As the amount of ad revenue generated on TikTok continues to rise, buyers are looking for more tools that can measure the impact of their social media campaigns. TikTok provided one of those assets earlier this week when it announced an expanded partnership with software platform DoubleVerify.
The deal brings DoubleVerify’s Authentic Attention technology to TikTok ads. Brands and agencies can use the new measurement tool to track TikTok campaigns at the impression level. By incorporating statistics like viewable time, share of screen, video presentation, and audibility, Authentic Attention delivers precise insights to users.
As digital media budgets have swallowed up bigger and bigger pieces of the advertising pie, the measurement industry has taken some time to catch up. Talk of a “measurement gap” has persisted for years, and buyers continued to beat that drum throughout 2025. An eMarketer report published in June revealed that measurement difficulties are currently the most common pain point for creator marketers.
For the platforms looking to introduce more sophisticated measurement, DoubleVerify has become a trusted partner. It teamed up with Facebook after the Meta-owned platform drew criticism for fudging video viewership numbers. And when YouTube was in the midst of the Adpocalypse, DoubleVerify showed up to provide needed safeguards.
TikTok and DoubleVerify have worked together since 2021. By implementing Authentic Attention, TikTok is putting its faith in a solution that first debuted on Snapchat earlier this year.
Other platforms have proposed various solutions to bridge the measurement gap. A U.K. nonprofit has proposed ratings that function more like TV while Google has suggested that AI could hold the key to unlocking sophisticated measurement solutions.
TikTok could still try those alternative strategies, but the DoubleVerify partnership is a strong short-term option. After generating $500 million during the recent Black Friday weekend, TikTok is primed for a big 2026 from an ad revenue standpoint. Thanks to DoubleVerify, advertisers will understand why they should stick around on the For You Page.
Viral Nation’s model is a different beast. Over the past year or so, it’s worked with creators represented by its talent management division to come up with their dream IP, then approached companies like Wind Sun Sky Entertainment to work on the projects.
Now that pipeline is about to get a lot busier.
Viral Nation just signed a deal with British multinational production company Fremantle, and its label Beach House Pictures, to produce a number of creator-led series that are designed to reach digital-savvy audiences.
“Fremantle has this incredible history of building global formats, scaling ideas, and producing premium content at scale,” Danny Rowlands, Fremantle’s SVP of Global Entertainment, tells Tubefilter. “Viral Nation, on the other hand, lives right in the center of the creator economy, using data, deep relationships with talent, real-time understanding of digital culture, and ability to move quickly and authentically.
“When you pair the two,” he says, “you have an opportunity to capture the audience in fresh and creative ways.”
Rowlands says the partnership stemmed from both Viral Nation and Fremantle “recognizing that creators and traditional media are crossing over. They’re overlapping, influencing each other, and in many cases co-creating the next big hits.”
A deal between the two means combining “Fremantle’s storytelling engines with Viral Nation’s creator ecosystem” to “build IP that feels relevant, modern, and scalable across platforms,” he says.
Telner adds, “We’ve created this amazing partnership to really give our creators an opportunity to develop, produce, and eventually have air premium projects, starring themselves, produced by a world-class company like Fremantle. It’s incredible for our creators to have that ability to connect with Fremantle to develop shows and projects, whether those are on streamers or straight to YouTube.”
He explains that debuting shows straight on YouTube–the home platform for many of the creators Viral Nation represents–is “a really big priority” for both Viral Nation and Fremantle.
Fremantle’s Singapore-based Beach House Pictures, which has grown itself a thriving business making true crime content for Netflix, will lead the charge in developing the partnership’s first two shows, Model Creator and Cr1me C0de.
Produced hand-in-hand with top modeling agency Ford Models, Model Creator is an America’s Next Top Model-esque contest that will “spotlight authenticity, storytelling, and self-expression across digital and fashion platforms,” per the show’s official description. Contestants will compete in challenges posed by world-renowned models and fashion industry experts, and the winner will be signed for representation with both Viral Nation and Ford Models.
Across the genre aisle (but still in the realm of reality TV), Cr1me C0de will take cases from around the world and use generative AI to turn them into installments of creator-led long- and short-form content.
Donovan Chan, co-founder and Creative Director at Beach House Pictures, says the AI tools involved will be “proprietary” and “used in a way that would give it speed-to-market efficiency, while at the same time giving it that premium feel.”
“It’s very curated, highly stylized,” he says. “It can’t be factory setting. It has to be that Netflix vibe of true crime.”
Chan thinks Cr1me C0de “will allow creators to do something they’ve never done before. It’s their passion, and we want to help them achieve that.”
He also notes that, in contrast to a lot of current English-language true crime content, Cr1me C0de will spotlight stories from around the world.
“We want to offer a perspective that audiences may not be getting from other streamers, and be able to let them hear true crime stories from other parts of the world,” he says. “AI allows us to make it easier for them to digest in English.”
The show will be “universally accessible” and will “involve a variety of Viral Nation creators who are strong and have a social media audience in the true crime space,” Chan says.
For Telner, Viral Nation’s partnership with Fremantle is confirmation of something he knew a long time ago: creators are “the cool kids.”
“It’s, selfishly, a very proud moment for me, because I’ve been in creators’ corners–aging myself here–since 2004, 2005. I was like, ‘These are the cool kids. These kids matter,'” he explains. “To see them now have the ability to work with Donovan and Fremantle, it’s very cool for me.”
Model Creator, Cr1me C0de, and other productions stemming from this partnership will push both Viral Nation and Fremantle forward, into “a world where entertainment isn’t defined by format length or medium anymore,” Rowlands says. “Audiences are fluid, talent is platform-agnostic, and ideas can start anywhere. We are embracing that rather than fighting it.”
Both Model Creator and Cr1me C0de will premiere in 2026.
Viral Nation is a Tubefilter partner.
Filed under: Homepage Feature, Viral Nation by Tubefilter Staff Comments Off on Viral Nation and Fremantle’s new deal puts creators in charge of original premium series, starting with ‘Model Creator’ and ‘Cr1me C0de’
On December 10, Australia became the first nation in the world to ban teenagers from major social media apps. The federal restriction prevents citizens under the age of 16 from accessing YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, X, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, and Kick.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese defended the law by pointing to the youth mental health crisis he faces, but Australia’s harsh measure has attracted its fair share of critics. Now, with the ban in effect, multiple legal challengers — including affected platform Reddit and at least two teenagers — are looking to restore access by suing the Australian government.
In Australia, the campaign to separate teens from their social media feeds was informed by parental concerns. Polling data has shown that people around the world would support similar restrictions in their own countries.
Though well-intentioned, the law has been described as an imperfect solution that will prove difficult to enforce. After revealing the initial list of banned platforms, Australia caught flak for excluding YouTube. Some critics felt that lawmakers were struggling to understand the social media ecosystem, even after the law was updated to include YouTube.
Australia’s ability to control teens’ browsing behavior has also been called into question. Google cautioned lawmakers that their restrictions would be “extremely difficult” to enforce, while Amnesty International described the measure as an “ineffective quick fix” that would not reduce online harms.
The first few days of the ban have validated those warnings. Many Australian youths have already found their way back onto their favorite feeds. The government’s age verification tools have proven no match for the AI deepfakes, family photos, and VPNs the kids are using to dodge detection.
For the people and platforms that are directly affected by the law, there are deeper concerns. With its use of age verification technology and its wide-ranging scope, the social media ban feels like an invasion of privacy. Two teenagers who sued their home country are arguing that the rule restricts their personal freedoms. Reddit echoed that sentiment in its own lawsuit, in which it characterizes the law as a government overreach.
Australia’s ability to enforce its social media ban will have huge implications for similar policies that are being drafted across the globe. Denmark has already revealed its plan to enact a similar crackdown on youth social media use, and frequent social media watchdog France could follow suit as well. Those governments feel that something must be done about the negative effects of social algorithms, but figuring out how to get the kids off their feeds is already proving tricky.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Australia’s social media ban has taken effect, and the world is watching
In 2026, pocket.watch is going down the Rabbit Hole, and some of the biggest creators on YouTube and TikTok are coming with it. The family-friendly creator studio has revealed the complete cast for its upcoming Hulu variety show, and the assembled talent includes influencers like Collins Key and Sofie Dossi as well as TV vets like Josh Peck.
The first season of Rabbit Hole will be a ten-episode affair that will premiere on the U.S. version of Hulu next year. In a press release, pocket.watch describes the show’s cast as “the largest ensemble of digital stars ever brought together for a premium series.”
Previously announced cast members include Matthew Beem, Dan Rhodes, ExtraEmily, Papa Jake, Mackenzie Turner, Topper Guild, Zhong, ZHC, That’s Amazing, Jesser, The Rizzler, and AJ & Big Justice. Those creators will be joined on Hulu by Peck, Key, Dossi, EvanTube, PrettyBored, and Sydney Morgan.
Some of those creators, such as Rhodes and EvanTube, are pocket.watch partners. Others, like Topper Guild and Zhong, regularly rank among YouTube’s most-watched channels. Collectively, the Rabbit Hole players have more than 600 million followers and subscribers.
Though Rabbit Hole is far from the first original series pocket.watch has produced, the variety show exemplifies the cross-pollination between digital and traditional media that has defined the studio since its inception. In 2017, Chris M. Williams — an established exec in the creator world — forged a partnership with former Nickelodeon President Albie Hecht. Together, Williams and Hecht planned to combine compelling, TV-style formats with social media tastemakers to create a new type of studio.
In its early days, pocket.watch traded on Hecht’s Nickelodeon legacy by teaming up with the actors and showrunners the kids’ network helped make famous. Seven years later, pocket.watch has expanded considerably (its library spans tens of thousands of creator-led videos), but Hecht and co. are still reformulating concepts that worked on TV. Rabbit Hole, which Hecht co-created alongside pocket.watch Head of Development Carin Davis, resembles another show that let an ensemble of young upstarts flex their creative muscles. I’m talking about All That, the Nickelodeon sketch show from the 90s that Hecht helped develop.
“Rabbit Hole pushes boundaries to give creators an authentic place for their work on a premium platform,” Hecht said in a statement. “Hulu is the perfect collaborator to bring this bold, first-of-its-kind series to a streaming audience and deliver an experience that truly resonates with teens as Gen Alpha ages.”
Some of those Gen Alpha consumers are set to begin high school, and as they do, their tastes will inevitably change. Since pocket.watch knows a thing or two about watching child stars grow up, it’s in a good position to work within that shifting generational culture — and Rabbit Hole is one result.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, Hulu, News, pocket.watch by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on The internet’s family-friendly faves are going down the ‘Rabbit Hole’ for “the ultimate teen variety show” (Exclusive)
For social-savvy brands, 2025 was the year of the creator program. Everyone from Best Buy to Ulta Beauty to Starbucks introduced initiatives that turn creators into salespeople by putting them in charge of product recommendations, brand ambassadorship, and sponsored content.
Now, as the year draws to a close, we can add Home Depot to the list of retail brands that are embracing the creator program. The home improvement chain has assembled a team of influencers — or a “crew of doers,” as the official Home Depot copy puts it — who will partner with the brand throughout 2026 and beyond.
Like many other creator programs, Home Depot’s take on the concept uses a similar structure to affiliate marketing programs. Participating creators will offer product recommendations, share home decor tips, and look to inspire their fans. In return, they’ll receive exclusive partnership offers and other opportunities to earn.
A creator program is pointless without a compelling partner roster to go with it, so Home Depot has assembled a powerful team for what it describes as its “Starting Lineup.” That group includes several creators with ties to the world of sports, including the trick-shot masters of Dude Perfect and the American soccer star Trinity Rodman.
Those allusions to the sports world are intentional. Home Depot is aligning its creator program with the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Brands and agencies are competing to claim pieces of the footballing action, and Home Depot is no exception.
In a statement, Home Depot SVP and CMO Molly Battin alluded to the World Cup fever that is expected to sweep across North America in 2026. “We know our customers love sports, so we’re especially excited to launch this program with our Starting Lineup that will deliver tailored soccer content such as how to transform your backyard for your own neighborhood soccer matches and viewing parties,” she said.
As Home Depot works its way into the creator world, it will have to contend with stiff competition from other home improvement chains. Its primary rival, Lowe’s, established a creator program of its own and even brought MrBeast into the fold. Home Depot is hoping that its customers get a kick out of its Starting Lineup — and that they trust its creator recommendations over the next year.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Home Depot puts Dude Perfect in its “starting lineup” for new creator program
Remember six months ago, when we published sunny coverage of Disney‘s lawsuit against Midjourney, with predictions that the Mouse House might be the one to halt the ever-widening omnipresence of generative AI?
Yeah, so it just did a deal with OpenAI.
We’re not exactly surprised, considering last month, CEO Bob Iger told shareholders that Disney was in the midst of “productive conversations” with unnamed AI companies, and that sometime in the future, its streaming service Disney+ will open the floor for AI-generated UGC featuring proprietary characters.
“The other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience, including the ability for them to create user-generated content and to consume user generated content–mostly short-form–from others,” Iger said.
Now we know that “ability” is going to come from OpenAI.
Two things have happened in the last 24 hours:
Disney announced it’ll invest $1 billion into OpenAI as part of a three-year licensing deal. Said deal will allow OpenAI’s video generator Sora to output content that contains characters from Disney properties, including the various Marvel, Pixar, and Star Warsfranchises.
Disney immediately turned around and went after OpenAI competitor and YouTube parent Google, filing a cease-and-desist that accuses it of copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
“Google has deeply embedded its infringing video and image AI Services into its broad family of products and services actively used by over a billion people,” Disney said in the letter. “This multiplies the scope of Google’s infringement, and harm to Disney’s intellectual property, not to mention the ill-gotten benefits Google enjoys from its unauthorized exploitation of Disney’s copyrighted works.”
Disney specifically cited Google’s tools Gemini, Veo, Imagen, and Nano Banana, and said these models have generated “pristine” images/videos of Star Wars and Marvel characters in response to user prompts.
While this is the first time Disney has publicly swung at Google, things have apparently been happening behind closed doors; Disney said it’s been telling Google about its IP concerns for months, but “[i]f anything, Google’s infringement has only increased during that time,” it alleged.
“Google’s AI Services are designed to free ride off Disney’s intellectual property,” Disney wrote. “Google has refused to implement any technological measures to mitigate or prevent copyright infringement, even though such measures are readily available and being used by Google’s competitors. Instead, Google continues to directly exploit Disney’s copyrights for commercial gain.”
While we don’t doubt that litigious Disney has been pursuing Google’s alleged infringement for months, it is worth noting–in context with the new OpenAI handhold–that Google has emerged as OpenAI’s frontrunning competitor in AI. It debuted the latest version of its chatbot Gemini last month, and saw quick comparisons to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Much of that comparing significantly favored Google, prompting (no pun intended) OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to send a company-wide memo declaring a “code red” effort to improve ChatGPT ASAP. To make room for engineers to work on GPT improvements, OpenAI would push back its advertising initiative, plus development on AI “agents” for shopping and wellness and development on Pulse, its personal assistant bot, Altman said.
What does all this leave us with? Honestly, we don’t know. The AI bubble has been swelling for months now, with billions upon billions of dollars of investment from big tech, startups, and Silicon Valley VCs alike. With the Disney x OpenAI deal, the biggest entertainment company in the world has taken sides.
Mostly we’re hoping that for OpenAI’s sake, it puts some pretty serious guardrails on what Disney content people can generate. Otherwise that mythical Disney vault might actually become reality.
Filed under: Disney, Google, Homepage Feature, OpenAI by James Hale Comments Off on Disney signs $1 billion licensing deal with OpenAI, is big mad at Google
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A major social media platform is using an AI chatbot to make users manage the quality of its recommendation algorithm themselves.
First X, then YouTube, now Instagram. Mark Zuckerberg is pushing his company hard on generative AI (to the shareholder-spooking tune of $72 billion in capital expenditures), and the latest tool to emerge from that push is something called “Your Algorithm.”
Instagram describes Your Algorithm as “a new way to control your Instagram experience.” It’s rolling out first to Reels, and will appear as a tappable icon in the upper right-hand corner of users’ apps. Tap the icon, and a panel will show you your top interests and–here’s the crucial part–let you “tune your preferences” by “typ[ing] in the topics you want to see more or less of.”
Reels will then adjust your personal recommendation algorithm based on your input.
“Instagram has always been a place to dive deep into your interests and connect with friends,” the platform said in a blog post. “As your interests evolve over time, we want to give you more meaningful ways to control what you see on Instagram, starting with Reels. Using AI, you can now more easily view and personalize the topics that shape your Reels, making recommendations feel even more tailored to you.”
This tool sounds just like X and YouTube’s, right down to the chatbot aspect. X’s tool will use Grok, and YouTube’s will use Veo 3. Meta’s will presumably be powered by its own inventively named Meta AI.
Giving people more control over what they see on social media is a good thing, and considering how skeptical users (and creators) have been about recommendation algorithms doing what they’re supposed to, we’re not surprised that’s one of the first public-facing areas where platforms are implementing DIY AI.
But it is concerning that instead of addressing users’ concerns about their feeds being rife with AI slop, faceless garbage, and content unrelated to their interests by making structural changes to their algorithms, platforms are outsourcing that effort to users.
We’ve been told now for years that generative AI is the future. OK, sure. So that future is this: If you want decent content recommendations on social media platforms, you have to do it yourself. And if you don’t want to use xAI, Google, and Meta’s proprietary chatbots? Then any bad recommendations you get are your fault.
Filed under: Homepage Feature, Instagram by James Hale Comments Off on Instagram is the latest platform to make users fix their own recommendation algorithms (via AI chatbot, of course)
When YouTube first launched, it was a place for people to upload their videos. Most people (including YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, with his iconic Me at the zoo) uploaded their videos unedited, and were happy if they got a few thousand views.
But what was once a little website full of raw-cut flip phone videos is now a central hub of the $250 billion creator economy. And as our industry has grown, YouTube’s grown with it. Now, the Google-owned platform offers a whole suite of production and post-production tools–including tools that help YouTubers automatically subtitle and dub their content in multiple languages.
We’ve previously written about multi-language subtitles (which translate a creator’s content on their original video, on their original channel) versus channel localization (where videos are taken and rebranded into different languages, with new channels, titles, and thumbnails targeted at regional audiences). Since that article, YouTube has pushed further into generative AI and introduced the next step after subtitles: autogenerated audio dub tracks.
For some creators, these dub tracks will be sufficient, in the same way YouTube’s on-platform editing and audience engagement tools are sufficient. YouTubers looking to level up, however, will have to tap the ever-growing market of creator services companies.
One of those companies is Linguana, a startup founded in 2023 by CEO Yuval Tal and CTO Oded Shafran. Its specialty is the aforementioned content localization. To localize, it partners with successful creators and launches brand-new YouTube channels targeting their biggest potential international audiences. (An English-language creator who sees significant potential growth from Germany, Mexico, France, and Brazil, for example, might choose to start by launching four localized channels targeted at those regions.)
Linguana’s international channel setup involves mirroring details like the creator’s bio, outgoing links, and other metadata–but, of course, the most important part is maintaining videos’ appeal in languages other than the creator’s native tongue.
This is where Linguana’s edge comes in, Chief Marketing Officer Jonny Steel tells Tubefilter.
Right now, creators who want to meet international audiences on their own language level have two options at opposite ends of the budget spectrum: YouTube’s default AI-voice dubbing, or going the MrBeast route and shelling out for professional voice actors.
YouTube’s default AI dubbing is the lowest strain on a creator’s wallet, and can be valuable for entry-level YouTubers. But there are quality issues: it can be “pretty flat and missing out on your emotion and personality,” Steel says.
“When there’s multiple speakers or a man and woman speaking, or adults and children, it can get the voices muddled,” he says. “The system is unable to separate them clearly, or sometimes it’s the same voice for multiple speakers.”
The end result can be that the translated video is “not a very good experience for viewers,” he says, which hurts a creator’s retention and watch time, and can potentially shrink their international growth potential.
On the high-budget end is human voice acting. “This is a really good option if you have deep pockets,” Steel says. “Voice acting costs sometimes $20 to $50 a minute. If you think about that, a creator with a lot of videos, doing this in a whole bunch of languages, it can be very difficult to see a real ROI.”
He emphasizes that if a creator has the budget to hire actors, “that’s great.” But for most creators, “It will be very difficult to make that profitable.”
Linguana comes in as a middle option. Steel claims its localized content, which is dubbed in AI trained on creators’ own voices, is far higher-quality than auto-dubbed videos, and also doesn’t require creators to invest the high up-front cost of hiring human actors.
“Our quality of dubbing is exceptionally high,” he says. This is because, on top of doing voice cloning, it does what he refers to as “emotional replication.”
“When someone gets really excited in the original language, the cloned voice gets excited with them,” he explains. “It can tell different people, different ages…” And overall, he says, Linguana’s dubbing adds “a lot of localization value.”
He openly says, though, that Linguana’s services (which don’t cost anything upfront; creators pay by splitting revenue on the localized channels) aren’t for everyone. He reiterates that creators early on in their journey will do just fine with YouTube’s default tools.
“If you’re a small channel, the auto-dubbing is great,” he says. “What we’re trying to do, is offer a premium product via a partnership model for a different audience of established creators.”
To that end, creators have to meet a certain engagement threshold to partner with Linguana. “We only tend to partner with creators who’ve already got pretty good momentum in their original language,” Steel says. “If we were to take a creator too small, it wouldn’t be profitable. We would just lose money, and the creator wouldn’t get a huge amount of value. We want creators who are already established, they already have a business. They’re investing in the next step.”
Linguana partners with creators when it can see itself providing value–and in some cases, that value adds up to “tens of thousands of dollars a month in new revenue,” Steel says.
One of the creators who’s worked with Linguana for localization is SLAV’s ADVENTURES, who’s gathered 3.6 million subscribers on his channel with content that merges gaming and internet culture with magnet fishing. Linguana built and manages 13 fully localized channels for him, reaching audiences that speak languages including Spanish, Portuguese, and French.
To date, these localized channels have brought over 60 million views, and has “generated meaningful new revenues for Slav,” Steel says.
We’ll have more case studies from Linguana soon, so keep your eyes peeled. Creators interested in working with Linguana can check it out here.
Linguana is a Tubefilter partner.
Filed under: Homepage Feature, Linguana by Tubefilter Staff Comments Off on Creators with international audiences should localize their content. Linguana is using AI-cloned voices to do it.
The Pew Research Center‘s latest check-in on teen social media habits reveals that U.S. youths are feeling conflicted. On one hand, they’re using major social platforms in greater numbers. On the flipside, however, teens are feeling increasingly anxious about the powerful effects social feeds have on their lives.
Pew’s teens-only update follows a more general survey of American social media habits. In that first report, Facebook was the second-most commonly used social platform (behind YouTube), but when older generations are omitted from the sample, the results change dramatically. Among teenage respondents, Facebook was one of just two platforms to see its overall adoption decline year-over-year (X is the other social giant showing a downward trend.)
As for the other six platforms charted for Pew’s latest study — YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Reddit — a higher percentage of teens reported using those apps compared to last year. The most dramatic rise belonged to WhatsApp, which is now being used by nearly a quarter of U.S. teens. Three years ago, only 17% of teens were active on Meta’s encrypted messaging service.
So to make a long story short, teens continue to increase their social media activity across the board. About 20% of teens said they use YouTube “almost constantly,” and a similar number said the same about TikTok. On the whole, the percentage of teens who say they are constantly online is up to 40%. A decade ago, that figure sat at 24%.
Teens don’t necessarily feel good about those habits. Last year, nearly half of Gen Z respondents said that they wish TikTok had never existed, even as the app’s usage skyrocketed among that group. So what gives? Why do teens continue to rely on social media, even if they feel it negatively impacts their lives?
Nature provided one potential explanation. The scientific journal published the results of a study that examined “overestimates of social media addiction.” The researchers found that teens who perceive that they are “addicted” to social media have a harder time curbing or controlling their screen time.
The Pew data, on the other hand, suggests that some teens are finding the willpower they need to rein in excessive social media activity. Even though the percentage of respondents who are constantly online has risen dramatically over the past decade, that figure declined year-over-year between 2024 and 2025.
Those responses show that American youths are eager to regulate themselves, even if their current habits might suggest otherwise. The rest of us can help them out by being extra careful about our word choices. Excessive social media use may look like addiction, but branding it with that term is more likely to exacerbate problems rather than resolving them.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Teens worry about the amount of time they spend on social media, but they’re using it more than ever
Mariah Carey‘s rendition of “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is inescapable this time of year. It’s in stores, commercials, and the music charts, and on December 13, it will be on TikTok Live, too. The app is teaming up with Apple Music to broadcast Mariah Carey’s Here for It All Holiday Special, a concert that will promote the legendary diva’s new record while putting a capstone on her Las Vegas residency.
Both TikTok Live and Apple Music will broadcast the special, which will look to capitalize on Carey’s seasonal popularity. The singer-songwriter has made a habit of holiday season partnerships with social media platforms. She has belted out her Christmastime favorites on YouTube and Snapchat, and she uses TikTok to share her annual introductions to the holiday season. According to a blog post, TikTok videos featuring “All I Want For Christmas Is You” have accrued 130 billion views to date.
“Mariah Carey isn’t just part of the holidays – she IS the holidays,” said TikTok Global Head of Music Business Development Tracy Gardner in a statement. “TikTok is where music culture happens in real time, and we’re thrilled to bring her dazzling Vegas celebration to fans everywhere, live.”
TikTok is remixing its approach to music content
The Mariah Carey special won’t be the first pop concert broadcast on TikTok Live. In 2023, the likes of Cardi B, Anitta, and Niall Horan gathered in Arizona for In The Mix, a musical extravaganza that attracted nearly ten million live viewers.
As a live event, In The Mix succeeded. If, however, it was meant to promote the then-nascent TikTok Music service, it missed the mark. TikTok Music shut down before ever arriving in the United States, and TikTok had to rethink its approach to music content.
As part of that reshuffling, TikTok is applying the “In The Mix” moniker to a different medium: podcasts. A new live podcast series called TikTok In The Mix will delve into the personal lives and careers of pop hitmakers.
Jack Coyne of Trackstar will host the show, and if you’ve ever seen his TikToks, you’ll know to expect a combination of fun music trivia and probing insights from In The Mix. In the first installment of a four-episode first season, Coyne’s guest is Demi Lovato.
@tiktok the instant lock in needs to be studied @Demi Lovato Watch TikTok In The Mix with Demi Lovato on our page. Presented by @T-Mobile ♬ original sound – TikTok
TikTok’s outsized influence on the pop music scene cannot be denied, but the app is still figuring out the best way to harness its cultural impact. A mix of live events and podcasts fits with TikTok’s current priorities — even if we some of us are willing to admit that we’re sick of “All I Want For Christmas Is You.”
Since its introduction in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has become a bona fide year-event Event™. People talk about their personalized sum-ups for weeks before and after its debut, and though some inevitably find the finished product underwhelming, Spotify has largely monopolized the medium by including unique elements like thank-you clips from artists, and has primed Wrapped for social media sharing by using people’s listening histories to sort them into astrology-style, hashtaggable cohorts.
This year, for the first time, YouTube is trying its own version of Wrapped. Called YouTube Recap, it’s essentially the same thing: a personalized highlight reel that YouTube says “provides users with a fun, shareable summary of their individual viewing journey over the year.”
While Recap is YouTube’s first time giving users their very own EOY reels, it is, of course, not the first time Google’s video platform has attempted to cap off the year with a look-back.
As you probably remember, YouTube used to release an annual house-made production called Rewind. The idea was to encapsulate a full year of YouTube culture in one video, giving nods to top-watched creators, defining trends and memes, and uberviral songs (“Friday,” “What Does the Fox Say?” and “Gangnam Style” got spotlights). It was an almost archaeological endeavor, memorializing little Dada-esque bubbles of internet existence that, 500 years from now, will make historians wonder what substances a large portion of the population was rockin’ out with.
It was also incredibly divisive.
Less than a week after its debut, Rewind 2018 became YouTube’s most-disliked video ever. (This was back before they removed public dislikes.) Viewers’ core criticism was that YouTube had decided to highlight traditional celebrities like Will Smith and John Oliver while leaving out major creators like PewDiePie and Shane Dawson (who’d had controversial incidents but were still undeniably the biggest names on the platform), and ignoring creator events like the Logan Paul vs KSI match.
At the time, YouTuber Marques Brownlee neatly summarized creators’ criticisms: “YouTube Rewind, in a way, just turned into a giant ad for YouTube.”
This makes sense, because YouTube had just been through the Adpocalypse, and was laser-focused on trying to keep advertisers happy. But its attempt to push brand safety appeal to big media buyers was what did Rewind in. For 2019’s look-back, YouTube ditched the video format and skirted issues of omission by publishing a series of purely data-driven lists. For 2020, it cancelled any kind of EOY recap, citing the COVID pandemic and related financial and social stressors.
Then, in 2021, news came down: YouTube was shelving Rewind permanently.
“Since Rewind started in 2011, we have seen creators from MrBeast, elrubiusOMG, and Slayy Point, to so many more, create their own end-of-year videos, uniquely capturing the year from each of their perspectives,” YouTube told Tubefilter at the time. “It’ll continue to be inspiring to see the myriad of ways the most creative content producers in the world–our YouTube creators–encapsulate the end of year in their video recaps, as YouTube retires its own Rewind video.”
So Rewind may be gone, but it’s not forgotten: It’s back in the news cycle right now thanks to two things:
OG YouTuber NigaHigasaid his experiences on the Rewind set weren’t great
YouTube unceremoniously privated all Rewind videos so people can’t watch them anymore.
Unclear whether the latter is related to the former, or to YouTube’s rollout of Recap, but it happened.
And YouTube hasn’t been able to let go of wrap-ups completely.
The new iteration gives each viewer a reel with up to 12 “cards” that show their top channels, interests, “viewing habit evolution,” and a distinctly Spotify-y “personality type” based on watch history. Folks who use YouTube Music will also get their top artists and songs, plus “options to dive deeper into genres and podcasts via the YouTube Music app,” a YouTube rep says. (We’re not saying this is why YouTube’s doing Recap, but it’s worth noting YouTube and Spotify are in heated competition for the video podcast space.)
Unfortunately, at least for us, YouTube’s 2025 Recap hasn’t been working. It’s supposed to pop up in a user’s “You” tab, but despite communication with YouTube, we’re still not seeing anything.
YouTube said some things can cause users to miss out on the Recap, including:
not having “sufficient eligible watch history” from January to late October 2025
having your watch history paused while the Recap is being generated, or having your history auto-delete set lower than one year
and finally, not having “a sufficient diversity of topics and creators”
All of these points are a little vague, and we find it frustrating that having your watch history temporarily paused at the wrong moment will derail an entire year’s worth of wrap-up. We’ve seen other folks having similar issues, and some people who have gotten their Recaps have accused it of being “AI slop” that’s not representative of their activity.
Whether Recap sticks around or goes the way of Rewind, it’s obvious people are paying attention to YouTube’s EOY reels. They want to look back on their favorite content of the year. Platforms just have to let them.
Filed under: Homepage Feature, Uncategorized by James Hale Comments Off on YouTube evolved from Rewind to Recap. Is it a step up?
YouTube is reportedly preparing a new product aimed at sports fans. In 2026, YouTube TV is poised to expand its offering with a lineup of genre-specific skinny bundles, including a package based around live sports.
Sports Business Journal reported that YouTube TV has ten new bundles in the works. Among that group, the subscription offering for sports fans is most intriguing. YouTube knows just how valuable sports broadcast rights can be — that’s why it’s paying about $2 billion per season to distribute the NFL Sunday Ticket football package.
Sports rights also played a pivotal role in the protracted carriage dispute between Disney and YouTube. Some analysts argued that Disney’s holdout could reduce its reliance on distribution partners as it looks to clear a path for its new ESPN app. That direct-to-consumer offering includes all content from The Worldwide Leader In Sports, and it can also be bundled with the similarly new Fox One service.
If YouTube TV is going to convince consumers that no other streamer can offer better live sports coverage, then it needs a killer lineup. The upcoming skinny bundle is rumored to have a comprehensive channel list: It could bring together the ESPN family, Turner Sports channels, Fox’s FS1, and the NBC Sports Network under one roof. All of the basic network channels would be included as well.
For sports fans, that would be groundbreaking. It would mean no more bouncing between Paramount+ and HBO Max during March Madness. Baseball fans could watch playoff games on TBS, FOX, and ESPN in a single app. And YouTube would gain a bargaining chip it could deploy in any future carriage negotiations.
The planned bundle also connects to a different dispute involving Disney and YouTube TV. Earlier this year, the Mouse House sued YouTube in an attempt to stop its rival from poaching Justin Connolly, an experienced sports streaming executive. The two parties reached a settlement in October, and Connolly is now playing a key role in the development of the upcoming skinny bundle, according to Sports Business Journal.
Can Connolly use his ESPN experience to create a streaming service that appeals to sports fans around the world? That would be, from YouTube TV’s perspective, a veritable home run.
