Top YouTube Creator Alan Chikin Chow Launches 10,000-Square-Foot Production Space in Los Angeles

In a move that signals the continuing ascent of digital creators, popular YouTuber and multiplatform content producer Alan Chikin Chow has opened a new 10,000-square-foot production studio space in Los Angeles.

Chow, who is the most-watched YouTube Shorts creator, regularly rakes in 1 billion views per month. His YouTube channel, at over 67 million subscribers, boasts a larger following than Taylor Swift’s. To date, his “Alan’s Universe” series has garnered over 500 million views across multiple platforms.

“I truly believe that YouTube is the future of TV,” Chow tells Variety. “I believe in ‘Alan’s Universe,’ our show, as a franchise that will not only exist on digital but across multiple platforms of music, film and TV, merchandise and live touring. I am excited that this space is the physical indicator of that future.”

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“Alan’s Universe,” a series that encompasses both longform and shortform video on YouTube, YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram, is “the fantasy of high school that you had before you got to high school and got jaded,” according to Chow. The longform videos, which are composed of a series of interconnected vignettes that are then cut down into shortform content, seemingly draw inspiration from Korean dramas and silent films, finely tuned towards a younger audience.

The main visual reference for the newly built, brightly hued sets was “Idol School,” a 2017 Korean reality girl group survival competition.

Chow, who has also racked up credits in TV shows and films such as “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Mean Girls,” says that the expansion of his digital-first business speaks to “the democratization of who is allowed to be a storyteller.”

“In the past, there were a few key decision-makers that got to choose what stories get told,” he says. “But now, because of technology, that power has gone back to the people.”