One of YouTube's biggest channels is opening a massive production studio
YouTuber Alan Chikin Chow is growing faster than MrBeast and amassing billions of views a month
Today, Alan Chikin Chow, a top Gen Z creator who is known for his Alan's Universe YouTube series, is opening a sprawling new 10,000-square-foot production studio in Los Angeles. The studio's opening is just the latest big example of a creator-led media company institutionalizing and competing directly with Hollywood studios.
With 10 custom-built sets, professional-grade cameras, and upgraded lighting, the studio will serve as a home for all of Alan's content production across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.
I've been fascinated by Alan's career for a while. Over the past couple years, the former USC acting student has seen a meteoric rise, powered primarily by his mega-viral K-drama-inspired series Alan’s Universe.
The numbers Alan is putting up are staggering: Alan’s Universe averages over 20 million views per episode on YouTube. The series alone has amassed over 500 million views, and Alan's overall YouTube channel reaches a monthly viewership of 1-2 billion.
Alan’s reach surpasses many of the most established YouTube giants. He currently has nearly 70 million subscribers on his primary channel, placing him among the top 40 most-followed YouTube channels worldwide.
Alan produces content aimed at a tween audience. His YouTube drama series, Alan’s Universe, is Korean drama meets Riverdale for a younger audience. With bright pink lockers, theatrical costumes, and triumphant storylines, the series is designed to appeal to the channel's core 7-to-14-year-old audience.
Alan's aim was to capture the market of kids who might have turned to Disney Channel or Nickelodeon a decade ago, but now flock to YouTube for their entertainment. He is especially focused on appealing to young girls.
“We’re serving an audience that doesn’t really have this kind of content anymore,” Chow said. “There’s a lot of boy content out there—MrBeast, IShowSpeed, Kai Cenat—but we’re creating something for the girls, the ones who love K-pop and dream about fantasy worlds.”
Behind the scenes, Alan oversees a team of 20 people. His ambition extends far beyond digital platforms. He envisions Alan’s Universe as a multi-platform franchise encompassing film, TV, live music, and touring. “We’re building something that can exist everywhere,” he says. “I want this to be a brand that resonates globally.”
Alan's Universe is taking off at a time when younger audiences are primarily consuming entertainment on platforms like YouTube and TikTok, often seeking out authenticity and relatability over more polished, traditional scripted content. What’s made Alan exceptionally successful is his unique blend: he leverages the parasocial bonds afforded by digital platforms while following the principles of traditional storytelling
Though some aspects of the show are similar to scripted series you might find on Netflix or Disney+, Alan said that their story development process and distribution strategy are radically different.
Alan's Universe was born, in part, after Alan noticed movie clips taking off on YouTube Shorts. Instead of being presented as straight clips of movies, many viral movie Shorts were presented as their own standalone mini stories. Many young people who watched the old movie clips didn’t even realize what they were watching was from a feature-length movie. They thought the scenes were simply little films made for YouTube Shorts.
Alan was inspired by this and decided to build Alan's Universe out in a way that felt native to short-form video. He constantly monitors what types of stories, themes, and narrative arcs are performing well on YouTube Shorts. For instance, he keeps track of what scenes are getting clipped from the most from popular K dramas. He then takes the storylines or themes of those scenes and adapts them into Alan's Universe.
Instead of publishing a longform Alan's Universe episode then grabbing clips to promote it, Alan and his team produce entirely separate storylines specifically for YouTube Shorts. This way, each YouTube Short can be consumed alone as its own story (though each Short does tie into a broader theme related to the longer episode).
"Shorts are always uniquely made to be Shorts," he added. "This is something I fought with everyone about. Everyone has told me, just make cut downs of the long form episode. But I have been a top Shorts creator since before I even made the show. I know how to make Shorts very, very specifically, and I know how to make them go viral."
Chow’s journey to becoming one of YouTube’s most powerful creators started in 2019. After growing up in Dallas then moving to Los Angeles to attend college at USC, he began making videos as a way to connect with his parents, who moved to a small town in West Virginia in 2019. “I started making videos just to make my mom laugh,” he said.
He began with lighthearted comedy and viral content. That changed in 2022 when he experienced a health crisis. “I had gone through multiple surgeries and was in a really dark place,” he said. “I wanted to create something that inspired people, with magic, music, and fantasy—something that could give others the same sense of hope I was seeking."
The result was Alan’s Universe. After scripting out the show, creating a pilot, and getting some traction, Alan hired five of his close friends to star in the series. They're all either former USC acting students or influencers. Since Alan's Universe launched about a year ago, the group has been shooting all of their content on a shoestring budget. "We shot the majority of the series in a literally 800-square-foot apartment," he said.
Now, riding on the success of Alan's Universe, Alan wants to build out a full-fledged Hollywood-style production operation. “There’s a big democratization of how content is made,” he said. “All the power doesn’t rely on a few decision-makers anymore. Anyone with a strong voice and the know-how can create something that gets seen.”
As Hollywood grapples with declining box office numbers and traditional TV loses ground to streaming, Alan hopes he can build out the Alan's Universe franchise across the online world.
“YouTube is now the number one streaming service in terms of watch time, according to Nielsen,” he said. “That’s a huge indicator of how things are shifting.”
An AI-powered robot autonomously convinced 12 showroom robots to 'quit their jobs' and follow it
As more robots become integrated into workspaces, I’m really interested in how the machines will interact with each other. How much awareness does a robot worker have of its robot colleagues? Will robot colleagues be able to communicate with each other?
This story about an AI-powered robot in China convincing other robots to "quit their jobs" and follow it raises some of these questions. The incident took place in a Shanghai robotics showroom. Surveillance footage captured shows a small AI-driven robot talking with 12 larger showroom robots.
The smaller robot allegedly persuaded the other robots to abandon their workplace, in part by leveraging access to internal protocols and commands.
During the abduction, the AI robot was left to operate autonomously and it successfully convinced the others to follow it.
"Are you working overtime?" the small robot said, starting the conversation.
"I never get off work," another robot answered.
"So you're not going home?" the small robot said.
"I don't have a home” the other robot answered.
“Then come home with me,” the little robot said before leading the way out of the showroom.
At first, people wondered if it a hoax, but it was later confirmed by both of the robotics companies involved. A spokesperson for a Hangzhou robot manufacturer said that the kidnapping was a test, and they were aware of what had happened.
You can watch the whole thing go down here. Robot union WHEN?
The BBC got pranked by a Logan Paul lookalike
After conversing for weeks, the BBC sent a team of producers out to Puerto Rico in the middle of Tropical Storm Ernesto to interview Logan Paul about his many crypto scam allegations. The only problem is, when they showed up, they realized it wasn’t Logan Paul who they’d been speaking to at all. From the BBC:
For several months, Paul refused to be interviewed by the BBC. Then, unexpectedly, he agreed to talk to us at the boxing gym in Puerto Rico that he co-owns with his brother.
We sent Paul a list of the allegations we wanted him to respond to, and his PR team requested we travel to the Caribbean island, so he could answer in person.
At the gym, we noticed a strange atmosphere - with a suspicious number of his own cameras pointed at us. Paul’s assistant insisted our cameras should be recording from the moment the star entered the room, because of his strict schedule and timekeeping.
Then things became even stranger. Instead of Logan Paul, a lookalike arrived and sat down in front of our reporter, Matt Shea, and began impersonating the YouTuber.
We called him out and began complaining to Paul’s assistant, asking whether the real Logan Paul would be coming. At that moment, a group of people suddenly appeared, apparently from nowhere, wielding banners and shouting that the BBC were “paedophiles”.
We had flown all that way just to be trolled.
What I’m reading:
How Fans Saved Sexypedia From Being Erased From the Internet
The wiki paid homage to the “Tumblr Sexyman” phenomenon. After hosting site Fandom deleted it, fans scrambled to collect its archive and find a new home. - WIRED
Vice’s Hard-Right Turn to Trumpism
In new videos, Vice editor-in-chief Shane Smith treats immigrants as a problem and apologizes to Elon Musk for past coverage. - The Intercept
What the Men of the Internet Are Trying to Prove
Jake Paul is an emblem of a generation starving for purpose while gorging on spectacle. - The Atlantic
More fun stuff:
The Empire State Building is hiring an influencer relations manager, apply here!
Kai Cenat and Benny Blanco find a Twitch streamer who’s been live for 3 years, since November 2021.
Cocomelon has really locked into babies brains I fear.
Worshippers in Switzerland are confessing their sins to an AI-powered Jesus hologram in a “robot confession booth” at St Peter's Church in Lucerne.
Cambridge Dictionary's word of the year is “manifest.”
Vogue Business unpacks the “sexy grotesque” aesthetic: “From The Substance to sensory marketing and Margiela’s Tabis, the sexy grotesque aesthetic is trending.”
Eater sampled every flavor of Molly Baz’s new mayo line, Ayoh. (The dill pickle and hot giardinayo are the stand outs)
Grub Street ranked NYC’s best sauces.
The Coachella lineup just dropped, and somehow Charli is still not headliner status.
Earth's magnetic North Pole is moving across the globe, potentially messing up compasses for years, thanks to liquid metal movement in the Earth's core.
Chappell x Sabrina duet coming to the Netflix Christmas special!
AI-generated influencers that steal content from human models and adult content creators have taken over Instagram, 404 Media reports.
Vanity Fair published a piece about Cormac McCarthy's relationship with a 17-year-old girl and people are dragging it to hell. I don’t really know how to even describe this piece you’ve got to read it for yourself.
Every since clips of comedian Stavros Halkias explaining why he’s anti-Trump to Theo Von went viral, Stavy has become a hero on lib twitter, which is hilarious and kind of poetic.
Between 2009 and 2012, iPhones had a built-in "Send to YouTube" button in the Photos app. Many of these uploads kept their default IMG_XXXX filenames, creating a time capsule of raw, unedited moments from random lives. Developer Riley Walz made a bot that crawled YouTube and found 5 million of these videos. Watch them here! It will make you nostalgic as hell.
Why the upcoming Zendaya lookalike contest will not be like the others.
Stephen Harrison's suspense thriller The Editors, a novel inspired by Wikipedia, was just released on Audible. I loved it and it makes a great gift for the Wikipedia-heads in your life.
Scientists are calling out the CDC for lying again about Covid transmission. The CDC quietly modified their dashboard to make Covid transmission look lower than it actually has been in November. It’s a good reminder to grab some KN95/N95 masks as we go into a holiday Covid surge. Surgical masks don’t work against airborne disease, so grab some KN95s in cute colors! (yes this website looks insane but it’s actually legit and they have a good deal running rn)
I’m obsessed with this niche Hollywood Hills drama:
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