YouTube personality Jake Paul is drawing criticism online — again — after falsely claiming he invented the concept of content houses. Turns out, popular creators were living together at least five years before Paul and his cohorts.
Paul tweeted, “I create the first content house, then there’s 500 content houses. I start boxing, now every influencer is a boxer. What’s next? Y’all gon get raided by the FBI on purpose?”
The remark swiftly started trending on Twitter, mostly with people responding to tell Paul that he’s claiming too much influence over the… influencer… community.
Paul wasn’t the first YouTube creator to bring a bunch of popular creators under one roof to live and create videos. He didn’t create a content house of his own until 2017, called the Calabasas mansion the Team 10 House. (The house was raided by the FBI in August.)
While Paul gained widespread notoriety for the antics the group recorded in the mansion, he’s definitely not the first person to do this.
One of the first content houses was formed in 2012 by YouTube star Connor Franta, who created a channel called “Our2ndLife” (sometimes also referred to as O2L) on YouTube with creators Kian Lawley, Trevor Moran, Justin Caylen, Ricky Dillon and Sam Pottoroff, who all moved in together to create content as a group. The group officially broke up in 2015, but the idea of a centralized living arrangement for YouTube influencers to collaborate on content remained.
Gaming influencer collective FaZe Clan created a house for their gamers to live and record in 2012 as well. Content creator Richard Bengston, who goes by FaZe Banks, tweeted at Paul that FaZe had a house “8 years ago, before half these fools were even born,” with a picture of the original FaZe Clan house. FaZe Clan has since upgraded to a multimillion-dollar mansion in Los Angeles.
Other popular YouTube collectives that started content houses before Paul’s include Team Crafted, and The Creatures, which launched The Creatures House in February 2012.
Paul’s Team 10 House hasn’t produced much content since the FBI raid, but Paul said in a recent video they’re interviewing for “new roommates” to live and work in the house. The outfit is known to have a fast turnover rate, with most stars who leave the Team 10 House going on to post expose-style videos detailing their experiences.