Having a big YouTube business isn’t enough for many creators these days.
Theorist, the company behind pop-culture channels like The Game Theorists and The Film Theorists, is launching a membership program for superfans designed to decrease its reliance on YouTube. Its YouTube channels have a combined 45 million subscribers.
The TheoryVerse membership platform is available through mobile, TV app, and web, provided by Uscreen, an investment-backed startup that helps creators make their own apps. There’s a free tier and two paid tiers costing $6 and $12 a month, respectively. Paying members get access to ad-free episodes, exclusive shows, and community features.
Gwen Miller, senior director of strategy and operations at Theorist, said YouTube would always be Theorist’s bread and butter, but that it was important for creators to diversify their businesses away from YouTube and advertising more generally.
“YouTube every year gets more and more competition,” Miller said. “Overall, this is a good thing for the ecosystem and for viewers, because they have more choices. But you’re fighting for more eyeballs. It behooves everyone to diversify.”
Theorist’s efforts are part of a trend of independent creators diversifying their revenue through apps. Alongside subscription platforms like Patreon and Substack, companies like Uscreen and TopFan make white-label apps for creators.
For example, Caleb Hammer, the host of the YouTube show “Financial Audit,” recently relaunched his budgeting app, Dollarwise, charging an annual rate of $90 and a monthly rate of $10. His lawyer, Tyler Chou, who works with other creators, has been encouraging her clients to build their own apps to reduce their dependence on the platform giants.
Brand deals and ads still make up most of creators’ revenue, but self-owned businesses, subscriptions, and affiliate links became a bigger part of their incomes from 2023 to 2025, according to a NeoReach survey of 3,000 creators.
Theorist
Theorist sees membership as a ‘big revenue bet’
Theorist grew out of a show created in 2011 by the husband-and-wife team Matthew Patrick (“MatPat”) and Stephanie Patrick. They sold the company in 2022 to startup Lunar X in a rare example of an exit by a creator-led company.
Miller declined to give financial or timeframe specifics, but said the goal was for TheoryVerse to be the company’s No. 2 revenue driver after YouTube.
“This is something that could have a huge impact on our business,” she said. “So it’s a big revenue bet.”
Miller said Uscreen had the best combination of community and perk tools that Theorist wanted to offer, like the ability to converse with members by subscriber tier. Theorist pays Uscreen a fee based on the number of subscribers it has.
Another membership player entering the creator economy is TopFan, which has worked with Warner Bros. and Pitbull. It now has some 300 creators using it after opening up to creators in March. They include the actor-singer Levi Kreis and NFL player Mark Schlereth.
TopFan CEO Jeffrey Kohn said some of the company’s most successful users aren’t household-name creators but people with products or services that people will pay for, such as financial counsel, consulting services, or how-to advice.
Theorist is going against the algorithm
With TheoryVerse, the goal is to give Theorist’s superfans features they’ve long been asking for, like the ability to interact with each other and see hosts of one show appear in another, said Amy Roberts, who hosts Theorist’s “Style Theory” show and led development of TheoryVerse’s programming.
Theorist has tried crossover shows on YouTube but worried that making content for a small — while passionate — fan base would signal to YouTube that its main channels aren’t popular and cause its reach to be downgraded.
“Just a Theory” is a new game show that unites Roberts and Ash Curry, the host of the Theorist show “Game Theory Live.”
Another exclusive new show, “Dead Wrong,” will bring all Theorist’s hosts together to debate hot internet takes.
