[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart. 👇

Double Date is continuing to roll at the top of our Global Top 50 ranking. With more than 1.6 million weekly YouTube views, the Australian channel featuring a pair of popular couples is setting the pace for the rest of the world.

The top ten is a diverse group overall, with seven different nationalities represented among that elite cohort. YouTube’s most-watched channels have taken different paths to the top of the rankings,  but there are some strategies that many of our chart-toppers have in common.

The popularity of aggregator channels show why inspirational content is so big

There’s a creator named Sameer surging up the charts, and I’m not talking about Colin’s other half. An Indian channel called Sameer Verse has become one of the biggest channels in the world thanks to quick-hitting videos that venture across cultural boundaries.

Sameer Verse is one of many content aggregators active on YouTube Shorts. Like many of the creators who operate in his specific category, he does whatever he can to connect his uploads to the internet’s favorite short-form trends. If that means he has to invoke Cristiano Ronaldo wherever possible, he’ll do it.

Based on Sameer Verse’s most-watched videos, there’s not enough CR7 references in the world to make that trend as big as inspirational content is on Shorts. Sameer likes to share stirring stories that remind viewers of the power of the human spirit, even if those videos sometimes require the use of AI to turn their inspiring stories into reality. Luckily for the genAI haters out there, Sameer also offers plenty of content that was shot without LLM assistance.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ePIkAWkTrbQ

Sameer Verse took the 38th spot in this week’s Global Top 50 by collecting 480.2 million weekly views. That total was good for a 24% week-over-week increase, with Sameer cementing himself as one of Shorts’ foremost aggregators. With Shorts getting 200 billion views per day — with more on the way — creators like Sameer are positioned to become the biggest thing on the format.

It’s not just him, either. Zack D. Films has been a regular entrant in our Global Top 50 rankings, and he is surging toward the top of the charts amid the widespread fascination with aggregated content. Zack had his best week since May — and his second-best week since the start of 2025 — during the last full week of July. Like Sameer, he aggregates videos that tend to show the indomitable human will in action.

Data via Gospel Stats

If aggregators are well-positioned on Shorts, and if inspirational vibes are the best way to a grow an aggregation hub, then we can understand why inspiring videos are popular all over YouTube. These days, short-form trends set the tone, and the rest of the platform plays catch-up.

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 15
• United States: 14
• Hong Kong: 4
• Australia, South Korea, and Taiwan: 2
• Belgium, Canada, China, Czechia, Germany, Kazakhstan, Peru, Spain, Tanzania, Turkey, and Vietnam: 1

This week, 37 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it. 👉  Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Filed under: Articles, Homepage Feature, News, Statistics, statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Sam Gutelle
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Ibai Llanos is taking the Twitch record books into uncharted territory. On July 26, the Spanish streamer hosted La Velada del Año 5, the fifth edition of his annual influencer boxing spectacle. Thanks to a massive fan response, Ibai broke his own record by attracting more than 9.3 million peak concurrent viewers on his official broadcast of the event.

As with previous editions of the competition, La Velada 5 featured pugilistic perfection doled out by some of the most popular personalities on the Spanish-speaking side of the internet. Ibai’s enormous audience only represented a portion of the event’s total Twitch viewership. During the fight between Mexico’s Alana “Alanalarana” Scarlett and Spain’s Ari Geli, La Velada’s combined Twitch traffic peaked at more than 14 million concurrent viewers, according to data shared by Streams Charts.

Streams Charts also noted that La Velada 5’s Twitch audience nearly claimed the peak concurrent traffic record across all major digital streaming hubs. The 2024 ASEAN Championship, a football tournament contested by Southeast Asian nations, hauled in 19.5 million peak concurrent viewers across all qualifying YouTube streams.

Chart-topping viewership is nothing new for Ibai. Each year’s Velada del Año (which translates to “the night of the year”) has claimed enough Twitch traffic to replace its predecessor in the record books. La Velada 4 reached astonishing heights when it hauled in more than 6.7 million peak concurrents, but the following year’s sequel managed to double that figure and then some.

So how does Ibai do it? What is it about this particular series that makes it so unbeatable in the realm of Twitch traffic? There are a few factors that can help us answer that question. Influencer boxing is huge in general, with the Jake Paul/Mike Tyson showdown achieving concurrent viewership numbers that dwarf Ibai.

One must also consider the power of the Spanish streamer community. For many Spaniards, Twitch is replacing traditional forms of entertainment. That trend has boosted viewership numbers for Spanish streamers, who have come together to form a close-knit community. One of Ibai’s contemporaries, TheGrefg, showed off the power of that community with his ballyhooed broadcast of the awards show known as Los Premios Esland.

Many of the fans who are driving Spain to the top of the Twitch charts showed up in person to watch La Velada. The event took place at a sold-out Estadio La Cartuja in Sevilla, where 80,000 spectators enjoyed the creator-on-creator bouts.

But La Velada is about more than just Spain — it’s a celebration of Spanish-language streaming content as a whole. The participants came from across the Hispanophone world, and the accompanying musical performances offered an eclectic mix, ranging from YouTube chart-toppers like Puerto Rico’s Myke Towers to pop icons like Los del Rio, the Spanish group best known for turning the “Macarena” into a multiplatinum single.

Despite its origins within the Spanish streaming community, La Velada has truly become a global event. Ibai should be proud of what he’s accomplished, but I’m sure he’s wasting no time preparing an even bigger spectacle for La Velada 6 next year.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, Twitch by Sam Gutelle
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It seems like every week, general-interest news outlets that aren’t very familiar with our industry pick up sensationalist stories about the latest dangerous trend that’s absorbing the attention spans of The Youths. The purpose of these articles is usually to warn parents, so they get their kids to spend less unsupervised time on TikTok (a sentiment we don’t disagree with).

In some cases, the ‘trend’ is just one or two kids doing something dumb and posting it online, and no one else copies them.

In other cases, though, the consequences are real and life-altering. A Southern California 13-year-old died earlier this year after attempting something similar to the “blackout challenge.” The parents of four children who also died attempting it in 2022 are currently suing TikTok. A New York City judge just ruled that a mother whose son died subway surfing in 2023 can proceed with her lawsuits against ByteDance and Meta. She alleges they targeted her son with content that encouraged subway surfing, and ultimately caused his death.

Now trends causing a new kind of harm are surfacing with increasing frequency.

We say ‘new’ harm, but aside from bodily, it’s perhaps the oldest kind of harm out there: financial.

Earlier this month, someone somehow discovered a flaw in New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program, aka SYEP. The program works with ~70 community-based organizations around the city, and helps place youth ages 16-24 in six-week work positions where they’re paid $16.50 an hour.

Those wages are paid directly by the city of New York. Participants who can’t get their money via direct deposit are instead issued SYEP-specific payment cards they can take to an ATM, which will then dispense their week’s earnings.

Except when it doesn’t. From July 11 to 13, a flaw in the system allowed SYEP cards to access not just a week’s earnings, but limitless amounts of cash from an account presumably operated by New York City itself.

The New York Times reports SYEP cards were able to withdraw massive lump sums up to $40,000. And, since there are around ~30,000 SYEP cards in circulation, that was 30,000 potential oversized withdrawals.

Word of the flaw spread fast on TikTok and Instagram. “We’re making bread, we’re printing money right now,” a man said in one video. “If you work SYEP, hit me up.”

At the end of the three days, $17 million had been taken, law enforcement officials told the Times.

A spokesman for NYC’s Department of Youth and Community Development suggested SYEP employees themselves weren’t directly responsible for most of the theft. Instead, the department believes it was committed by people like the man in the TikTok video telling SYEP kids to “hit me up”–more willing and/or seasoned fraudsters who sought possession of SYEP cards and then used them to make large withdrawals. Officials said some SYEP participants sold their cards for as much as $1K.

“We are deeply disturbed by scammers preying on our participants just as they started their work assignments to support themselves and their families,” Mark Zustovich, the spokesman, said.

If this situation is ringing a bell for you, that’s because another blitz ATM fraud took off on TikTok last August. Described by proponents as an “infinite money glitch,” it was a similar situation, where ATM users could exploit a glitch in JP Morgan Chase‘s system and tell it to hand over tens of thousands of dollars. They did this by writing a fake check, cashing it, and then bypassing the usual safeguards to withdraw the entire amount on the check, instead of the small portion that typically becomes available before the check clears.

Some people who successfully pulled this off posted self-congratulatory videos on TikTok and Instagram, throwing money and boasting about free cash. They either didn’t know or didn’t care that they’d just committed a serious crime.

Now, a year later, JP Morgan Chase is suing the people who exploited that glitch.

And that lawsuit is probably a glimpse at what some of the people who stole $17 million from SYEP have coming. We’re guessing the more experienced thieves bought SYEP cards for cheap without giving their names, covered their faces at the ATMs, ditched the cards, and will never be found. But since SYEP cards are hard-coded to individual program participants, NYC will know who exploited the glitch (or allowed someone else to exploit it with their card).

Officials didn’t say what the plan is, but did confirm there’s an ongoing investigation. Participants whose cards were used in the fraud are likely not in for a great time, whether that means being blacklisted from the country’s largest summer youth employment program–or ending up in court.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, TikTok by James Hale
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Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry.

This week, TikTok says goodbye to a legend, Roblox draws an age line, and dramatic toy videos draw a lawsuit.

Creator commotion

TikToker Papa Jake passes away at age 102. World War II veteran Jake Larson shared stories from his past with more than 1.2 million followers on TikTok. He even won an Emmy Award late in his life for a collab with journalist Christiane Amanpour. RIP to a legend.

Mang0 is getting sober. The Super Smash Bros competitor lost viewers and sponsors after acting drunk and disorderly on a stream hosted by Ludwig. He has quit drinking since that incident, and he has now been sober for three weeks. “Not a sip of alcohol and I don’t really have an urge to drink,” he said.

A TikToker’s “pranks” got him arrested. On TikTok, Heston Cobb is known as Heston James and reaches 1.6 million followers with his prank content. But police in Tempe, Arizona collared Cobb after a string of disorderly conduct incidents were tied to his videos. This is your regular reminder that there’s a difference between a funny prank and “one count of burglary in the third degree, two counts of criminal impersonation, five counts of disorderly conduct, and five counts of criminal trespass.”

The biz

New Yorker cartoons are sponcon now. The periodical’s humorous illustrations have been a core part of its identity since its launch. 100 years later, those cartoons are being turned into sponsored content for brands like Patrón. I’m not sure where to find the joke in the linked panel, but I have a feeling we’re not in on it.

The internet’s greatest trolls want to acquire Creator Clash. The influencer boxing series cancelled its third go-around after drama involving iDubbbz and Ethan Klein derailed the event. Now Klein wants to buy the Creator Clash brand, and so does the long-active dramamonger known as Keemstar. I’d imagine organizer Real Good Touring has some mixed feelings about those offers.

Keith Lee’s latte is in La La Land. The cafe chain teamed up with TikTok’s favorite food reviewer for a specialty beverage available across all La La Land locations. Between this deal and Owen Han’s La Brea partnership, the creator-to-cafe pipeline is currently going strong.

Pop culture minute

VivziePop’s musical stylings have been recorded on vinyl. Animator Vivienne Medrano, who has more than 10 million subscribers on YouTube, is releasing a record that includes the first-season soundtrack from her show Helluva Boss. Multiple versions of the LP are available.

Critical Role’s first video game is due out later this year. Dispatch is a management sim that takes place in a workplace filled with superheroes. The role-playing voice actors of Critical Role have closely involved in the game’s development, working alongside AdHoc Studio to do so.

iShowSpeed was involved in the MLS All-Star Game. Lionel Messi didn’t show at the midsummer event, but one of the biggest names in streaming made an appearance. Speed will show up anywhere if he gets a chance to do a Cristiano Ronaldo-style “siuuuu” in the process.

Platform headlines

Roblox introduces enhanced age verification tools. The game creation platform will use facial-analysis software to prevent users under the age of 13 from accessing unfiltered chats. The technology here is more advanced than typical age verification tools, but if Roblox’s young players can become millionaires thanks to their games, they can probably figure out a way to beat this system, too.

Snapchat’s new feature informs your friends when you get home safely. When a Snapchat user walks through their front door, the “home safe alerts” will be sent to people who have shared their locations with that user. So if you’re pretending to be tired to leave a boring party, you’re going to need a new excuse now.

So long to social media platform Zeen. The startup launched in 2019 with a focus on privacy and a plan to appeal to Gen Z. Though its leadership team raised $9 million of VC funding, they announced that they will be shutting down the platform’s operations.

The internet is a strange place

TikTok’s “Sylvanian Drama” account triggered a toymaker lawsuit. If you’ve ever seen videos on your FYP that feature cute stuffed animals who find themselves in scandalous circumstances, then you’re likely familiar with @sylvaniandrama. Japanese company Epoch, which produces the toys used in the videos, doesn’t seem to be happy about the account. To rectify the situation, it has launched a legal challenge against the creator behind the account.

Long video game queue times got you down? Just beat an entirely different game in the interim. While waiting two-and-a-half hours to get into an Overwatch match, Twitch streamer Aspen booted up Minecraft, traveled to the Nether, and defeated the Ender Dragon. I know Summer Games Done Quick just concluded, but I feel like “load screen second game any%” could be a fun new speedrunning category.

A $6 million banana at an art museum has been eaten. The Centre Pompidou-Metz had to replace a duct-taped banana after a guest grabbed the first piece of fruit off the wall and ate it. I get it. Based on my personal experience, it takes a lot of stamina to make it through an entire contemporary art museum.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
Comments Off on Have you heard? RIP Papa Jake, ‘New Yorker’ cartoons become sponcon, and VivziePop goes vinyl

CBS‘ shocking cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert has come under intense scrutiny since the decision was announced on July 17. Many people, including some of Colbert’s colleagues in the late-night universe, have argued that the move was an act of political servitude. Colbert frequently took aim at Donald Trump on his program, and CBS parent Paramount managed to close a merger with Skydance just a few days after the controversial cancellation.

As convincing as that argument may be, CBS has insisted that axing The Late Show had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with declining revenue. The New York Times reported that CBS President George Cheeks justified the cancellation by claiming that The Late Show had no path to profitability.

It’s a difficult moment for late-night TV, but for anyone who argues that The Late Show couldn’t have been salvaged, Colbert’s YouTube traffic offers a counterargument. Even before the cancellation was announced, The Late Show was one of the most popular programs of its ilk online — and its digital viewership has only gone up in recent days.

We turned to our data partner Gospel Stats to discover late-night TV viewership trends on YouTube. Here’s what we found:

• In June 2025, The Late Show‘ official YouTube channel added 97 new long-form videos, and the hub’s long-form library averaged 586,484 views per video over a 90-day period. The channel’s total monthly view count reached 73.5 million.
• In comparison, NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon uploaded a similar number of long-form videos in June — 89 of them — but had a much lower 90-day average viewership (309,832 views per video) and a lower overall total of 59.5 million monthly views. Colbert’s ability to best Fallon on YouTube is notable, since The Tonight Show once dominated the late-night scene on YouTube.
• On ABC, Jimmy Kimmel Live best its late-night rivals by pulling in an average of 848,184 views per videos across its long-form library in June. That success didn’t stop Kimmel from saying “I don’t know if there will be any late-night television shows on network TV in 10 years” during a 2024 interview.

Kimmel’s fatalistic prediction could come true in the long run, but was there really no way for CBS to profit from The Late Show‘s sizable YouTube viewership? YouTube is gobbling up watch time on TV screens, and advertisers are adjusting their budgets to account for the shifting landscape. CBS either didn’t figure out how to claim that moving spend, didn’t try, or didn’t stand up to political pressure.

Even after The Late Show‘s cancellation, YouTube viewers still love Colbert. His post-firing monologue is now over ten million views just three days after its initial upload date.

Maybe it’s too late for CBS to capitalize on Colbert’s newfound digital momentum (or maybe the network doesn’t want to). Either way, these viewership trends show that there is still a healthy appetite for late-night content. Distributions just have to figure out where to go to sell it.

Filed under: Articles, CBS, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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News flash: Generative AI is a polarizing topic among creators.

That may seem like an obvious point to anyone who keeps tabs on tech industry trends, but new research published by Substack shows just how wide the chasm is. The platform took the temperature of more than 2,000 newsletter publishers and found that cohort to be deeply divided regarding the utility, ethics, and pitfalls of generative AI models.

One of the simplest questions in the Substack survey produced a telling result. 45% of respondents said they’re not using generative AI, while 52% claimed to employ it. (2% of publishers were unsure if they were using it.)

The percentage of respondents who use AI could be higher than initially reported, since some creators rely on systems that quietly employ artificial intelligence. “That ambiguity makes it harder to pin down how publishers think about and engage with AI,” reads a blog post accompanying the survey. “While the public conversation often centers on content generation and its implications for art and authenticity, publishers on Substack are often using AI tools in more varied and nuanced ways.”

If we take the reported percentages at face value, some telling patterns emerge. Publishers over the age of 45 are more likely to use AI than their younger counterparts; 51% of respondents in that older group said they use AI, compared to about 38% of the under-45s. The percentage of men who reported using AI was 17% higher than the equivalent figure for women (55% to 38%). And AI usage is far more common in fields like business, tech, and finance than in more artistic genres like music, literature, and visual art.

Substack’s findings are a reminder of genAI’s contentious status in the creator world (just ask MrBeast.) Some digital creatives are inspired by the open-ended possibilities of AI-generated material and willing to share their data as training material in exchange for financial compensation. More pessimistic sorts are troubled by the eerie realism of the latest AI-generated videos and the litany of ownership issues that come with unauthorized AI training practices.

Can those two disparate factions be united? Some pro-AI members of Substack’s survey group argued that large language models can empower people who deal with disabilities like ADHD, dyslexia, and blindness. If generative AI is here to stay — and with the way the tech industry is going, that seems like a likely outcome — then detractors may have no choice but to find use cases that serve their own needs.

Filed under: Articles, Artificial Intelligence, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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In a main hall whose ceiling is wreathed with glowing planets, creators like Hank Green and digital media veterans like Jim Louderback talk the ethics of AI and the nitty-gritty of modern-day content monetization.

Ten feet from the hall entrance, in a tent under the clear California sun, a 14-year-old proudly shows off her collection of scorched rocket parts–the remnants of early attempts to launch a fully functional, 3D-printed capsule from her backyard, using fuel mixed in her garage. She’s not discouraged by this carnage. Instead, she talks enthusiastically to anyone and everyone about how she and her brother are iterating for the next test flight.

Surrounding her are hundreds of other exhibitors of all ages. Their projects are a limitless STEM spectrum. One runs a lab that puts plants on the International Space Station; another buys cracked crystals from medical supply companies and carves them into jewelry gems. A family of inventors brought a flight sim built into an old aircraft and a miniature train. There’s a Redbox machine reformatted to vend tech bits. An engineering major with a Boston Dynamics-style bot named Corndog. Down the aisle are four guys who 3D-printed some tentacles and use transparent elastic cord to make them dance to DDR songs.

Walk the exhibits for a few minutes and Code Miko might appear behind you, streaming live. Any Austin might pass by on his way to check out the Barbie go-kart while, across the lawn, a MythBusters cast member stops for an impromptu photoshoot. Meanwhile the scent of grilled chicken drifts off a cadre of food trucks, and every stand with even the vague promise of caffeine has lines 50 deep. A motorized trash can with googly eyes zips up to pockets of people, opening its “mouth” for what’s left of their lunches.

This is Open Sauce. And it’s the science fair of the future.

Founded in 2023 by YouTuber/engineer William Osman, Open Sauce has grown in leaps. Its first year brought around 10,000 attendees to see ~150 exhibitors at San Francisco’s Pier 35. Last year it moved to Cow Palace, welcoming ~500 exhibitors and a whopping 20,000 attendees.

For 2025, Open Sauce moved again to the San Mateo County Event Center, around an hour’s drive from downtown San Fran in the thick of the June Gloom. It expanded from two indoor exhibit halls to three, plus a sizable collection of outdoor exhibits. This year’s event brought over 500 exhibitors, 150+ content creators, and hosted more than 60 panels. The current tally places number of attendees at over 33,000.

Make no mistake–Open Sauce is a creator event. While its gates crack to the public on Days 2 and 3, Day 1 is an Industry Day that reminded me of VidSummit, welcoming the convention’s creator attendees for a packed schedule of talks, workshops, and networking. Afterward, they could grab goodie bags from booths by creator services companies like Blackmagic Design and Insta360.

It’s not only a creator event, though. Yes, attendees arrived in droves to the panels, excited for a chance to ask well-known YouTubers and Twitch streamers questions like What video do you wish went viral? and How do you handle criticism from your audience? and If I want to start creating, what do I do?

But, metal barriers in front of the stage aside, there is little division between creators and attendees. Open Sauce doesn’t have dedicated spaces for meet-and-greets or pay-to-play photo ops because headlining creators share the spotlight with science itself.

A hefty part of its unique charm is seeing creators out in the aisles, slipping through the crowd of families, high school robotics club members, cosplayers, and the guy with a square foot of turf strapped to his chest, asking passersby if they wanted to touch some grass (it was free!).

Like it did at the 2024 event, Mark Rober‘s CrunchLabs had a dedicated, interactive exhibit in the middle of the biggest hall. At times its audience was outswelled by folks watching battle bot teams play hockey, or chatting with a life-sized Dalek threatening to commit war crimes. CrunchLabs was still an indisputably central attraction, but people flowed between it and non-creator projects with equal enthusiasm.

More than anything, Open Sauce is, down in its marrow and microvias, about encouraging communal innovation. Exhibitors we spoke to all hyped one anothers’ booths. In 2024, a noticeable percentage of exhibitors were offering items for sale; this year, there were fewer commercial presences.

Instead, exhibitors gave trinkets out for free–keychains, buttons, stickers, and Pog-like 3D printed chips that replaced the traditional paper business card. Many also gave out demo items, like a small container of metal shavings from a battle bot and a custom name printed in filament in 38 seconds or less. Projects were largely in the prototype phase, like with one couple displaying an electronic wind instrument synthesizer. They’re trying to get it in production, but for now, they just want people to play it. Everyone seemed to be there for the love of the game.

Some exhibitors returned for their second or even third year at Open Sauce. They were, as a whole, bolder this year than last, less prone to sitting back behind their booths and more willing to weave into the crowd and call attendees’ attention to their projects. I met the man who buys medical crystals because as I walked past, he reached out and put a five-pound chunk of fluorescent green in my hand.

There were a few hiccups. The exhibit halls were sweltering, and there were no water stations. Getting bottled water meant waiting in a line with no shade and paying five bucks per. There were no seats inside, either; exhausted, sweaty attendees camped on the floors. Staff were sparse and difficult to find, and we weren’t given maps on the way in, making navigation tough. (We picked one up later from a tent at the back side of the convention center, which looked to be where creators parked and entered.)

Exhibitors had to pay $23/day for non-dedicated parking in a lot that was not sized to accommodate the convention’s population, resulting in zero available spaces and cars heaped next to curbs, boxing one another in with attempts to squeeze. They also had to pay $30/day per device to connect to Wi-Fi that regularly blipped out for long periods due to overcrowding signal interference. One exhibitor, who was also at the 2024 event, said organizers told him he had to pay for Wi-Fi this year because the venue was so nice.

$23 in parking and $30 in Wi-Fi might not sound like a lot, until you realize exhibitors came with multiple vehicles and trailers to haul their equipment, and remember that it’s $30 per device, which adds up fast for tech-heads.

Despite these issues, Open Sauce’s overall atmosphere radiated joy. Everyone was happy to be there, to share what they knew and what they wanted to learn. It was electric, to be in the presence of so many makers. Exhibitors put rovers on Mars and animatronic worms on their shoulders. They made theremin-inspired digital guitars and submarines that look like manta rays. And the creators? They built our industry by posting videos about the things they love.

That love was alive at Open Sauce.

We’re glad we went.

See you next year.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, Uncategorized by James Hale
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Creators are commanding more of brands’ dollars than ever. Companies are expected to spend $10.5 billion this year on influencer marketing, hoping they’ll reach young, finicky, and (somewhat) anti-consumption audiences by getting in with the cool kids.

And many of these companies are content to let creators do what they do best: come up with material their audience will enjoy. Now, to be clear, some brands do write scripts for the creator partners, and/or do things like mandate where an ad read should go in a video. But in a lot of cases, creators are making these decisions themselves–and, according to AI ad platform CreativeX, they’re doing it wrong.

The New York City-based company says it “powers creative excellence” for brands, helping them ” elevate creative expression through data.”

We’re guessing some of that data is pulled together to create formulas for what works ‘best’ in ads, because CreativeX’s latest project is a report saying that nearly half of creator-made ads on TikTok and Meta platforms don’t adhere to practices that would make them successful.

The report analyzed 1.6 million ads, about ~$2 billion worth of ad spend, to look at how creator ads do on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

CreativeX founder/CEO Anastasia Leng told Adweek it launched this report because it saw more creator-posted content coming through its systems, rather than content posted to brands’ owned accounts.

“We became really interested in how brands were treating creator content differently from how they were treating their own branded content and how those decisions impacted creator content effectiveness,” she said.

So, how are brands treating it differently?

Well, CreativeX says brands assume creator-made ads don’t need to adhere to ‘best practices’ like mentioning a brand name in the first three seconds of the video, and that this assumption has led to a “false paradox between authenticity and suitability or effectiveness.”

49% of creator ads don’t mention the brand in the first three seconds, CreativeX found, while 51% of ads do. The videos that do mention the brand had a 16% higher video completion rate. Overall, only 14% of users watched any of these videos past the first three seconds, regardless of whether or not a brand name was mentioned. (This makes sense, considering all three platforms operate on a swipe mechanic that keeps users cycling through hundreds of videos rapid-fire.)

CreativeX said 55% of creator ads are also either too short or too long. It says the best practice is to make videos between 15 and 60 seconds long, and only 45% of creator videos it looked at are within those parameters. Videos 15-60 seconds had a 10% higher video completion rate, it said.

It’s not clear whether CreativeX only looked at short-form videos under a certain length, but TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook all allow longer vertical uploads. Obviously long-form content with an ad spot isn’t going to be <60 seconds, and being longer than a minute doesn’t necessarily mean it fails to abide by ‘good’ ad practices for longer videos.

Another thing CreativeX brought up is that creator-made ads often don’t adhere to ‘safe zones,’ aka the areas in the video that aren’t covered by the title, description, UI elements, etc. We have seen this be a problem across TikTok, YouTube, and more: Creators will show a product or put an affiliate code on the screen, but the product or code will be covered by overlay elements from the platforms.

Creators can’t control what UI shows up on their videos, and sometimes platforms make UI tweaks that can affect videos post-posting. But creators do need to pay attention to where safe zones currently are for the platforms where they intend to post. If the audience can’t see a crucial part of their ad, it will underperform, and could jeopardize their relationship with the sponsoring brand.

CreativeX found that only 3% of creator-made ads adhered completely to safe zones. (To be fair, though, brand-made ads didn’t fare well either; only 12% of them use safe zones properly.)

Leng told Adweek the point of releasing this report and pushing creators to abide by the rules is because there are “real constraints that are algorithmically determined for these platforms.”

“This is not about changing the creator’s idea or their message, it’s about putting in a container where the user can actually fully enjoy that message in a way that plays by the rules of the platform,” she said.

Brands want creators because they’re inventive experts in their niches, with audiences who dig what they make. For some issues, like safe zones and correctly disclosing sponsorships, creators do have to be mindful. But is a 16% higher video completion rate worth blasting the name of a brand in the first three seconds of a video? Will that turn off the aforementioned finicky audiences? Most long-form sponsorships we see on YouTube wrap the ad spot into the video, giving viewers the chance to sink into the upload before they’re hit with a brand mention, while most short-form ads are entirely about the sponsor, often with a namedrop midway through or at the end.

Leng said CreativeX doesn’t want creators’ messages to change, but pushing them to adhere to a timestamped formula decided by an AI might in fact make them feel constrained–and might make audiences feel like there’s less of the intangible magic sauce that is authenticity.

Filed under: advertising, Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There’s been another twist in the tale of the U.S. TikTok ban.

Two weeks ago, this saga seemed to be sorted. President Trump announced that a deal was “pretty much” done, with a group of buyers lined up to acquire TikTok and avert a shutdown of the app’s U.S. operations. To that end, TikTok was reported to be developing an app called M2, which would operate exclusively in the U.S. and allow government regulators to oversee data collection and storage.

But if you thought this brouhaha could be resolved so simply, you haven’t been following the years-long story that has unfolded up to this point. A lot has happened since the M2 report came out, and after celebrating a rumored TikTok acquisition, the Trump White House is now hitting the app with a threat: Get a deal done, or else you won’t get another ban extension.

That ultimatum came from White House Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who discussed TikTok during an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. “We’ve made the decision. You can’t have Chinese control and have something on 100 million American phones,” Lutnick said. He indicated that if a deal is not approved by the current September 17 deadline, “TikTok is going to go dark.”

That harsh language represents a sharp pivot from the optimistic outlook the Trump White House expressed earlier in July. Since then, two notable complications have become publicly known. Blackstone, the VC firm with more than $1 trillion of assets under its management, chose to pull out of the investment group that’s looking to acquire TikTok. On the other side of the negotiations, TikTok reps flatly denied the M2 report, claiming it to be “factually inaccurate.”

The White House has controlled the narrative surrounding the potential TikTok ban, but the repeated delays to the deal-making process and the waffling of potential suitors are reminders that Americans must also consider the Chinese perspective. Persistent rumors have suggested that authorities in Beijing are not enthused by Trump’s TikTok power play, and the latest setbacks show that a ban-averting deal may not be as close to fruition as the current administration would like you to believe.

The primary factor bringing ByteDance to the table is the potential economic hit it would take if TikTok is indeed restricted in the United States. That concern might be real enough to get a deal done, but at this point, I don’t believe a word out of anyone’s mouth regarding the status of these negotiations. We’re either going to get a deal by the fall, or this saga is going to be the latest in a growing number of TACO moments in the Trump presidency. By September 17, we’ll know which of those paths this deal is taking.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Sony Pictures Television wants to go into business with U.K.-based creators, so it has hired an executive whose experience straddles the line between traditional and digital channels. Matt Ford, whose resume includes stints at British broadcasters BBC and Channel 4, has been tapped to occupy a newly created VP of Commercial and Digital role at Sony’s TV production wing.

Deadline reported that Ford will “engage with U.K. content creators, create digital originals, and build creator partnerships” in his new position. “Streaming, digital, social, and audio platforms” will all be in play as Sony Pictures Television looks to reignite and refocus its original content operation.

As the U.K. creator economy has ballooned to a £2 billion valuation, local influencers have worked their way into the TV and streaming industries. The Sidemen made a splash when they brought their reality show Inside to Netflix, porting it away from its original home on YouTube.

Channel 4 has been heavily involved in that trend. It has greenlit shows inspired by YouTube formats while racking up millions of views on its irreverent Channel 4.0 hub. Channel 4 programs like Taskmaster have reached international audiences by distributing episodes for free on YouTube.

During his stint at Channel 4, Ford played a key role in the public broadcaster’s digital push. He launched 4Studio, a venture described as “the engine room for C4’s digital acceleration strategy.” Now he’ll have another opportunity to pair traditional media resources with young, trendy stars.

In a statement, Ford expressed his desire to reach out to U.K. creators. “It’s an exciting moment to be part of such an iconic studio, especially one that has such a forward-thinking approach to digital, and I want to hear from U.K. creators who have bold ideas for new shows, new formats, and new channels,” he said.

Sony Pictures Television is no stranger to the digital media world, though its history in that space has been a roller coaster. The studio created a new window for its properties when it acquired Crackle in 2006. The on-demand hub briefly flourished thanks to originals like Jerry Seinfeld’s Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, but it struggled to establish a clear identity and was eventually shuttered.

Post-Crackle, Sony has made more forays into the digital video world, such as the kid-friendly channel Kidzuko. Like other firms known for their work on TV, Sony’s studio wing is following the money to platforms like YouTube and Netflix, even if that business doesn’t always come as easily as it seems.

Luckily for Sony Pictures Television, there are plenty of creators who will be eager to work with such a famous name in entertainment. In a recent survey published by YouTube, 43% of U.K. creators said they are unrecognized in the broader creative industry. Ford can soothe some of those jilted feelings by making some calls once he gets cracking at his new position.

Filed under: Articles, Crackle (Sony Pictures Television), Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Alphabet‘s quarterly earnings are in, and YouTube is looking pretty swank: It overshot analyst expectations of $9.56 billion to land at $9.8 billion in ad earnings. That brings it up ~10% from Q1’s earnings of $8.9 billion.

Alphabet overall similarly beat expectations, bringing in $96.4 billion instead of the expected $94.02 billion, with a net of $28.2 billion–a 19% increase from Q2 last year.

CEO Sundar Pichai called the quarter a “standout,” with “robust growth across the company.” He largely attributed this growth to Google‘s decision to embrace generative artificial intelligence, a choice we’ve seen ripple through YouTube.

“AI is positively impacting every part of the business, driving strong momentum,” he said. “Search delivered double-digit revenue growth, and our new features, like AI Overviews and AI Mode, are performing well.”

We’re betting Alphabet is especially pleased with the Search bump for two reasons: one, TikTok accidentally became a search engine for The Youths and leaned into that with more functionalities and more ads; and two, OpenAI is currently building a browser intended to challenge Chrome, which drives significant traffic to Search and other Google products.

But while Search has challengers, there’s one sector of Alphabet that increasingly does not.

YouTube.

Pichai noted “strong performance” from the platform, reiterating that YouTube is the single most-watched video destination in the United States. Its TV superdominance continues: According to Nielsen’s latest numbers, YouTube accounted for 12.8% of all TV usage in June. Its closest competitor is Netflix with 8.3%. No other streaming service or linear/broadcast TV network reached 5%.

That’s the same sort of lead that puts MrBeast at the top of our most-watched charts every time he posts a video. In terms of raw viewership and follower count, he has no peers in the content creation space. And his home platform is right there with him. Its lead is simply too large.

(The Hollywood Reporter theorizes this lead might bring Netflix around to the idea of embracing user-generated content. We’re not so sure about that, but we do think it’ll continue to “farm” YouTube talent for its own purposes.)

YouTube’s TV viewership wasn’t the only thing Pichai hyped. He also talked up Shorts, which now collectively generate 200 billion views per day. Good thing YouTube started running ads on them, eh?

Pichai gave a nod to the upcoming Chargers vs Chiefs NFL game, which will be played Sept. 5 in São Paulo and for which YouTube won the exclusive streaming rights. It plans to stream the game for free, but clearly intends for that to be just a taste, encouraging viewers to sign up for the much pricier NFL Sunday Ticket.

All these results are inspiring Alphabet to invest more over the rest of this year.

“With this strong and growing demand for our Cloud products and services, we are increasing our investment in capital expenditures in 2025 to approximately $85 billion and are excited by the opportunity ahead,” Pichai said.

What do we expect? Well, we’re no Wall Street analysts, but we know YouTube. Thanks to our Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Reports, we’re aware YouTube is seeing more and more Shorts ad partnerships per week, indicating brands are embracing the format as valuable ground for their marketing budgets. And since YouTube keeps introducing more connected TV ad opportunities to match its growing market share, brands will likely be keen to follow audiences there, too.

Basically? Shorts and connected TV continue to grow–and they’ll keep driving YouTube’s ad revenue to higher and higher heights.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, YouTube by James Hale
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Over the years, YouTube‘s comment section has developed an unsavory reputation, to say the least. Now, the platform is mulling a change that could make its post-video discussions more substantial. YouTube Premium users have the chance to try out threaded comments, which resemble the multi-tiered conversations that are most closely associated with Reddit.

According to Android Police, YouTube tested a rudimentary version of its threaded comments earlier this year. The test is now expanding to Premium subscribers, who can participate in YouTube’s comment section experiment until August 14.

YouTube comments have gone through a lot of changes over the years, but some creators (and, occasionally, YouTube itself) have resolved that turning comments off is the best way to get around the stream of invective that section often contains. Not to be deterred, YouTube has recently ramped up its investment in comments. Last year, for example, it made comments more accessible for the young viewers who frequent the YouTube Kids app.

If you want to know why YouTube suddenly seems to care about comments, look no further than some of the platform’s recent features. YouTube wants creators to turn comments into Shorts, and its Google Search-style AI overviews could theoretically become more accurate and useful if they were to pull from the sort of lucid discussion threads that can be found on Reddit.

In general, YouTube has made a push to turn channels into all-purpose community hubs that creators can use to engage their most ardent fans. Like polls and text posts, threaded comment sections promise more interaction between uploaders and the masses who consume their work.

Or maybe the rationale behind this experiment is even simpler: It could just be that YouTube, like other social platforms, sees Reddit’s model as the epitome of internet comments. Threaded posts are a feature on the decentralized X alternative Bluesky, and Meta’s Threads has adopted them as well.

If you think Reddit’s conversations could work on YouTube, and you have a Premium account, you can help the Google-owned hub gather data on its latest experimental feature. If you want to try threaded YouTube comments for yourself, youtube.com/new is the place to go.

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