Why Michael Weist From Hulu's New Documentary Jawline May Sound Familiar

Hulu's new documentary Jawline shows both the hopeful side of wanna-be social media famous kids, and also the more cynical side. On the latter is Michael Weist, who, in 2019, is still profiting off teen influencers. In the documentary, Weist is featured as a 21-year-old talent manager who wouldn't have given Jawline's focus, 16-year-old Austyn Tester and his 20K followers, the time of day. Tester wasn't nearly famous enough. Now Weist himself is semi-famous for one of the biggest convention fails in recent internet history.

You may not know Weist's name, but if you do, you know it from reading about TanaCon. In 2018, YouTuber Tana Mongeau tried to hold a convention like VidCon, but just for her fans. It didn't go well. According to The Verge, many people compared it to Fyre Fest. The California-based convention ended up being cancelled on the first day after too many people arrived and were forced to wait hours outside to register for a venue that could only hold a fraction of its intended audience.

According to another Verge article, part of the organizing team behind TanaCon was Weist's company Good Times Entertainment. Per that story, shortly after the event, Weist announced that he filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on behalf of the company. "Through this, I've discovered that I (we) simply will never truly be able to make this right," Weist said in a statement. "Due to TanaCon — and the substantial loss that we value at approximately $700,000 USD — Chapter 7 Bankruptcy is clearly the only option."

However, the TanaCon debacle was only a minor setback for Weist's management career. According to his Instagram bio, he's now the CEO and President of a new company called Juice Krate. The company's website says that it wants to help creators with management, monetization, branding, merchandise, live events, and more. There's already a creator meetup planned for October, that will feature over 25 social media stars (each with hundreds of thousands of followers). According to the Eventbrite page, the meetup will take place in Nashville on October 12 with general admission tickets costing $25 and meet-and-greet tickets going for $55.

Weist says in Jawline, "Talent is always replaceable," and apparently so are talent management companies. Juice Krate seems to be doing well in the wake of Good Times Entertainment's bankruptcy filing, representing a stable of popular internet names and already planning an event. Weist only just announced that Juice Krate was a thing in January 2019.

Basically, since Jawline finished filming, Weist is up to the same old, just under a new business name. The only thing that's really changed is that, according to The Verge, he's no longer friends with TanaCon's Tana Mongeau.