Transcription
Before Ari Jacob will be deemed the influencer whisperer and be linked to the explosion of TikTok superstars like Addison Rae, Charlie D’Amelio, Brittany Broski, the Lopez brothers, and land a few of them in a Super Bowl commercial—okay boomer. Before Ari Jacob would be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Logan Paul, Bella Thorne, Tana Mongeau, and Gary Vee. Before Ari Jacob would represent the stars of the Hype House in Hollywood—where I’ve actually been, for the record. I’ve been to that house; I wasn’t at the FaZe House, I was at the one next door where 21 Savage used to live. What a place. Before Ari Jacob would go on the offense, suing the New York Times for a whopping $6.2 million for defamation.
Now, if anyone watching this video is looking to break into show business, this is definitely a video you’re going to want to sit tight for. Now, today we’re talking about a girl boss who has been working behind the scenes in this digital revolution for over a decade. Now, she has photos with everyone from Snoop Dogg, a young Justin Bieber, Joe Rogan, Michael Jordan, and a personal fave of mine, good old Coolio. Now, a life in Hollywood is great, but it was this new era of social media stars that Ari was first to see potential in, and she was able to land a few kids some major brand deals while being a coach, a mentor, and a representative for the likes of Addison Rae and Charlie D’Amelio. Be my BFF, cause I dk what’s coming next, so on the LMHO with the rest, so T-T-Y-L-X-O-X, and uh, well, she helped turn them into the superstars that they are today.
What’s going on, guys? It’s Boy Michael Creden, back at it again with a very special “Before They Were Famous” video. Now, I’ve actually met Ari Jacob way back in the day when she was living in the famous Hollywood mansion previously home to 21 Savage, aka the original Hype House. No, Ari, she even got me on a FaceTime with Amanda Cerny and Nick Crompton. Anywho, this is a story of a young entrepreneur taking on the big dogs, and I’m telling her story as a sign of support, so sit tight and I’ll see you guys after the intro. [Music]
Ariadna Jacob is an entrepreneur and influencer marketing expert, founder of Influences.com. She joins us to explain her lawsuit. She was born on March 9, 1984, in Mexico City. Though she was welcomed to the world by her loving mother, Patti, and her father, Mundo, but sadly, her biological father died of a heart attack when Ari was just two years old. Now, Ari and her mom, they would come to America where her mother would remarry to Brad Jacob, who later adopted Ari. This year’s Ariana, this one says, “Daddy.” They’re stating that Ari saw the potential in the internet long before anyone else. Well, that would be an understatement. I mean, this girl was basically a YouTuber way back in 1993, before YouTube even existed. “I’m gonna be a star; I’ve always been a star. You know, I just have to go to Hollywood, and then I’ll just, you know, everybody would be like going, ‘Oh, I want your autograph; I only want your autograph.’” But anyways, a born entrepreneur, will Ari, she put her friends to work selling lemonade while she went door-to-door selling her artwork. She was a competitive figure skater, a cheerleader, and student body president, but her real passion was exploring the goings-on of the internet. Now, her first big break was filming and editing a video yearbook, and because YouTube had yet to be created, well, she sold DVD copies to her classmates while still in high school. She started to land internships with advertising agencies and worked on MTV projects. Now, this was a sign of things to come, as she would later befriend and work alongside the likes of Mike “The Situation,” Tila Tequila, and Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk.
Ari got accepted into San Diego State University and finished six semesters before dropping out to become a full-time entrepreneur. Now, Ari, she taught herself graphic design and web design through chat forums and AOL chat. She built a business in her dorm at SDSU designing logos and printing business cards, using her college money to front her first order, and the tagline for her business back in 2003 was “Home of the Influential.” She launched websites like GreekLaundry.com and did a photoshoot with her sorority sisters inside a washing machine wearing bikinis for the website. Yeah, that’s right, this girl, she knew what an IG model was before it was even a thing. Now, if you think this isn’t much of a big deal, well, this was way back in 2003 or 2004 when Dave Portnoy was first launching Barstool Sports as a printed publication. So remember, as we continue this story, she was way ahead of the curve. She ended up taking over all the printing business for all the frats and the sororities at SDSU, as she was the merch plug before that was even a thing, essentially. Her next venture was a company known as Red Rope Reviews, which she built in a web design class. Now, Red Rope Reviews was another idea well before its time—a nightclub database like Yelp where people could share videos of the inside of nightclubs and bars and restaurants before actually going to the spot. Now, initially, that website, she built it for a school project, and she got an A for her work, but also having a case of ADHD and like knowing everything already on the internet, well, she decided to drop out of university, going all in on becoming an entrepreneur. But money, it was tight. Now, her parents, they cut her off financially, so she worked odd jobs as a waitress and for a college travel company. She also landed a gig on her local news station, and she was the nightlife host for all of San Diego. Now, this exposure led to new opportunities as she and her brand began to book monthly retreats to Vegas. Her online work had her tapped into the early opportunities on platforms like MySpace, working with Tila Tequila and later Mike “The Situation.” She launched the website for Mike from Jersey Shore and helped multiple athletes and celebrities with social media projects. Now, this was also around the time when she tracked down entrepreneur Gary Vee, who wasn’t even famous at the time himself. Over the next six years, well, Ari, she would become a hometown celebrity as someone who knew how to harness the power of social media and make quick and dirty content on the fly. Now, she opened every hot nightclub in San Diego, and she was rubbing shoulders with anyone who’s anyone.
In 2013, while Ari, she became obsessed with influence and bought the domain Influences.com for four thousand dollars. She had an idea to build a “Mentor in Your Pocket” app that would lead you to all the most inspiring and uplifting video content and people on the internet—Influences, the app that motivates you to do more, learn more, and become more. So we’ll talk more about that in just a minute. During these years, she worked the nightclub circuit on weekends, internet marketing inc. during the week, and on her own time, she would work on Influences in between. She managed to secure a $4 million deal with a Fortune 500 brand for her agency, likely making her boss a very happy man.
Now, having conquered San Diego, while Ari, she took her savings and made the move to LA in 2018, and there she rented the penthouse apartment at 1600 Vine, where she lived across from Logan Paul, also next door to Mark Dohner when he finally moved out of Logan Paul’s closet—true story. How sick is this apartment? Look at these ceilings, 20-foot freaking windows, look at this, there’s a library, got a nice view of the city, these tall ass windows. Why don’t we move into this apartment? Now, she also lived across the hall from Amanda Cerny, Stefan Spence, and plenty of other creators who are already growing their fan bases into the millions. Now, was it just influencers though? She also got a chance to join Canelo Alvarez’s camp and to lead the digital strategy for his fight against GGG. “Damo contigo papi, la leyenda Canelo Montana.” By now, Ari, she had moved next door to the infamous Clout Gang, and she was renting out the space that would soon become the Hype House. Here she threw a massive Halloween party for Bella Thorne—“The party too lit, oh my god bro, that party too lit”—and was hanging out with the likes of Tana Mongeau, who cites Ari as her mom or her Kris Jenner. “You are literally my mother, like I just don’t, I don’t get it, like every single time I ask you for anything you just like over deliver, like what can I do for you? Hello.” You may remember seeing Amanda Cerny in a Chargers game, and it was Ari who brought her to that game. Joseph represented former members of Team 10—Nick Crompton, Chad Sutton, Kate Spiers—as well as former Bachelor stars like Becca Martinez. She grew her business representing talent when she acquired Crater Edge from Nickelodeon star Chase Norman and entrepreneur Michael Gruen. She revamped the company and seized all the opportunity that TikTok provided as it exploded in popularity. She found the platform’s biggest stars early on in their careers. Her first big discovery on TikTok was Brittany Tomlinson, aka the Kombucha Girl. Then things were amped up a notch with names like Addison Rae, Charlie D’Amelio, Dixie D’Amelio, Addison Rae’s mom, Andreas and Tony Lopez, “Dre knows best,” and that’s just naming a few. Five of her clients made it onto the Forbes Top Earning Creators list for 2020. There were clients; they got deals from L’Oréal, Amazon, Chipotle, and more. She was even able to hook up a few of these creators with Gary Vee, and lo and behold, while these rising stars, they soon were appearing in a Super Bowl commercial. That’s pretty much as an influencer; that’s when you’ve really made it. He said, he said, “It’s only okay; that’s the fourth of my annual salary.” And from there, things were about to go to a whole new level.
Sadly, it doesn’t work out for Ari. In January of 2020, Taylor Lorenz from the New York Times, she published an article that launched the Hype House members and Ari’s clients to mainstream media superstar status. Now, deals they started flowing into the Influences email addresses for Charlie and Addison—we’re talking Dunkin’ Donuts, Maybelline, MTV, HBO, the works. Unfortunately for Ari, well, no mention of her was made, and Thomas Petrou, well, he got a ton of credit as the mastermind behind it all in the article. He was presented as the manager of some of these TikTok stars who were actually represented by Ari at the time. Shortly after the “Gold Rush” article was published by many of Ari’s superstar clients, they decided to leave her company without any explanation. From there, they went on to sign with bigger talent agencies like UTA. Now, even though the loss of those clients was discouraging, well, Ari, she got back to work, signing 85 new creators, and a few notable names include Jason Coffey, Beast Eater, Jenna Frumes, Hair of Atticus, it’s QCP, Anki Boys, Alex. [Applause] She also invested her own money helping to launch and manage collab houses, i.e., Drip Club, Girls in the Valley, and Kids Next Door. Now, she even got Boohoo and Sugar Factory to sponsor the Girls in the Valley launch party with an appearance by Doja Cat herself. “Congratulations to the Girls in the Valley, and I appreciate you guys for having me out tonight. Me loves me the Doja Cat, although I’ve heard through the grapevine she doesn’t like me that much. What are you gonna do?” But more bad news was just around the corner. During the summer of 2020, the New York Times, they dropped another article titled “Trying to Make it Big Online: Getting Signed Isn’t Everything.” In this article, Taylor Lorenz accused Ari of some pretty awful things—we’re talking about allegations claiming Ari failed to pay her clients, violated their privacy with leaked photos, misled them about brand deals, made them sign unfair contracts, the works. It was, it was terrible, a devastating blow. No, recited the stories that the collab kids, they got restless in their houses during the pandemic, and with the economy in trouble, well, brands they just stopped paying on time. Now, after hearing false allegations about Ari, the creators, they became abusive, threatening; they even vandalized her rented property for clout. They wrote some pretty awful things, and then the Kombucha Girl, will she even filed a complaint to the California Labor Commission, but Ari’s attorney deemed the complaint frivolous and unfounded. The matter was later resolved, and the complaint was closed in Ari’s favor. Now, days after Taylor Lorenz’s story was published in the New York Times, while brands including L’Oréal at Universal Music Group, well, they dropped contracts with Ari, and the majority of her remaining talent, well, they moved on to bigger agencies. “I lost my business, my personal reputation, and my income.” Now, the end result was devastating to Ari’s business and her personal reputation, so much so that it left her with suicidal thoughts. Ari is now seeking compensatory damages as well as at least $6.2 million in lost profits. We wish her all the best of luck. I mean, it’s a brave move to call out the big dogs in Hollywood—ugh, scary, and nobody has the stones to fight back.
Now, Ari, she basically had to start all over with Influences.com. Now, her vision, she refers to as an IMDb for influencers with quick and easy collaboration tools for creators. The platform will also work as a “Mentor in Your Pocket” for aspiring creators who need support but don’t have a manager or agent. Now, the plan is an affordable membership platform to support the tens of millions of potential rising influencer stars who are coming out of the woodwork all over the world, and uh, well, she’s offering them an agent and management tools and well a whole lot more. Now, for more on Ari, you can give her a follow over on Instagram; we got a link down below. Now, Ari, she also offers to help many creators pro bono on her website. She’s actually been helping me out a little bit, so thanks to her. As for the rest of the story, well, I think we’re going to wrap this one up here because this, of course, is Before They’re Famous, plus I’m running out of gas, guys. I’m not a spring chicken anymore, although I have lost some weight, did you notice? Anyway, see you guys in another video, and Ari, if you’re watching this, hi. See you later, adios, ciao. [Music] [Applause] [Music] You