If there’s one thing Kick is good at, it’s staying on brand. The streamer launched in 2022 with one core, effective pitch: It would be cooler than Twitch. All the fun, sexy things Twitch didn’t want, like gambling and hot tub streams? Not only would Kick allow them, it would make dedicated front-page categories for them. And hey, streamers like Adin Ross, who were booted off Twitch for serious offenses? Kick wouldn’t ban them–it would welcome them.

Basically, Kick wanted to be the new bad boy on the scene.

And it is.

But courting that edgy, contrarian reputation comes with drawbacks. We’ve written about some of them before. Now, it’s clear that some streamers look at Kick as a safety net, believing that if they’re kicked off Twitch, they’ll have a guaranteed big-money spot over there, just because it wants to get a shot in at its Amazon-owned competitor.

Those streamers include SoLLUMINATI, who returned to streaming May 1 after a five-year hiatus and was promptly banned twice by Twitch. One ban was for using a transphobic slur on stream, and the second was for reasons yet unclear, though it may be related to a stream where SoLLUMINATI verbally attacked Kai Cenat associate Zoe Spencer, upset about having been denied a spot in Cenat’s Streamer University.

When the second ban hit, SoLLUMINATI–true to his namesake–went conspiracist and theorized Twitch was unfairly targeting him because he had too many viewers.

“They saw me hit 87K viewers and thought, ‘Hold on. We got to stop this guy,'” he said in a YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIOSTwmrugE

In the same vid, he said he’s cancelling plans to host a series of IRL streams on Twitch, and appealed to Adin Ross and Kick: “Adin, Kick, y’all time has come. I just had 87,000 viewers, it is time for y’all to spoil me. Kick, I think we’ve got to bring the culture and drama to Kick, y’all,” he said.

Ross responded positively on his own stream, saying, “Chat, SoLLUMINATI is going to come to Kick. It is happening. It is happening sooner than we all think. SoLLUMINATI, welcome to Kick.”

That may be true–there does appear to be an official SoLLUMINATI Kick channel with ~6K followers, though it has no content–but Kick co-founder/CEO Ed Craven was quick to clarify SoLLUMINATI’s not coming over on Kick’s dime.

“Kick doesn’t offer lump sum deals,” Craven tweeted. (That’s a change.) “You can earn a fair pay, far more competitive than anywhere else with KPP, but it’s based on real output and merit. We believe this to be the fairest way to reward great creators.”

“End of the day,” he added, “stream where you feel is best for you.”

Kick doesn’t offer lump sum deals. You can earn a fair pay, far more competitive then anywhere else with KPP, but it’s based on real output and merit. We believe this to be the fairest way to reward great creators.

End of the day, stream where you feel is best for you 🤘

— Eddie (@StakeEddie) May 28, 2025

SoLLUMINATI doesn’t appear to have responded yet, but Ross did, and clearly wasn’t pleased. “I actually have to pay SoLLUMINATI out of my own pocket to stream on Kick,” he said during a stream. “Why wouldn’t I? I want him to come. Fuck it, why not? He’s the GOAT.”

Whether any of this will pan out with SoLLUMINATI on Twitch remains to be seen, but the real interesting part here (aside from the potential conflict between Kick’s owner/CEO and one of its marquee right-wing stars) is that Craven is clearly setting a boundary. He’s letting creators know that even if they get themselves Twitch banhammered by spewing slurs and courting conspiracist ideas–two things popular with some top Kick streamers–they won’t be handed cash money as a consolation prize.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, Kick by James Hale
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A month before its scheduled return to the Amalie Arena in Tampa, the Creator Clash has found itself engulfed in YouTube drama. Representatives for the influencer boxing showdown announced a move to Los Angeles and a postponement of its third go-around days after Creator Clash Co-Founder Ian ‘iDubbbz’ Jomha announced that he would step away from the event.

Creator Clash 3 is now slated to take place at the Hollywood Palladium in L.A. on October 25. A new lineup of creator fighters is expected to be announced in July.

The original Creator Clash, which took place in 2022, showcased the intense training and dedication that is required for a proper influencer boxing spectacle. The event was a success, reaching a sold-out live crowd and a 100,000-strong pay-per-view audience while raising money for charity along the way. A 2023 sequel brought more creators into the fun, but issues like content piracy made Creator Clash 2 a financial failure that lost $250,000.

Creator Clash 3 looked to get the event back in the green with a star-studded lineup, but its organizer’s original career got in the way. In April, iDubbbz dusted off his Content Cop series to take a swipe at Ethan Klein of h3h3productions. Klein’s retaliatory video led to widespread blowback against iDubbbz and his wife Anisa Jomha.

The feud between the Jomhas and Klein bled into the Creator Clash. Klein openly speculated about the event’s charitable nature; an FAQ on the Creator Clash website indicates that Stand Up To Cancer is still the “exclusive beneficiary” of its fundraising.

The drama led several slated fighters, including Epic Meal Time sauce boss Harley Morenstein, to step away from Creator Clash 3. To disconnect the event from their personal indiscretions, the Jomhas stepped away from their organizational duties. “I can’t really have my cake and eat it, too,” iDubbbz said. “It’s either you’re gonna talk shit like a foul beast on the internet, or you’re gonna have a charity event. It really can’t be both.”

In his stead, Real Good Touring is taking the lead on Creator Clash’s future. Refunds will be issued for those who purchased Amalie Arena tickets, and pay-per-view purchases will still be honored at the new event (though those buyers will have the option to claim a refund if they prefer).

Real Good Touring Co-Founder Arin Hanson, a former Creator Clash fighter, addressed the event’s current status in a YouTube video he hosted alongside fellow combatants Ethan Nestor and Alanah Pearce. “Creator Clash is such a special event,” Hanson said in a statement. “Fighting in it was one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life and seeing how hard the Creator Clash 3 fighters have been training, we need to do right by them, the fans, and the charity, in creating the best experience possible. We’re making the changes to make that happen.”

Fighters are still dropping out of Creator Clash 3, so it will be interesting to see the lineup Hanson and co. assemble for the October event. If you want to keep tabs on the latest updates, you can follow Creator Clash on social media.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Sydney Sweeney is going extremely online for her next merch collab.

Gamer girl bathwater? Nah. Now it’s Hollywood girl bathwater–and Sweeney’s the star.

She’s skinny-dipping with Dr. Squatch, the also extremely online soap company that’s made memeable scrubs with major IPs like Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Jurassic Park, and also with companies like Trojan, which was behind its recent “Bricc’d Up” bar.

Dr. Squatch is taking a similarly risqué approach with Sweeney, who rose to fame in 2023 thanks largely to her performance in modern Shakespeare movie Anyone but You alongside Glen Powell. (Her strategy of “leaning into it” with the movie’s flirty marketing campaign didn’t hurt either.)

Following in the footsteps of Belle Delphine and Amouranth, Sweeney is selling “Sydney’s Bathwater Bliss,” a men’s medium grit soap bar that Dr. Squatch swears is made with her actual bathwater.

The idea apparently came after Sweeney starred in a series of cheekily sexy Dr. Squatch ads in 2024, one of which–called “Dirty Little Boys”–featured her in a bathtub.

“You kept asking about Sydney Sweeney’s bathwater after we released our commercial…so we kept it,” Dr. Squatch tweeted.

Does the soap actually contain her bathwater? How many baths did she take to supply it? What constitutes being bathwater? A full dip? Just a toe? (People would pay potentially even bigger dollars for toe water, we know.) We’re sure someone will DNA test it.

It feels weird to say we’re in a timeline where, if the bar doesn’t contain bona fide Sweeney skin cells, the Federal Trade Commission could step in for false advertising, but…

Either way, Sweeney and Squatch are right on target appealing to thirsty men online. Sweeney’s got a dedicated male following, and selling bathwater worked for porn star Delphine, who said she made $90K in a month selling her bathwater, and for streamer/OnlyFanser Amouranth, who offered 3,000 jars of her bathwater for $1K each and also floated (no pun intended) making a “Gamer Girl Bathwater” energy drink. That hasn’t materialized yet, but never say never.

For now, those with a scrubtime proclivity can snag Sweeney’s Squatch bar on June 6.

Filed under: Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Move over, Apple Store: Meta wants to greatly expand its footprint in the world of physical retail. Mark Zuckerberg‘s tech giant is looking to open more brick-and-mortar stores that would sell Meta Quest VR headsets and other devices, according to internal communications cited by Business Insider.

The communications indicated that Meta will hire retail employees to staff its new stores, but the company didn’t specify how many stores it plans to open or the timeline for its retail expansion. Any number of openings would increase Meta’s brick-and-mortar presence. The first (and thus far only) Meta Store opened in 2022 at the company’s campus in Burlingame, California.

Other social media platforms have experimented with real-world retail as a means of promoting creators and their ecommerce endeavors. FYP faves from TikTok recently went on display at a retail location in Santa Monica.

Meta has shown a link between its library of creator content and purchase intent, but its latest brick-and-mortar push doesn’t look like a typical ecommerce play. Instead, Meta is poised to use physical stores to sell more wearable devices, including its Quest headsets and the Orion smart glasses it launched in tandem with eyewear brand Ray-Ban.

Some consumers got their hands on Orion devices at a physical pop-up Meta launched in Los Angeles earlier this year. That location now looks like a trial run before Meta opens permanent brick-and-mortar shops in the future.

Meta made a big bet on wearable tech when it acquired Quest for $2 billion more than a decade ago, and the company doubled down on its gamble when it changed its name from Facebook in 2021. Despite Meta’s bullish attitude on wearables, its metaverse aspirations have largely fallen flat. The Horizon Worlds hub that opened in 2021 is a virtual ghost town, and Meta dialed back multiple ecommerce programs amid large-scale layoffs that occurred in 2022.

The 2025 hire of former RealReal CEO John Koryl as Meta’s VP of Retail showed that Zuck and co. were not giving up on the sales and marketing potential of wearables. Several factors inform Meta’s commitment to its commercial push. The most obvious reason is sheer volume: More physical stores means more Quest sales, which translates to more people immersing themselves in metaverse experiences.

The fashionable nature of Orion glasses is also relevant. A pair of Ray-Bans is a classic mall purchase, and Meta has an opportunity to present its own stylish eyewear to window shoppers.

In the end, however, it all comes back to ecommerce. Meta wants to build Roblox-style experiences and has brought existing Roblox content to Quest headsets. Constructed worlds have tremendous ecommerce potential, so it’s no surprise that Meta wants more Quest buyers — and wants to get them hooked into to the metaverse.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, Meta, News by Sam Gutelle
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Kai Cenat‘s first (and maybe last?) Streamer University wrapped with over 719,000 peak concurrent viewers, 27+ million total hours of watch time, and major streaming companies apparently trying to woo him into taking the program to their platforms instead.

The three-day creator bootcamp was streamed live from the University of Akron in the much-be-memed Ohio, with 150 up-and-coming streamers–handpicked by Cenat–attending in person for lectures from established pros. While only those creators were allowed to attend in person, Cenat streamed from the event, and all attendees were permitted to stream, giving the entire internet a glimpse of the education they received.

Classes, taught by “professors” like DDG, ChrisnNxtDoor, Agent 00, and Duke Dennis, covered four areas of our industry: Content Creation 101, Audience Growth, Monetization, and Tech & Tools.

And the internet obviously thought this was worth tuning in for: Per Twitch Tracker, content related to the Streamer University event was streamed across nearly 1,000 different Twitch channels from May 21-27, with average concurrent viewership of ~160,000. Viewership hit peak on the event’s launch and final days (May 22 and May 25) with ~719,000 and ~716,000 people, respectively.

According to The Times of India, Streamer University’s top broadcasters included:

• DDG, who brought in 3.57 million unique viewers
• Ray, with 1.73 million viewers (and 71 hours of streaming time over the weekend)
• Cenat himself, with around 1.5 million viewers (despite only streaming for ~5.5 hours during the event)
• Rakai, with 1.46 million viewers and 45 hours streamed
• and Wendy Ortiz, with 1.35 million viewers and 50 hours streamed

(Again, this is just on Twitch. Over on YouTube, Cenat racked up millions more views.)

Top clips from Streamer U are a mix of in-class snippets and what we would consider pretty typical college resident behavior: chilling in the dorms, skipping class, drinking to excess, etc.

The inaugural class wrapped up with an award ceremony, giving 23 nods to students for their good (and bad…) behavior. Here are all the winners:

• Most Improved – Corey2u
• Biggest Flirt – Deshae Frost
• Master of Mentorship – Markus King
• Engagement Guru – ExtraEmily
• Most Honourable – GG Twins
• Social Butterfly – India Love
• Best Group – Hoodbabies
• Class Clown – Reggie
• Rising Star – DannyBans
• Community Builder – Ojay Suave
• Most Consistent Streamer – Funnymike
• Hidden Gem – Allison
• Class Duo – Wendy & Evelyn Ortiz
• Heart of the Community – Caiuwus
• Steady Growth Award – Tbvnks
• Cleanest Room – Chicklet and Maleni
• Worst Behaviour – Rakai
• Best roommates – Ray and Tota
• School Spirit – Yonna
• Prankster – Kanklive
• Best Professor – DDG
• MVP – DDG
• Valedictorian – Tylil James

Now that Streamer U is officially over, there’s time for a little postmortem. It’s clear from viewership stats that the internet was keen to watch, but Cenat still isn’t sure whether he’ll do a second edition. He complained about receiving backlash over some of his attendee selections, and there was also his decision to have Drake give the closing speech.

Cenat noted too that Streamer University may have been free for students, but it wasn’t cheap to put on, and he felt like “no matter which way I try to make sure things is good, I always get the bad end of the stick.”

And you might think that getting interest from streamers like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video (which, of course, previously paid $100 million for MrBeast‘s Beast Games, and renewed it for two more seasons) would intrigue him, but Cenat made it clear on stream that he’s not interested in taking their money.

“One thing I learned with this shit, bro…A lot of people been talking about how this shit should be on Netflix, or Amazon Prime should buy this, Tubi should buy it. Somebody higher and they do it crazy,” he said on a recent stream. “We already been getting talks with different people.”

He didn’t clarify whether those specific companies definitely were in talks or made offers, but he told viewers that because Streamer University is “so original,” he wants to keep control of it and keep it on Twitch.

“I want y’all to learn something,” he said. “Y’all channels, and who you are as a person, this y’all idea, this is your guys’ stuff. Treat your platform as you would treat other platforms. Shout out to all these big platforms, they have subscriptions, bro. Twitch, I think of it all like this: If you gonna sub up, you gonna get some good shit. Y’all have the opportunity to make y’all platforms as big as other platforms.”

So, if there is a Streamer University 2 in the future, sounds like it’s going to be on Twitch.

Filed under: Creator, Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Karat Financial has already launched the first credit card designed with content creators in mind. Now, the Los Angeles-based company is expanding its financial services in a big way. It’s launching Karat Banking, a multifaceted solution for creators who are building their own businesses.

In collaboration with longtime partner Visa, Karat has issued over $1.5 billion in credit and advances through its Business Credit Card. That solution has worked well for high-profile customers like Wendover Productions, Alexandra Botez, and Nick DiGiovanni, but the changing nature of the creator economy requires more sophisticated financial tools. Meanwhile, media firms are embracing influencer-style approaches to plug their companies into the creator economy.

As creators launch businesses and marry those operations to their content channels, they need a bank that understands the complexities of their careers. Karat is meeting that need with a banking platform that is “built specifically for this content-native generation of entrepreneurs,” according to a press release from the company.

Karat has long understood that creators often struggle to explain their business needs to traditional banks. From its unique vantage point, the fintech firm is well-positioned to meet those needs as they evolve. “Building great creator banking requires unusually specific expertise in two very different domains,” Karat Co-Founders Will Kim and Eric Wei told Tubefilter in an email, “you have to deeply understand YouTubers and fintech simultaneously.”

One Karat Banking feature that demonstrates the company’s understanding of creator business peculiarities is its approach to annual percentage yields (APYs). Customers who opt for the Karat Premium banking option will be able to take advantage of checking accounts with 2-3% APY. That’s a much higher number than what a traditional bank would offer, but for creators, who often need more money in their checking accounts to react to a volatile industry, flexibility is key.

“Securing this rate required specialized negotiation with our banking partners,” Kim and Wei told Tubefilter. “We’ve built a team and network with expertise across both creator and financial industries, highlighted by partnerships with both Nebula (the leading creator-focused streaming platform) but also Grasshopper Bank (an FDIC-insured bank).”

Karat Banking customers who don’t want to pony up for the Premium tier (which will normally cost $20 per month, though Karat is waiving requirements for a limited time) can sign up for Karat Standard Banking. That tier is free to join and comes with numerous features, including built-in tax services and access to third-party tools like the Epidemic Sound music library.

With the creator economy projected to reach $480 billion by 2027, the financial needs of the individuals in that ecosystem will continue to grow more complex. Karat, which has already expanded into fields like investing, is eager to meet the demands of its clientele, and its banking platform is a big part of that mission.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, FINANCE, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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In February 2025, YouTube turned 20. The video site has gone through a lot over the past two decades, including an acquisition, an earnings glow-up, and multiple generations of star creators. In our 20 Years of YouTube series, we’ll examine the uploads, trends, and influencers that have defined the world’s favorite video site — one year at a time. Click here for a full archive of the series.

By 2010, the YouTube viral video had arguably reached its peak. At the time, the platform’s homepage put the spotlight on trending content while also carving out space to showcase emerging creators in categories like music and gaming. YouTube’s response videos hadn’t been removed yet, and the site’s greatest hits sparked conversation and commentary. One of YouTube’s most notable reaction series, The Fine Bros’ Kids React, had premiered a year prior.

It was amid that landscape that a quirky musical foursome — siblings Andrew, Michael, and Evan, as well as Evan’s wife Sarah — authored a legendary remix of a viral news clip. The “Bed Intruder Song,” as The Gregory Brothers‘ most-watched video is known, is both an iconic relic of its era and a precursor to the era of social media content that would arrive years later.

The inciting incident that led to the “Bed Intruder Song” took place in July 2010, when a home invader attempted to assault Kelly Dodson of Huntsville, Alabama. Kelly and her brother Antoine managed to fend off the attack without suffering serious harm, but the story was just getting started. An ensuing interview with a local news channel went viral, thanks to Antoine’s flamboyant retelling of the preceding events.

As Evan Gregory explained it in an email to Tubefilter, the original interview with the Dodsons went massively viral on YouTube. “You couldn’t miss it — for 2-3 days straight you’d open up youtube.com and the homepage was 40 different reuploads of the same interview,” he said. “Every entry on the Trends page was a reupload of that interview.”

If you’ve been following this series so far, this pattern may sound familiar. Like Bill O’Reilly’s on-set meltdown and the original New Moon trailer, the Dodson interview was a tentpole event that invited platform-wide participation. The easiest way to reach millions of viewers was to latch onto a video that had already done exactly that.

By July 2010, The Gregory Brothers had contributed to that ecosystem for years. Their auto-tuned “songifications” of news media helped them reach new heights during the 2008 election, and they had broken into general pop culture through a collab with “double rainbow” guy Yosemitebear. Now, with Antoine Dodson’s over-the-top delivery serving as inspiration, the stage was set for the Gregories to produce their biggest hit yet.

If you haven’t contributed any of the 157 million views the “Bed Intruder Song” has received, please allow me to catch you up to speed:

Before long, Dodson’s original interview was playing second fiddle. The “Bed Intruder Song” became the viral YouTube sensation of the moment, ascending to the same homepage from which The Gregory Brothers had originally drawn inspiration. Evan Gregory told Tubefilter that the North Carolina A&T marching band’s on-field rendition of the remix is his favorite response to the “Bed Intruder Song.”

The Gregory Brothers eventually connected with Dodson and collaborated with him on additional videos. Evan Gregory noted that YouTube’s bygone annotation feature is responsible for forging that connection. Though annotations eventually gained a reputation as spammy cards that function poorly on mobile devices, Dodson may have never met the Gregories if he never responded to an annotated callout that popped up at the start of the “Bed Intruder Song”.

“The way we got in touch with Antoine is that we put a huge red annotation across the whole screen at the beginning of the video asking him to email us,” Gregory said. “RIP annotations, and thank you for helping put us in touch with Antoine.”

15 years later, a viral phenomenon’s path to mainstream recognition is completely different than it was 2010. The YouTube homepage is far more personalized than it was back then, response videos have faded into memory, and an exponentially larger number of creators now vie for attention. For what it’s worth, The Gregory Brothers’ songification skills haven’t diminished a bit.

Even amid a landscape that would look foreign to YouTube denizens of 2010, the legacy of viral hits like the “Bed Intruder Song” can still be felt. Evan Gregory noted that the songified remix would probably be a vertical video if it were uploaded today, and getting in touch with Antoine wouldn’t have required a big red annotation.

“When Antoine’s interview went so viral, we thought musically it could really slap as an anthem, and also that hopefully we could get in touch with Antoine and kick off some kind of partnership,” he said. “Nowadays these kinds of partnerships are even more common in the Shorts era because of the way TikTok pioneered connecting sound usage across videos.”

Antoine Dodson is on TikTok himself, and his role in the “Bed Intruder Song” still resonates across the internet. Home security company Wyze, for example, recently teamed up with Dodson for a cheeky sponsored video:

As this series stretches on, our focus will shift away from one-off viral hits and toward the creator content that currently defines its namesake industry. It’s impossible to know whether the “Bed Intruder Song” would become the most-watched video of the year if it came out now, but thanks to vertical, short-form platforms like TikTok, the amusing oddities of contemporary life still have a space where they can shine.

Here’s what I’ll say for sure: If you took Dodson’s advice and hid your kids/wife, you can probably get them back out now. After all, it’s been nearly 15 years. At this point, the coast is probably clear.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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Can one creator successfully sue another for copying their vibes?

According to the “sad beige” lawsuit, probably not.

You may remember that last July, TikToker, Instagrammer, and YouTuber Sydney Nicole Gifford filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit against fellow content creator Alyssa Sheil, accusing her of copying Gifford’s “neutral, beige, and cream aesthetic,” and posting content with “identical styling, tone, camera angle and/or text.”

At the core of Gifford’s suit was an accusation that Sheil had committed both copyright infringement and trade dress infringement. The latter claim was particularly interesting, because “trade dress” refers to the bespoke look and feel of a product–like the shape of a soda bottle.

If a judge had ruled in Gifford’s favor, the decision could’ve opened the door for a lot more lawsuits from creators who feel others are copying their content’s aesthetics, from color-grading to caption style to ~vibe~.

But a judge never had the chance to rule. After filing against Sheil and requesting a jury trial, Gifford had three of her claims dismissed thanks to a motion put forth by Sheil’s attorneys, then ended up requesting to “nonsuit” her case–aka, not move forward with it, according to a statement from Sheil’s attorneys. Because of this, the remainder of the suit was settled in nontrial mediation, with no money exchanged and each party paying their own attorneys’ fees.

“It was a privilege to represent Ms. Sheil who fought to send a message and set a precedent that filing these kinds of cases will not pay off,” Thomas Frashier, an associate at AZA Law, said in a statement. “Ms. Gifford’s case was completely meritless, and it is no surprise she asked to give up. If the case had gone to trial, Ms. Gifford would have owed a significant amount of attorneys’ fees to Ms. Sheil.”

Frashier added that his team “had hard proof that Ms. Gifford’s claimed works were not original and her story simply was not true: for many of the alleged instances of ‘copying,’ Ms. Sheil actually took her photos and videos first.”

“I could have caved to Ms. Gifford’s demands, but this was a much larger fight and sets a precedent that young minority entrepreneurs will not allow ourselves to be bullied,” Sheil added. “Ms. Gifford attempted to intimidate me into leaving this industry. She failed miserably as the truth has prevailed today.”

Following Gifford and Sheil’s settlement, the District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin, dismissed Gifford’s suit with prejudice, meaning she can’t refile it in a district court. (She can, however, submit an appeal to the Fifth Circuit, which is based in Louisiana.)

So what does this mean for the industry at large? We don’t have a statement from Gifford or her attorneys, so can’t know what her perspective is on the case, but from an objective standpoint, a decision to nonsuit usually means the plaintiff realized they didn’t have enough material to support their lawsuit.

Is that because creator v creator copyright/trade dress lawsuits will always fail, with 100% certainty? Not necessarily. But on social media, where everything is a flywheel of creators feeding and iterating off one another’s videos, jokes, memes, and soundbites, and where apps like TikTok provide a standard set of editing tools that can lead to lots of content looking samey, this kind of lawsuit does seem unlikely to ever succeed.

Filed under: Creator, Homepage Feature by James Hale
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A creator economy executive with more than a decade of experience under his belt is heading to one of the big three talent agencies. Brent Weinstein, who served as the longtime Head of Digital at UTA before moving on to deep-pocketed holding company Candle Media, is now joining CAA in an expansive role that will span several of the agency’s divisions.

As a member of CAA’s senior leadership team, Weinstein will oversee operations in “multiple business areas,” according to a press release shared by the Los Angeles-based agency. In addition to steering strategy in categories like Digital Media, Podcasts, Games, and Talent Business Ventures, Weinstein will have a say in CAA’s investment activity as well as its mergers and acquisitions. He will also co-manage CAA’s Intell data team alongside the Technology division.

That’s a lot of work for one man, but Weinstein has a proven track record as an agent, executive, and business developer. At UTA, he rose up the ranks by championing innovation in the field of digital talent representation. During his time at UTA, the agency became one of the first companies to work with creators to build offline businesses in industries like publishing and fintech.

After building UTA’s digital division from the ground up across a tenure that lasted nearly two decades, Weinstein went to Candle Media in 2022. He played a pivotal role as the parent of properties like Moonbug and Hello Sunshine looked to connect its digital businesses to real-world commerce.

In a statement, CAA President Jim Burtson called Weinstein an “outstanding agent” whose “tremendous track record” makes him an “outstanding match” for his new employer. “CAA sits uniquely and powerfully at the intersection of entertainment, sports, culture and technology, with a global reputation for excellence and an unmatched understanding of where audiences and consumers are heading,” added Weinstein. “It’s an honor to become part of CAA and its incredible culture, and to work alongside some of the most creative and pioneering agents and executives in the industry, as we collectively work to create new opportunities for the world’s leading creators and companies.”

Though Weinstein’s role at CAA is expected to stretch beyond the world of digital creators, he will also get the chance to build new business ventures alongside a deep roster of internet-famous clients. Influencers repped by CAA include Reesa Teesa, who is adapting her TikTok series Who TF Did I Marry? into a scripted show, and iShowSpeed, who has embarked on a massive world tour. With Weinstein on board, CAA clients will surely get more opportunities to pursue exciting new projects.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Disney has pulled off a major coup in the world of children’s entertainment. The Mouse House has struck a deal that will make Disney+ the new streaming home of CoComelon beginning in 2027.

Though the exact terms of the deal haven’t been publicly revealed, Bloomberg reported that Disney “will pay tens of millions of dollars annually” for the rights to Moonbug‘s prized preschool franchise.

Disney+’s gain will be Netflix‘s loss, as the pioneering streaming will lose access to a show that has been one of its most reliable sources of high viewership from young children since 2020. In 2024 alone, CoComelon content brought 231.1 million views to Netflix’s shores. That made it one of the biggest franchises of any kind in the streamer’s catalog.

Despite that high traffic, CoComelon’s numbers on Netflix are actually declining year-over-year. Bloomberg noted that CoComelon viewership on the platform has gone down by about 60% in recent years, and the show has fallen out of the top ten in some of Netflix’s recent viewership rankings.

CoComelon will continue to be available on YouTube, where it regularly tops our rankings of the platform’s most-watched channels. When you combine its viewership across multiple sources with its activity in sectors like film, live events, and retail, CoComelon is arguably the biggest kids’ franchise in the world.

The Disney deal will begin the same year as the anticipated premiere date for the upcoming CoComelon movie, and with help from the Mouse House, Moonbug may get more opportunities to expand the world of its prized possession. Moonbug’s parent company, Candle Media, has strong ties to Disney through its co-founders, former Disney execs Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs. Bolstered by those connections, Moonbug secured a deal that will bring its popular Blippi franchise to Disney parks.

Even if Disney declines to pursue a new kids’ attraction called the CoComelon CoCoaster, the distribution deal cements Disney+ as the go-to source for children’s entertainment. The SVOD service already offers Bluey, which by some measures was the most-watched kids’ show on streaming in 2024. Now, by adding all seasons of the main CoComelon show to its library, Disney+ will make itself even more appealing among toddlers.

Netflix will get a consolation prize out of all this. It will still stream some CoComelon shows, such as the spinoff CoComelon Lane, and it will retain access to other Moonbug properties like Blippi. But for Netflix, the key to moving past the Disney deal might be a 56-year-old children’s franchise. The streamer is the new home of Sesame Street, so it seems to be trading CoComelon’s JJ for classic characters like Cookie Monster and Elmo.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Welcome to our rundown of the most-watched branded YouTube videos of the week.

We’re publishing this snippet of a larger Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report in order to analyze sponsorship trends in the creator economy. Any video launched in tandem with an official brand partner is eligible for the ranking.

And – as the name up above would imply – all the data comes from Gospel Stats. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.

Mrwhosetheboss has been having quite a run on our Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Reports this month. After a partnership with cybersecurity software Bitdefender, he’s back on the list with a double-header featuring Eight Sleep and Liene, both of which are particularly well-themed for his videos this week. Joining him on the list are…well, we won’t spoil.

Check out all our top 5 videos below:

#1 How One Company Secretly Poisoned The Planet
Channel: Veritasium
Brand: Ground News
Views: 12,029,279

Starting us off is an hourlong whopper from STEM superchannel Veritasium, which has yet to go a month without appearing in the top 5 at least once. His latest production is a deep dive into PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, aka “forever chemicals,” and how they’re affecting our health. This dive goes all the way back through history to the invention of fridges and their use of freon (a forever chemical), the Manhattan Project and its use of Teflon (you got it–a forever chemical), and companies like DuPont and Chemours, which have been accused of spreading “extensive contamination” with production of PFAS. Then the big moment: Veritasium host Derek Muller gets his blood tested to see how many forever chemicals he’s circulating. This investigation is sponsored by Ground News, the news comparison site that kicked up sponsorships during the 2024 election and has remained a prominent YouTuber partner since. It sponsored ~70 other videos this week.

#2 I Tested 1-Star Hotels (finale)
Channel: Ryan Trahan
Brand: Shopify
Views: 9,145,851

Mold? Roaches? No coffee? “Balcony view” looking out on a brick wall? All this and more is to be found in one-star hotel reviews across the U.S., and Ryan Trahan is here to investigate. Wrapping up his I Tested 1-Star Hotels series, he hits up four spots with particularly dire reviews to see if they’re accurate, or if people were just having a bad day. Trahan’s viewership surged during his now-iconic penny series in 2022, and since then, he’s focused a lot on spotlighting small businesses, doing things like hitting up family-owned restaurants with no reviews and giving rough-reviewed locations a fair shot. In most cases, he’s found the people behind these restaurants–and now, hotels–are trying, and that the dire reviews drive them to fix issues, so by the time he gets there, things are looking much brighter. His grand finale is sponsored by longtime partner Shopify, which paid for ~23 other videos this week.

#3 $60,000 Bed vs $5,000 Smart Bed
Channel: Mrwhosetheboss
Brand: Eight Sleep
Views: 4,818,034

It took Mrwhosetheboss just 60 seconds to hit spot #3 this week. We don’t often see Shorts on our Weekly Brand Reports, simply because far fewer sponsors do short-form deals on  YouTube. (Guess they’re all going to TikTok instead…) But established creators sometimes nab Shorts deals–and this is one of those times. Something we’ve noticed about the Shorts that hit out top 5 is that, unlike with long-form vids, they’re often almost entirely about the sponsor. In this video, for example, Mrwhosetheboss is pitting a $60K luxury bed against a far cheaper “smartbed” from sponsor Eight Sleep. The entire video concept is about advertising his sponsor’s product. And we’re betting his sponsor–which partnered with ~6 other creators this week–is pretty pleased with the results.

#4 I spent $10,000 on Kickstarter Tech.
Channel: Mrwhosetheboss
Brand: Liene
Views: 4,602,897

And for his second vid, Mrwhosetheboss picked up personal photo printer company Liene, which–like the companies he’s examining in the video–launched thanks to backers on Kickstarter. His #4 video is a lot longer than #3, and shows him dissecting $10K worth of tech from startups who got where they are with a kickstart. Are they worth it? Did they do what they promised? We’ve all heard of dire Kickstarter failures…but these products might just make it.

BONUS #5 “Is baby oil and lubricant a federal crime? NO”- Diddy’s Defense | Day 1
Channel: Rotten Mango
Brand: Acorns
Views: 4,073,491

We typically pick a bonus video from further down the list, but this week’s #5 video is culturally significant. It’s from Rotten Mango, the podcast that just kicked The Joe Rogan Experience out of top spot on YouTube’s new weekly podcast charts. When the charts debuted, JRE was, as expected, right at the top. But Rotten Mango–a true crime ‘cast hosted by creator Stephanie Soo–was quick to overtake it. This week’s video is also culturally relevant because, with the Diddy case playing out in court, we’re back where we were with the Amber Heard vs Johnny Depp situation. Lots of creators covered that trial with surgical detail, leading to discussions about whether these kinds of videos are ethical–especially when creators are profiting from them. But discussions of ethics haven’t stopped true crime/court creators, and now a new wave is hitting YouTube. Rotten Mango‘s first episode on the Diddy trial was sponsored by saving/investing fintech company Acorns, which frequently partners with podcasts.

…and there’s a lot more data where that came from. If you’re interested in learning more about Gospel – and which brands are sponsoring what creators on YouTube – click here.

Filed under: Articles, Brands, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by James Hale
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[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. 👇

Every once in a while, we’ll see a YouTube channel get more subscribers than MrBeast over a seven-day period. No one, however, can match the North Carolina-based creator when it comes to consistency. He draws in millions of new fans week after week without fail.

The last full week of May was no exception. MrBeast added two million new subscribers to take the #1 spot in the Global Subs Top 50 chart. Only five other channels even got one million new subscribers over the same period, so that shows you how big the gap is between MrBeast and the rest of the YouTube-loving world.

Want to get a lot of new subscribers? Quit your channel.

The host of one of YouTube’s most enduring channels recently announced that he would step away from a hub that had pulled in more than 2.5 billion lifetime views. Earlier this month, Mike Nichols of Outdoor Boys revealed that the YouTube grind had gotten to him. In order to spend more time with his family (and help his son grow his own YouTube hub), Nichols revealed an indefinite hiatus from his popular channel.

But then a funny thing happened: Outdoor Boys kept growing. During our most recent seven-day measurement period, Nichols’ old-school YouTube hub added 400,000 new subscribers (it already had more than 15 million of them). It would seem that Nichols’ melancholy farewell to his channel made people excited to see the videos he had offered over the past 18 years. Meanwhile, his goodbye address has racked up more than 15 million views so far.

Nichols is not the first creator to fare well after leaving the channel he previously called home. Another notable example — which admittedly came amidst very different circumstances — is Technoblade. Even after his death from cancer, the Minecraft gamer is still a cultural icon on YouTube, and his following only continues to grow.

Nichols may not have intended to catalyze a growth spurt when he announced his decision to leave his channel behind, but does his unexpected rise suggest that more creators should say goodbye to their digital homes? That could be the case — or maybe YouTube viewers just really like survival content, as they have shown over and over again throughout the past year.

YouTube’s love for survival videos is expanding to include the broadest definitions of that term. A4, a creator from Belarus, made it all the way up to third place in this week’s Global Subs Top 50 chart. How did he get 1.2 million new subscribers over a single seven-day period? His penchant for videos that put his life at risk certainly seems to help.

Data via Gospel Stats

Therefore, the results of the Outdoor Boys’ departure are inconclusive. It could be that leaving your channel is now the quickest way to grow said channel, or maybe a tender message from a time-honored outdoorsman reminded YouTube viewers that they love that kind of content. Whatever the reason, Outdoor Boys fans are making it hard for Nichols to quit his channel.

Channel Distribution

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

• United States: 12
• India: 11
• Spain: 4
• Hong Kong and Indonesia: 3
• Canada and Saudi Arabia: 2
• Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, China, Germany, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, and Vietnam: 1

This week, 44 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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