ramsay.

“This year’s Streamy Awards nominees express the breadth of creativity and diversity of our creator community,” said Streamy Awards founder Drew Baldwin. “We’re honored to partner with YouTube to celebrate the talent and accomplishments of our extraordinary industry on a global scale.”

Added Jamie Byrne, YouTube’s director of creator partnerships: “Creators are the heart and soul of YouTube, so we’re excited to celebrate and honor their creativity, diversity and hard work. Together with the Streamys, we’ve expanded...

Shots Studios, the digital talent network and production studio known for creating music and comedy content with YouTube megastars Lele Pons, Hannah Stocking, Rudy Mancuso, and Anwar Jibawi, is foraying into the lucrative and massively-viewed kids’ content space.

Shots today is announcing a brand new YouTube channel dubbed Shots Studios Kids that will also harness its expertise in music and comedy for family-friendly audiences. Content will live exclusively on the flagship YouTube platform as well as YouTube Kids, though Shots Studios Kids will also boast a presence on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

The Kids channel will not feature appearances or contributions from any members of its aforementioned talent roster. Instead, Shots Studios Kids is being run by Shots co-founder and chief creative officer Sam Shahidi and an in-house animation and music team. “Our in-house animation team grew this year, so the timing felt right to expand to animated content for kids,...

Netflix’s planned “Little Black Mirror” promotional shorts will no longer be called “Little Black Mirror.”

The short video series, first announced last week, will now be titled “Stories From Our Future.” The three shorts are aimed at Spanish-speaking audiences and are inspired by fan homages to the Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones’ anthology series “Black Mirror.”

On June 10, YouTube content creators Rudy Mancuso, Lele Pons and Juanpa Zurita will release all three videos on their YouTube channels simultaneously. The shorts star Mancuso, Anwar Jibawi, Maia Mitchell, Pons, Hannah Stocking, and Zurita. The shorts were originally to be released on YouTube on May 26, June 2 and June 6 on the Netflix América Latina channel. Those dates have been pushed back so fans will get the chance to watch Season 5 of “Black Mirror,” which debuts on Netflix on June 5.

“As a ‘Black Mirror’ fan, it was a dream come true to produce this homage to celebrate the show,...

A full day of keynote interviews and panel discussion at Variety‘s Entertainment and Technology Summit in L.A. delved into the future of the media business, and the big bets that industry players are making to get there. Here are some of the key takeaways from Thursday’s event, held at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills.

Bundles will continue to reform in a digital-streaming world: FX Networks boss John Landgraf talked about the cable network group’s future as part of Disney. One of his points: bundles will still be crucial to achieve scale. “Fifty million people are not going to buy a single branded service,” Landgraf said, calling out the FX Plus authenticated Svod service. “It has to be bundled and aggregated into larger, more convenient ways of buying.”

At&T placing bets on digital media: The telco, with the buyout of Otter Media from former partner Chernin Group,...

Acclaimed digital studio and talent management shop Shots Studios -- which reps the likes of Lele Pons and Rudy Mancuso -- is going all in on vertical video.

After serving as a launch partner for Igtv -- widely seen as Instagram's answer to YouTube, except with vertical videos -- Shots has launched a YouTube channel completely dedicated to vertical videos. The company said that the vertical format has been underutilized on YouTube thus far, and that by pushing the boundaries of the platform, it will aim for "an alternative way to connect with viewers." The channel, dubbed The Shots Family, already counts 23,000 subscribers will feature the firm's famed talent roster in the kind of content that has made it famous: music, comedy, and other originals.

In launching the channel, Shots notes that its creator roster -- which also includes Hannah Stocking, Anwar Jibawi, and starry musicians like Anitta and...

Anitta, currently Brazil’s biggest pop star and social-media personality, will be the subject of a Netflix original unscripted series set to debut globally in 2018.

“Vai Anitta” (“Go Anitta”) promises “unrestricted and uncensored” access to the 25-year-old international superstar, going behind the scenes at her shows in Brazil and traveling around the world, following her interactions with fans on social media, and providing a glimpse into her personal life. The series will be produced for Netflix by Shots Studios CEO and co-founder John Shahidi, who manages the Brazilian singer.

The singer-songwriter-digital-influencer has had three chart-topping albums released by Warner Music Brasil, with hit singles including “Downtown” — the first song by a Brazilian artist to be featured on the Spotify’s Top 20 — “Paradinha” and “Vai Malandra.” She’s worked with music figures from around the world including Major Lazer, Iggy Azalea, J Balvin, Alesso, Poo Bear, and Maluma. In 2016, Anitta sang...

Justin Bieber has a long history on YouTube, but as far as we know, The Biebs has never appeared in a comedy sketch on the video site -- until now. The pop star, who hails from London, Ontario, portrays a Canadian version of Superman in Rudy Mancuso's latest video.

The video, titled 'Racist Superman,' chronicles a meeting of several different supermen in a diner. The heroes, who all hail from different ethnic backgrounds, agree that there can only be one Superman, so they argue over who deserves that honor. In addition to Bieber, who imagines a north-of-the-border version of the DC Comics favorite, the video also features creators like King Bach, Alesso, and Anwar Jibawi, all of whom are partnered with Shots Studios.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Hannah Stocking is one of YouTube's rising stars, and her digital success is opening new doors for her. Like many of the other creators in the Shots Studios network, Stocking found an audience on Vine before porting her brand of sketch comedy across the internet. Her recent ventures have included a role in a Tyler Perry film, and her YouTube channel now has more than two million subscribers. Here's what she had to say about all that and more:

Tubefilter: How does it feel to have more than two million YouTube subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?

Hannah Stocking: I’m so grateful to have such amazing support. It means so much to me that even just one person wants to spend a couple of minutes of their time watching me be silly on YouTube, let alone more than two million. It just makes me...

YouTube Red has released the full-length trailer for its second season of Fight Of The Living Dead -- dubbed Paradise Calls -- in which Jake Paul and a slew of fellow YouTube stars must survive a simulated zombie apocalypse.

The eight-episode series will premiere on Halloween on Paul’s massive YouTube channel, which counts 11.6 million subscribers and 2.7 billion lifetime views. (At the same time, the 20-year-old's meteoric rise has been plagued with some controversy that led to his firing by Disney, as well as a recent lawsuit for a prank gone awry). The series will also feature Juanpa Zurita, Hannah Stocking, Wengie, Anwar Jibawi, De’arra Taylor and Ken Walker, Karina Garcia, Eric Ochoa, Anthony Trujillo, and Miles Jai.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Italian luxury label Dolce & Gabbana showed off its spring 2018 menswear collection in Milan over the weekend, and, once again, a handful of top digital influencers strutted their stuff on the runway.

In addition to Rudy Mancuso, Anwar Jibawi, Juanpa Zurita, and King Bach, the show also featured the Instagram-famous children of illustrious celebrities, including the sons of Pierce Brosnan, Pamela Anderson, Shaquille O’Neal, Isabella Rossellini, and Billy Ray Cyrus. Jibawi called the experience “one of the best days of my life,” while Mancuso thanked fans with a photo of himself from the show on Instagram.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.