For as long as there’s been content online, there have been pirates. Creators’ content is constantly stolen, and there are a number of companies, like Superbam, whose entire business is recovering revenue from reuploaded videos. What if a situation isn’t so clear-cut, though? Reaction content creators are, for the most part, in a grey area, where their videos can count as transformative works covered by fair use if they provide enough meaningful commentary on top of the original creator’s content.

But what counts as “enough”? And what happens if a reaction video overshadows the original?

Video essayist YouTuber Zackary Smigel is currently contending with those questions after fellow creator Asmongold reacted to his latest video—and, Smigel says, was the reason that video’s view count stalled at just over 300,000, while Asmongold’s reaction vid soared to nearly a million.

“I have no issue with people reacting to my videos in a transformative way—I actually encourage it,” Smigel tweeted. “But it definitely sucks to see my video slow down at 300k views while Asmongold’s reaction gets almost a mill. My vid was only up for 5 days, and it’s pretty much lost all momentum.”

His video, called What’s REALLY Driving Up Fast Food Prices?, went up Sept. 11. Asmongold made his own video just four days later, called What’s REALLY Driving Up Fast Food Prices? | Asmongold Reacts. To be fair, Smigel’s original video is around 16 minutes, and Asmongold’s reaction vid is 36 minutes, so there is a significant amount of Asmongold pausing Smigel’s video to say something about it, or speak to the chatters who were watching him record his reaction live. (Asmongold has since privated his video.)

We should also note that it’s pretty hard to prove that Asmongold’s video was the reason Smigel’s saw its view count taper off. Smigel has 150,000 subscribers, and his video viewership can vary widely; the video before his fast food upload got 40,000 views in a month, while one he posted in March about surviving off Chipotle for 30 days has 1.2 million.

“Give me a week at least next time @Asmongold,” Smigel tweeted, before following up to clarify that “I’m not mad at the player, but at the game.”

“Honestly, I feel like YouTube should have a system similar to quote tweets or a kickback system for reaction videos,” he said.

YouTube actually does have kickback systems, but not for creator-creator revenue splitting. Instead, they’re for production studios and record labels: It can siphon AdSense revenue from creators’ videos if they use copyrighted content like movie clips or music tracks, and send all (as in, the creator makes nothing) or some (the creator gets a cut) of that revenue to the studios and labels.

A system like that for creator-creator content usage could lessen some of the animosity around reaction content, and ensure that original creators are still compensated for people watching their content off their channels. It could be logistically difficult to implement, however, and platforms would also have to address those questions we mentioned earlier: When has a reaction content creator used too much of the original video? When have they provided enough additional content for it to be fair use? Does the amount of additional content not matter if the entire original video is included in the reaction content?

TikTok has sort of flirted with these questions, since dueting is a built-in feature of its platform. With duets, creators can take an original video and repost it to their account with their own video alongside it. TikTok mandates that a dueting creator’s video must be the same length as the original, and its inbuilt editor gives credit to the original poster…but even with all that, it still doesn’t do any kind of revenue-sharing.

There are millions of duets created on TikTok every day, making the implementation of a kickback/revenue-share system there more difficult, but YouTube may have an easier time doing it with long-form content. As things stand, however, we doubt it will implement this kind of system, since that would mean digging into the nitty-gritty of fair use and transformative works law. It’ll likely continue letting creators duke it out over using one another’s content.

Filed under: Creator, Homepage Feature, YouTube by James Hale
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Gen Z‘s relationship with platforms like TikTok is more complicated than it seems at first glance. In the past three weeks, two different statistical studies have drawn drastically different conclusions about the cohort born between 1997 and 2012.

One report, from Fiverr, found that Gen Z’s TikTok Shop usage is set to go up during the upcoming holiday season. The other, conducted by The Harris Poll, revealed that many Gen Z respondents wish apps like TikTok, Snapchat, and X had never been developed.

According to the Fiverr data, TikTok Shop is starting to achieve saturation in the U.S. market nearly two years after its initial launch in that region. 54% of U.S. Gen Z respondents indicated that they would only use TikTok Shops to find gifts this holiday season. Approximately one-third of respondents plan to shop through Facebook and Instagram ads, and 24% claimed they will consult their favorite influencers for purchasing advice.

The survey also indicated some economic anxiety among Gen Z. Only 43% of them plan to spend more on gifts this year than they did a year ago, according to Fiverr. That means 57% of the cohort intends to spend the same or less than in 2023.

Gen Z’s anxieties are more starkly apparent in the Harris Poll data. The 61-year-old market research firm found that half of its zoomer respondents wish that X had never been invented. And this isn’t just an Elon Musk thing: 47% said the same thing about TikTok, and 43% for Snapchat.

Some platforms don’t inspire as much regret among the Harris Poll sample. Only 17% wish that the internet had never been invented, and both Netflix and YouTube (both longtime favorites among American youth) wound up with similar percentages on that axis (17% and 15%, respectively).

The results seem to show that Gen Z has regrets about the development of the social media industry, but the cohort is also doing something about it. 83% of Harris Poll respondents admitted to limiting their social media usage in some way. Unfollowing accounts (42%) and deleting apps (40%) were the most common tactics in that area.

But if the Fiverr results pan out as predicted, some members of Gen Z will increase their reliance on apps this holiday season. It’s also as if a group with a 15-year age range contains a vast tapestry of ideas, morals, and habits. Now, if only Congress could get that message, our national discourse might improve dramatically.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Twitch has a new entry in the world of Fortnite — and this one rhymes.

The Amazon-owned streaming hub has announced The Glitch, a game world inside Fortnite that will be filled out through partnerships with sponsors. Twitch’s Glitch will feature integrations from brands like Domino’s and Peloton, whose products will impact gameplay within the world.

To open up The Glitch, Twitch is working with Look North World. That’s the name of the creator platform builder is led by Alexander Seropian, the Co-Founder of Halo developer Bungie. Look North World and Twitch will unveil The Glitch on September 20, during the first day of the annual TwitchCon gathering.

The Glitch is Amazon’s attempt to hop on the Fortnite Creative bandwagon. Publisher Epic Games‘ creator program has already paid out hundreds of millions of dollars to in-game builders, and it has become a boon for advertisers, too. Brands working within Fortnite and its rival Roblox have enjoyed results that compare favorably to traditional ad campaigns.

Twitch’s parent sees that ecosystem as a vehicle for delivering branded content in a format that isn’t perceived to be as intrusive as interruptive ads. Amazon will sell Glitch integrations as part of its creative inventory, with Domino’s and Peloton as two of the first takers.

“The Glitch is going to be the next step in Twitch being able to provide aligned brands with meaningful access to a very highly coveted and enthusiastic audience,” Amazon Ads Head of Brand Partnership Studio Andrea Garabedian told VentureBeat. “The Glitch is really a new evolution for the world of branded games through this franchise. Brands have the opportunity to be a true part of that experience.”

The overarching rules that govern The Glitch will aim to make it a unique destination within Fortnite. Players inside the world will be split into teams and will attempt to eliminate rival squads while negotiating active “glitch events.” Those events will enable Amazon and Twitch to showcase different brands within the environment. Visitors to the Domino’s pizza parlor, for example, can heal their missing hit points by chowing down on a virtual slice.

TwitchCon attendees will be among the first players to drop into the glitch. The annual celebration of all things streaming runs from September 20-22 in San Diego.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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We all know creators can make full-time careers out of content, and some can pull a substantial income doing it. But substantial doesn’t necessarily mean steady: platforms can shift their policies or practices in ways that affect the reach of creators’ content, can decide they want a bigger cut of creators’ paychecks (ahem, Twitch), can be banned, or can unceremoniously exit entire countries, forcing thousands or millions of creators to rebuild their audiences from scratch on another platform (ahem, Twitch again). To mitigate their risk, creators often monetize their audiences in ways outside of direct-from-platform revenue–ways like affiliate marketing.

That’s where LTK comes in. The family-owned creator commerce platform is set to drive nearly $5 billion in sales this year from 300,000 creator partners and 8,000 brands.That’s almost double the $2.8 billion in sales the company saw leading into 2021, when LTK received a $300 million investment at a $2 billion valuation from SoftBank.

Those 300,000 creators use LTK as a sort of one-stop ecommerce shop, with tools for setting up their own affiliate commissions (including a recently launched commission comparison tool that’ll show them what the best deal is across affiliate marketing proposals), brand collaborations, and digital storefronts.

At its 12th annual LTK Con this week, the platform–like every other platform these days–announced a new suite of AI features aimed at getting creators to make and post more content faster. But the more interesting tool it introduced is Power Gifting, a highway where creators can file requests for “strategic gifting and exclusive discount codes” from brands on LTK’s platform.

This is interesting because LTK floats it as a community-building initiative, going so far as to say modern social media platforms “are no longer built for community building, the foundation of their business, [so] LTK is making the platform truly designed for creators to reach, build and nurture communities.”

The idea with Power Gifting is that creators who are particularly interested in a brand in their niche, or who notice their audience is particularly interested, can approach that brand within the LTK app and get things like free items and promo codes for their viewers. Everyone loves free stuff, and giveaways are a time-honored practice in the creator industry.

And while more established creators may be able to get ahold of brands by cold-emailing or reaching out through a contact, up-and-coming creators can struggle to get companies to respond. LTK’s tool could help those up-and-comers get into brand deals–and thus build their off-platform income–earlier than they would be able to alone.

The buying power of creators’ fans has gone up 38%

These announcements come just before the holiday season, which LTK is expecting to be a major revenue driver this year. It recently released an internal study showing creators “are set to make a significant impact this holiday season,” because the buying power of viewers who purchase products from their affiliate links, brand deals, and digital storefronts is up 38% year-over-year, “while the buying power of the general population decreased 8% from last year,” the company said.

That’ll be a big deal for LTK, which makes half of its revenue from transaction fees on those creator-fan purchases. (The other half comes from SaaS fees and management fees for brand campaigns.)

Its survey also indicated that creators’ audiences are more likely to buy products that are pricier, and are more concerned about things like brand notoriety and availability of product than how much they’re splashing out.

“This year, the general population continues to prioritize price over brand and quality with more consumers planning to shop during Black Friday & Cyber Monday sales to save money than last year. However, for those that shop from LTK creators, availability and brand rank highest in priority,” the platform said. “While price is still important to these shoppers, the availability of products is more important, which indicates the need for retailers to keep items well stocked.”

We think that also indicates a hunger from creators’ audiences for limited-edition drops, and perhaps a smidge of FOMO. If creators offer items that are gone when they’re gone, viewers are probably more willing to spend whatever it takes to get that item, and consider snagging it a badge of fandom honor.

At LTK Con, the company said its plan is to keep building a central hub for creators to connect with their audiences (and, of course, with brands). That tracks with what Allison Yazdian, its SVP of Creator Growth and Success, told Business Insider back in July: “You see these platforms come and go. You need a place where regardless of where people are consuming your content, they know they can find you.”

Filed under: Homepage Feature, LTK by James Hale
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iShowSpeed‘s tour of Southeast Asia has certainly been eventful. Amidst a flurry of passionate crowds and over-the-top stunts, the creator born Darren Watkins, Jr. has achieved personal-best viewership on his YouTube channel. His live broadcast from Indonesia has been the biggest hit of his Asia trip thus far: At its peak, the stream attracted more than one million concurrent viewers.

During an earlier leg of his trip in Thailand, Watkins set a new personal record with more than 600,000 concurrents. His audience in Indonesia blew that number out of the water. Watkins was moved to tears after pushing his audience past one million concurrents. “Oh my god, that’s really one million,” he said. “Thank you Indonesia!”

If one country was going to provide Watkins with the setting for a record-smashing broadcast, Indonesia was always a likely candidate. The world’s fourth-most populous nation is a hotbed of creator content, especially on short-form platforms like TikTok. In recent editions of our Tubefilter charts, Indonesian YouTube Shorts creators like Virola_Chan have showed up among the 50 most-watched channels on YouTube.

Watkins’ contribution to Southeast Asia’s creator economy is impressive, though one million concurrents is not enough to claim the title of most-watched stream in YouTube history. That distinction goes to India’s nation space agency, which broadcast a moon landing to an audience of more than eight million concurrent viewers. On Twitch, the current holder of the equivalent record is Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos, who brought in 3.85 million concurrent viewers for the fourth edition of his influencer boxing event La Velada del Año.

Though Watkins is a long shot to top either of those records, his tour is proving that he is a star of international magnitude. Perhaps he has been boosted by his affiliation with another world-famous name, soccer legend Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese player set records on YouTube as soon as he arrived on the platform. Watkins, who might be Ronaldo’s biggest fan, drafting off of the striker’s celebrity status to raise his own profile.

Will Watkins’ star continue to shine as he concludes his Southeast Asian swing? So far, there have been highs (huge crowds, traditional dances) and lows (motorcycle crashes, rip-offs from locals). There could be even more nuttiness in store as Watkins takes his show to Singapore. It will be a rule-breaking streamer doing his thing in a city-state that’s infamous for its strict rules. What could go wrong?

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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