It’s already 10:27 p.m. on a Saturday night in October when Salish Matter asks gently, “Are we going to start filming soon?” The 16-year-old stands in the aisle of her local Target in Manhattan Beach, Calif., beside her father Jordan Matter. They are dressed almost identically, in jeans and black shirts. The duo is minutes away from filming a video for Jordan’s YouTube channel, which launched in earnest in 2017 and today has more than 38 million subscribers.
Over the past several years, Salish has become its star—a role that has helped position her as a pre-eminent teen content creator. With more than 18 million followers across her own TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts, she attracts an audience of teens and tweens who see her as both relatable and aspirational. With Jordan, she is also one half of an increasingly powerful family brand that includes Sincerely Yours, a teen-focused skin-care line that launched last year, and a multiyear talent deal with Netflix, announced in February.
The family’s first original series on the streamer, Salish’s 12 Games of Christmas, will premiere Nov. 28, one day before she turns 17. Tonight’s shoot marks the Matters’ first official collaboration with Target, but the video sits firmly in the family’s milieu: a competition with a frenetic, handheld filming style and bombastic volume. Salish will face off against her father to see who can construct the best sleepover setup using products they find in the store, a riff on Supermarket Sweep.
Joining Salish’s team is 34-year-old comedy creator Haley Kalil, a.k.a. Haley Baylee; fellow creators Brooke Monk and Devon Rodriguez will have cameos. In the aisle, Salish prepares to deliver a line that will kick off nearly five hours of filming, with the creators darting between the shelves as cameras trail them.
Jordan encourages his daughter: “Let’s see what you got, Say.” He scans the semicircle of onlookers, largely the family’s team and Kalil’s. The majority are men holding cameras or smartphones. The morning of the Target shoot, Salish perches on a white bedspread at home.
The space around her is sparsely furnished and perfectly neat. There is a white vanity with a mirror, in front of which Salish occasionally films TikToks. On the walls are two posters for the artist SZA, and above the headboard hangs a butter yellow sign with the letters “SY,” a nod to Sincerely Yours.
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