Collaboration Panel at Summer in the City 2017

The Collaboration Panel took place on Sunday of Summer in the City 2017 in Panel Room A. The panel was chaired by Laura Bubble and featured creators such as Evan Edinger, Alex Wassabi, and Amber Doig-Thorne.

Marie Jacquemin and Aaron Burriss also joined the panel, which dealt with collabing with creators you don’t know and collabing with people who can be polarising, and offered tips for collabing as a smaller creator.

Laura asked the panellists to introduce themselves, and started the discussion off by asking the creators how they go about setting up a collab. Aaron stated his first rule was always to keep it professional. His brother Alex added that he does this, even though he mostly collabs with friends. “If they make me laugh, I’m down to collab,” he ended. Evan agreed: “I need to know the person… Banter wouldn’t work with someone new.” The panellists agreed that the reason people watch collabs is for the chemistry between the creators, and that it is impossible to manufacture.

Laura then went on to ask how creators could go on to collab with a creator they don’t know. Alex encouraged smaller creators to take a risk and ask for collabs, but he acknowledged it did not work for his style of collabs since they are friendship-based. Evan suggested that a more organic way to build those relationships would be through networking on social media. “We were friends before we started collabing,” Marie added, offering another pathway into collaborative videos.

The moderator brought the conversation round to collabing with creators who have a different type of channel, and whether it is possible at all. Amber, whose videos are mostly pranks, talked about a positive experience doing a collab with a creator whose humour is based around puns. “It’s not so much genre but rather demographic,” said Evan, summarising the panellists’ discussion.

Laura asked the creators what their experiences have been collabing with people who are polarising, and Alex was quick to reply that everyone carries drama. Marie explained that knowing someone in real life is very different to just watching their videos, and therefore it is easier for a creator to know the “full story” behind drama and therefore not be as extreme in their views of the creator with whom they collab.

The moderator then turned to the audience for questions. One audience member asked for tips finding people with whom to collaborate. Evan suggested an app called Tubular to find YouTubers that make similar videos to your own. Marie talked about being involved in the community, while gesturing around the room, as a way to meet like-minded creators. Lauren added that it’s fine to comment on people’s videos but not as outright promo.

Another audience member asked about bridging the gap between being a viewer and a creator who wants to collab. Marie talked about “walking up in the right way” and there being more and less professional ways of approaching people and telling them you like their content. Alex talked about the fact that four months into a relationship, he found out that his girlfriend watched his videos, and what a difficult situation that is.

Photos by Aria Mark.