Author | Lightnews

In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · 22d

September’s wrapping up strong, meet the newest talent joining the ITBM family!

In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · 28d

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · 28d

We asked @matthewmccleskey.com 3 questions to share his insight for other creators to grow.
Here's what his answers were...

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Sep 8

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Sep 8

🚫 Myths vs ✅ Facts: Influencer marketing isn’t what you think.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

So we’re basically sitting on those 2 categories of evergreen content.”

In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

So the existing kind of foundation that we did for those 4 years helped to kind of give the channel some basic constant passive income, and then on top of that, we are now at the point where we have built up a good catalogue of non-Ark, story-explained videos.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

We’re still doing commissions and other stuff for Ark creators, but we are not covering that on Neddy the Noodle at all.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

I just thought to myself, I wanna grow my own channel, and I wanna be able to make this much more than it currently is, and hire more people and everything. So I decided to move away from Ark, and then this year we completely dropped it basically.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

around that time I realized that if your niche is only Ark or a specific video game in general, you’re only gonna be able to get to a pretty specific market and to appeal to them, so you wouldn’t be able to grow much past that.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

Then for a period of time I was doing only Ark survival content, so for 4 years I was doing that then by the end of it which was about the mid-point of my career, was when I first spoke with ITBM,

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

but starting out I was just interested in posting things that would be useful and interesting to people. Being artistic, telling stories that hadn’t really been shown in the way that I was able to show them.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

“Starting out, I wasn’t making any money, I’m 24 now, I was 13 when I started, I was a pretty young kid, and then eventually in 2020 I started like making money, and I thought like “whoa, okay cool!”

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

3- What has your journey been like from starting your channel to where you are now; what did you learn along the way?

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

which is why we have a similar thing that we’ve been strategically doing, having this suit guy with a mask be the front facing character of mine.”

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

For example there is this channel called Arlo, and he has a fuzzy little blue character guy, and I think it works very well for him and other creators like that, as we believe that helps them connect with their viewers more, at least that’s our theory,

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

Our main strategy has been looking at what other creators in our niche are doing and focusing on being human, doing things that people care about, being relatable, being imperfect, having a specific identity for the channel that isn’t so corporate, but rather a character.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

2- What are some strategies you’ve used to grow your channel?

“I'm gonna be a little abstract and say we've just been really open to understanding things as opposed to assuming that we know everything, because we don't, we're always learning new things.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

Another stream I can think of is, I'm always reaching out to game developers and just seeing if they want to collaborate on anything. So currently I’m working with a team on a dragon game called Wings of Dawn, and I’m doing their cinematics and stuff.”

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

We create these animations for many creators, such as Granty, to bring his sponsorships to a new level, as well as enhance other cinematic elements of his videos to really hook the audience.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

1- How have you diversified your income streams?

“My income streams come from Youtube ad-rev, sponsors through ITBM, and commissions for animations for other channels.

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 20

We spoke and had a nice conversation with Neddy the Noodle this month, where we asked him some questions where he can provide some of his expertise and insight as a creator helping other creators grow their platforms, and here is what he had to say:

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In The Black Media @intheblackmedia.bsky.social · Aug 11

Excited to welcome our newest creators to the ITBM family this August 2025!