Chaz Smith blew up on Vine as a teenager. The watermalone guy. He turned 6 second jokes into hundreds of millions of views across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, negotiated his own deals with brands like Doritos while finishing finals at an Ivy League school, and had the biggest brands in the world renewing with him year after year.
At the peak of it all, he stopped posting. Right after he made the decision, 2 brands came back with long-term offers, one worth a year's salary. He turned them both down.
In this conversation, Ronit and Chaz get into why fulfillment and success aren't the same thing, the difference between consistency and rhythm, the pressure to create for an audience instead of yourself, and how growing up in the shadow of an NBA player shaped the way he works.
Follow Chaz at @chazsmith. Subscribe to The Creator Class for more conversations with the creators shaping the industry.
Chapters
00:00 — "I felt like if I did another brand deal, I was going to lose my mind"
00:30 — "Creation in its purest form is about expression"
02:08 — The story Chaz never knew: Ronit's most vulnerable season
03:28 — Becoming the first client
03:44 — Watermalone and the start of everything
04:06 — When the thing that made you famous isn't the thing you want
04:40 — Turning down NYU film school
05:23 — When short form stopped being satisfying
06:39 — Walking away at the peak
07:17 — The pressure to keep giving people what they want
07:37 — Growing up in the shadow of an NBA player
08:31 — Quitting basketball at 18
08:49 — The 6 Working Geniuses
10:18 — Wanting to bring joy to the world
10:53 — Phoenix in the seventh grade
13:08 — Enjoying the content vs enjoying the validation
13:37 — The day he told his dad he didn't want to play
14:24 — Trading his father's approval for strangers' approval
16:39 — Negotiating with Doritos during college finals
20:10 — What he says to people who call him ungrateful
21:17 — The first week after he stopped posting
21:44 — Turning down Old Spice and Nerf
22:21 — "That's a lot of money to turn down"
23:59 — The comment that ended a beloved series
25:20 — Why his best videos took the least effort
26:02 — "Why do things need to be hard for me to feel like I'm doing enough?"
26:52 — How he was raised
28:04 — Ronit's own revelation
28:58 — Earning permission to rest
29:40 — Play is the key to creativity
30:26 — The creator who works 8 months a year
32:25 — Where the word "lazy" actually comes from
33:39 — Why creator is the hardest job Ronit has ever seen
35:53 — No roadmap and a short shelf life
36:55 — No wall between you and your audience
38:02 — The spontaneity that built his success
39:08 — The experiment that tanked his metrics
41:11 — Ronit's challenge: one month of only what he believes in
43:10 — Consistency vs rhythm
44:00 — What's next for Chaz
46:23 — What it means to be a creator today
47:12 — Where to follow Chaz
