Celebrity Gossip YouTuber
Interested as a young girl in viewing pop culture, within a few years of graduating from high school, she created a unique niche of pop culture which gained enough online followers to transition her hobby into a career.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
There is no information available (as this career story is prepared on 11/6/23) about the family background of Kristi Cook, known online within YouTube as ‘Spill Sesh’ because she was so protective of her identity when first launching her YouTube channel that she had initially deleted everything she could find about herself online and requested that her personal information be removed from database websites.
CHILDHOOD
As a young girl growing up in Florida, KC developed an interest in pop culture, during what she described as her “Disney Channel era.” After that, she “went online and more or less stayed there. YouTube was where I was consuming all my content from middle school and beyond.”
EDUCATION
Following high school graduation, KC attended Florida Atlantic University, where she contributed journalist (fact based) articles to the newspaper ‘USA Today’ during her first year in college.
FIRST JOBS ARE NEVER A BINDING CAREER COMMITMENT
After moving to California, KC worked as a tour guide on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. She soon landed an internship at TMZ which eventually became a full-time job and dropped out of college.
(Editor’s note: TMZ is a tabloid news organization owned by Fox Corporation, originally a as a collaboration between AOL and Telepictures, a division of Warner Bros. The name ‘TMZ’ is derived from the acronym for ‘thirty-mile zone’ – an area with a 30 mile radius centered in Los Angeles. It was called the ‘studio zone’ due to the number of film and television studios within it. In 2008, the New York Times reported that TMZ, at the time, was receiving more than 10 million viewers every month. Its editor states that TMZ has declined to include many stories because he felt that, while the stories are likely true, he questioned how the sources obtained their information. He acknowledged that TMZ pays sources in the form of a ‘tip fee’ and that the sources and tips are verified before being used or reported.)
“Our TMZ art department was called ‘The Galleries’ and we made photo galleries,” said KC. “On the top of the TMZ website, there’s like five main stories, and two of them are photo oriented.” Her work involved “scouring Instagram every single day,” she said, an experience that prepared her for her eventual career.
STARTING HER OWN YOU TUBE CHANNEL
“One day I stumbled upon a drama video,” KC said, referring to an online genre known as ‘drama commentary,’ in which a host recaps the ups and downs of people with large followings on YouTube. “I was fascinated by the fact that people were interested in news about YouTubers, because at the time I didn’t think mainstream media was covering it. They’re not in People magazine when you’re at the grocery store.”
KC started her own drama channel – Spill Sesh – and proved adept at distilling Instagram posts, YouTube back catalogues and podcast episodes into informative videos for an audience keen to know the latest on Colleen Ballinger, Jeffree Star, or the Try Guys. Even if those names mean nothing to you, rest assured plenty of people are seeking this information. KC’s videos have been collectively viewed more than 350 million times.
An assistant professor of media studies at Queens College said that so-called ‘tea channels’ like Spill Sesh draw viewers by taking them “into the main dramatic parts of YouTube that are often seen but glossed over.”
When Spill Sesh began to catch on, KC was worried about guarding her anonymity. “In the beginning, I think the scariest thing was people commenting, wanting to know who I was,” she said. But KC’s decision to remain off-camera and to use the audio filter wasn’t enough to keep one viewer from determining her identity.
CHALLENGE – REVEALING YOUR OWN IDENTITY
After KC’s first viral video, she received messages from a stranger who had figured out her real name through an old Instagram handle and comments from friends on Facebook and her LinkedIn page. KC was worried that if her then employer knew she was spending time – all ‘off duty’ – as a celebrity gossip source, she would lose her job and the health insurance that went with it.
She even went to the extreme of using a voice distorter to disguise her identity.
After the success of her online efforts seemed to be stable, KC first told her parents that she was earning enough money at her side job – as a YouTube content creator – to rent an apartment without their financial assistance. “I was like: ‘You guys. I’ve been doing this thing on the side. It’s YouTube videos,” KC said. They were confused, but supportive, she added. “I think it’s a hard concept (for older people to understand), like, ‘How are you getting a check from this?” she said.
Even as the Spill Sesh channel racked up more than 700,000 subscribers, the person behind it kept her identity secret. She has not appeared in the account’s more than 1,000 videos and has disguised her voice with an audio filter called ‘Monster.’
KC’s viewers have long speculated about who or what was behind the channel. Was it a content farm? Or someone related to a famous YouTuber? Or maybe a famous YouTuber, doing gossip on the side? Recently, the mystery was solved when the person behind Spill Sesh revealed her secret in a video.
In addition to fearing losing her employment job at TMZ, KC says that she initially kept her identity a secret because it gave her more creative freedom.
HOBBY BECOMES A CAREER
As the popularity of Spill Sesh continued to grow, money rolled in from ads and sponsorships. In an average month, KC said she made about $20,000 from ads on YouTube alone. In her “best months, that figure can be as high as $50,000,” she said.
The income allowed KC to leave TMZ and buy a house. “I would never be able to own a home if I did not do this,” she said.
CAREER SATISFACTION
Since leaving her day job, KC has been a little less secretive about what she does for a living. In addition to family members and some friends, her fellow drama commentators know exactly who she is: a 26-year-old woman who has found her career niche and fortunately, loves what she does for a living.
KC still considers herself to be a ‘journalist’ which means – to her – that “I really try to make sure what I say is correct. There’s obviously been times where I’ve gotten things wrong.”
KC made her video reveal about her identity with Manny Gutierrez, a YouTube makeup artist known as Manny MUA, and who was the subject of the first Spill Sesh video. “The perfect full-circle moment,” said KC. In the video, as Mr. Gutierrez gives her a makeover, KC reveals her face to the camera. “It’s actually Kristi,” she says, addressing her viewers in an undistorted voice at last. Now that she’s self-employed and doing well enough to own a house in Los Angeles, KC sees no reason to stay in the shadows.
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This career story is based on multiple sources including a news article written by Madison Malone Kircher, published by The New York Times on November 5, 2023 plus internet research, including Wikipedia.
