If you’re unfamiliar with Tanacon (recently dubbed the FyreFestival of influencer events) here’s the necessary background information–

Best known for her vlogs and pop-music, Tana Mongeau is a 20-year-old YouTuber with over 5 million subscribers across her two channels. Tana recently attempted to create her own, alternative to Vidcon, which she dubbed ‘Tanacon’.

The whole ordeal started when, according to a video Tana created, Vidcon had promised her a VIP pass then withdrew the invite after she’d promoted the conference to her fans. After her anti-Vidcon rant generated millions of views Tana decided to launch Tanacon and make an anti-Vidcon. The original vision for Tanacon was that it would be free and all fans would be given the chance to meet their favorite creators (Vidcon charges for tickets).

Tanacon quickly drew a roster of over 65 well known creators including uber famous YouTubers Casey Neistat and Shane Dawson to make appearances. In the weeks leading up to Tanacon the event built up a huge amount of publicity. Tana promised that fans would get 4X the value of the price of their paid tickets (and promised to let many fans get in free).

Tanacon ended up being a disaster of epic proportions.

Within hours of opening its doors Police shut down Tanacon. Apparently 5,000 fans showed up – almost all of them spent hours in the hot sun waiting to get inside. One fan collapsed and was taken away by paramedics, hundreds of others got sunburns.

The event was massively understaffed, had minimal security, and almost none of the attendees got into the venue to see any of their favorite creators. The swag bags that were promised to be 4x the value of a ticket turned out to be filled with a few stickers and some condoms.

It was exposed later, via a three-part documentary by YouTuber Shane Dawson, that Tanacon was put in the hands of a 21-year-old talent manager with questionable credentials. The documentary exposed countless missteps, but the most egregious was that Tana had agreed to host over 5,000 fans, in spite of the hotel only having capacity for 1,000.

Why does any of this matter, and, why am I writing about this?

I think this shit show is the result of the same kind of behavior we see in (a lot of) influencer marketing. People quickly build audiences and become ‘influencers’ – they oftentimes have millions of adoring fans that hang on their every word and will do just about anything the influencers asks.

The issue then becomes that they don’t have any ‘real’ business experience. While they know how to build their audience and cultivate their community they don’t necessarily have the same skillsets that translate to understanding timetables, budgets, project management, etc. As a result they get in over their head and don’t take their newfound responsibilities of running a business seriously when it comes to working with major brands and companies.

In the case of Tanacon – they signed a contract with the Marriott to host the event, which stated they could host just over 1,000 people. Tana and team decided to say ‘fuck it’ and sell tickets for 5,000 people. This is not the behavior of normal businesspeople, and its wayyyyy out of bounds of common sense.

Unfortunately it is too common.

I’ve worked with thousands of influencers. Some of whom are phenomenal and professional – they’re buttoned up, they know what they know and delegate the rest to their team.

There’s another contingent of influencers that believe because they have their audience the only thing that matters is that they’re ‘authentic’ – that this ‘authenticity’ comes at the price of any real responsibility and is a hall pass to be a terrible business partner. Deadlines are missed, the work promised comes back as something totally different, and communication is lacking. I’ve had influencers ghost on deadlines, come back late and say that they don’t want to post their original idea after they already shot it, have asked to get out of contracts right before deadlines were supposed to be met (and even right after) without real reasons.

This behavior is more common in influencer marketing than in any other business or aspect of marketing and advertising I have ever seen. It is too common. Just after Vidcon I was hanging out with a buddy that is a talent manager. While hanging out one of his talent called to say that a video he’s been working on for a brand for the last week and was already a few days late to post wasn’t going to work for his channel and he no longer wanted to post it. This was a video the influencer concepted and sold to the brand. This was a video he’d edited entirely himself knowing the deadline and where it was going to live. He had 100% creative control, but still didn’t want to post it because he didn’t think his audience would like it.

This is not acceptable behavior for a professional. If it was any other part of the ad industry you’d work late – make it happen (or just think things through far enough in advance to avoid issues).

I don’t mean to disparage all influencers or paint the brush that they are all a pain in the ass. They’re not.

However, I do think that there’s a lot out there that are burning bridges for the rest of the industry.

Marketers and agencies are working with billion dollar brands. There are campaign deadlines and bosses these people are accountable to, there are stockholders, and real consequences.

Many influencers are much more like the Hank and John Green who developed Vidcon. That event is buttoned up. It’s been slowly growing over the last nine years and is hands down one of the best-run industry conferences I go to (full disclosure I’m on the Vidcon Advisory Board, but I’d believe this even if I wasn’t).

Hank and John Green have taken the even seriously from the beginning – they’ve planned methodically with venues booked over a year in advance. This past year Vidcon hosted over 30,000 people, hundreds of creators, and worked with dozens of sponsors over the four days of the event. Sessions and keynotes started on time. Security was tight, and the event was incredibly professional and brand friendly. This is no small feat.

I love unbridled ambition and the passion of young entrepreneurs. However, within the influencer-marketing ecosystem there are a lot of bad actors who need to understand that if they want to work with brands they need to take the contracts they sign seriously.

Many influencers are creating terrible experiences for the fans and the brands.

In short – don’t be like Tana and ignore the contracts you’ve signed and not take things seriously. Instead be like Hank and John Green – build your reputation as a trusted source, think through who you work with, the agreements you sign, and the work you decide to take on.

We covered a number of topics including:
– YouTube’s $100 million channel initiative breathed life into MCN’s
– MCN’s making money off clueless talent
– That MCN’s exploited talent early on and have to evolve

The Confessional is a series of anonymous interview with influencers, brands, marketers, agencies and MCN executives to get honest, no-bullshit opinions on working in the space – the biggest gripes, the toughest lessons, the most valuable advice.

The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What was it like when you were starting out and finding new talent?

I started back in 2010 – I was working in network TV and producing some digital content. I had some insight to how powerful it could be, but it wasn’t something people took seriously yet. A friend had suggested that I would be good in the YouTube space. At the time it felt almost fake or scammy. I thought,  “What do you build with a YouTube star? How do you make money off that?” The partner program was super new and selective — it was invitation only.

“Viral videos” were still a real thing – it was a very different time then.

What was it like when you founded your MCN?

Originally, we were strictly a talent management company. Nine or ten months after launching our company, people were knocking on our door trying to figure out how to get in, either as executives or investors. Everything really started to take off when there was this $100 million original channel initiative – where YouTube funded original content. We saw this investment happen, people were approaching us, and we understood things were going to accelerate fast. We needed to figure out how to stay ahead, to scale our business and compete.

As MCN’s have scaled – how has the relationship with talent changed?

I’m not a fan of management companies being owned and operated by networks. It’s like the old Hollywood studio system, people are getting screwed. You get the talent young and put them in a crazy contract for two years, and if they explode, then you’re there for the ride. You didn’t have to do anything.

Some of the bigger MCNs have become so massive there’s no way they are properly servicing their signed creators.  In early 2012, most of the networks were super focused and creators were looking for a place to call home  YouTube did not yet have a YouTube Space or really any formal creators team or production team, at that time networks swooped in and started signing up talent.  Back then, creators were just looking for basic things like management and advice.  So when these networks reached out and offered some service (even with no proof or credibility) many creators flattered and excited signed up without understanding what they were really signing up for.

There are creators who signed up for an MCN several years ago, but didn’t know what they signed up for..  It’s almost the same as how AOL will make millions of dollars off of people who are still signed to AOL dial up, even though there are clearly much better options out there and they have become pretty much irrelevant in that regard.

What does the industry need?

Some creators get big so fast while they’re still young. When you are just starting off, that’s when you come across scammy companies that screw you over. If you are coming up and that’s your first experience it’s going to make you paranoid. All because some email came in your inbox like, “This seems credible.” There are 16 year old kids who have never even had a summer job before… They likely do not have the knowledge or guidance to figure out who to partner with or when to say no.

We need conversations like: What resources do creators have to protect themselves? Who do they trust? Who is a credible source? The industry needs that credible, completely independent resource for creators. It would be helpful to come up with, like, the five things MCNs need to do. Number one is transparency with their earnings and where that money is coming from.  So many networks add no value to pre-roll. Creators need to know how the money is being generated.

I think Hank and John Green’s The Guild may help with a lot of this.

Is it harder for creators to make money on YouTube?

It’s more competitive, and it’s a more saturated market. There used to be creators who could work the system, to get to the front page — boom, they made their $5,000. Not anymore. It’s much harder to game the system, but YouTube has gamed it for themselves. There are a few creators that they heavily promote, maybe with commercials or recommended tabs, just these five people Youtube wants you to watch and make into stars.

There are definitely creators who are YouTube darlings – they aren’t that relevant anymore (they don’t have big audiences like they used to) but YouTube still always hast them at the events, on panels, getting write ups. I think that it’s a little bit of legacy thing. They’re pushing the idea that the darlings are still relevant, but really, they’re not.

I will say there are a lot more ad dollars being shifted into the eco-system which is a great.  But, we need to continue as an industry to question what is valuable and the market value.  Is it views?  What if they are not organic?  Is it content quality? Is it access to eyeballs that will convert to purchases?  Not every view is created equal… we need to continue to push to the forefront the most valuable assets in our industry so that we can continue to evolve.

What’s the role of MCN’s now and in the future?

MCNs have done a really good job of creating and pushing this idea that they are needed in the space — that’s literally what they do. They’re marketing themselves to the brands and ad agencies and as a result they’re generating deals.

In five years, many MCNs will still be around, but it’s going to continue to become far more competitive. We’re seeing more focused networks pop up, and established companies come into the space. MCNs might transform to become focused businesses. Maybe you’ll have companies that become agencies, then become production companies, then become… whatever.

I never would have thought we’d be where we are today. I genuinely thought that there was  going be a revolt against MCN’s by the top creators. Most networks built their brands on the backs of creators – and many exploited some people early on.  That being said, YouTube has stepped up to created some systems to flag exploitation.

The short term goal for many of the MCNs was to aggregate as many views as possible and sell.  Now that the excitement and novelty is starting to ware off, many of the independent (and even acquired) MCNs are forced to figure out a sustainable business.