If you had to guess what social media site is growing faster than the rest, which would you pick? TikTok? YouTube? X?

The answer is: none of the above (sort of). According to the latest data from eMarketer, the fastest-growing social media site out there is actually Reddit, where adult users in the U.S. are spending 3.5% more time there per day than they were in Q1 2024. That brings it up to 34 minutes on average per day, per user.

3.5% might not seem like a lot, but Reddit and Instagram are the only two sites in the positives, eMarketer found. Instagram’s gain has been just 0.3% year-over-year (bringing it up to 35 minutes on average per day, per user).

Everyone else? Is in the negatives. Time spent on Facebook has gone down by 2.6% (dropping it to 31 minutes), time spent on both Snapchat and X has gone down 3.4% (31 minutes), and finally–perhaps surprisingly–time spent on TikTok has dropped by a whopping 7% from Q1 2024 to now (47 minutes).

We said ‘sort of’ because, for some reason, eMarketer elected not to include YouTube or Twitch in this dataset. We suppose maybe it doesn’t consider them ‘social media sites,’ but then that begs the question: Where do you draw the line? TikTok is similarly video-based–why does it count, while YouTube and Twitch don’t?

Despite that decision, this data is worth noting. eMarketer attributes Reddit’s significant time growth to the fact that it offers “perspectives from real people that are harder to come by these days.”

We think there’s another force at play here. Google Search has gotten objectively worse in the last couple of years. Various changes, including the introduction of AI, have made it more difficult for the average searcher to quickly and easily find accurate information–so, they may be turning to Reddit.

A recent study from Adobe showed that nearly two in three people in the U.S. use Reddit as a search engine at least once per week, with 41% of Reddit users believing the site is a better search engine than Google. 95% of people who use Reddit as a search engine find the results they get helpful.

And, to top it off, 6% of small business owners said they’ve begun generating more revenue from Reddit than Google. That tracks with another eMarketer report that estimated Reddit’s year-over-year ad revenue will grow by more than 30% this year. (For comparison, eMarketer is tracking TikTok at 25% year-over-year ad revenue growth, and Instagram at 15% YOY ad rev growth.)

So, while Reddit doesn’t take the crown for highest overall amount of time spent per day–that still goes to TikTok by a wide margin–it may very well be seeing this record growth because more people are turning to it as a search engine.

eMarketer also points out the platform may have favor with users because it isn’t “riddled with AI slop.” To be clear, it adds, Reddit is not “immune” to AI-generated content, since it doesn’t ban people from posting about and/or using AI. But within its individual discussion communities, aka subreddits, moderators can choose to ban AI–and many have.

That leaves Reddit as “one of few social platforms with human interaction at its core,” eMarketer wrote.

People wanting a haven from AI makes sense, considering platforms like X have been increasingly overtaken by AI bots, and YouTube is constantly encouraging users to embrace generative AI.

Whatever the reason for Reddit’s user time growth, it’s clear people are looking to the site more and more. We’re curious how much more it will grow–both in browsing/searching time and ad revenue–as 2025 progresses.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, reddit by James Hale
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Tulsi, a small village in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, has become its nation’s answer to Greenville, North Carolina. Though it was once nothing more than a small dot on the map, Tulsi has been transformed by the creator economy, with approximately one-fourth of its population making videos for platforms like YouTube.

The story of Tulsi’s creator community begins with Being Chhattisgarhiya, a YouTube channel co-founded by Jai Varma and Gyanendra Shukla. Thanks to a few viral sketches, Being Chhattisgarhiya reached a six-digit subscriber count, allowing Varma and Shukla to earn more than 30,000 rupees per month. Though that sum only translates to about $346, it’s similar to the average monthly salary for an Indian schoolteacher.

The success of that channel inspired more Tulsi residents to pick up cameras and press record. According to one estimate, there are more than 1,000 active creators in Tulsi, which counts a total population of only 4,000.

The so-called “YouTuber village” is part of a broader trend that has seen creator content explode in India’s non-English-speaking communities. Channels that use regional South Asian languages have hauled in billions of views by connecting with hard-to-reach consumers in rural areas.

KL Bro Biju Rithvik is a notable example; its Malayalam-language videos regularly approach the top of our Tubefilter charts. Tulsi’s regional dialect is Chhattisgarhi, which is featured in music videos that have received millions of YouTube viewers.

Financial firms are investing millions in companies that can target regional Indian communities, and the YouTuber village is seeing some of that green. Regional authorities in Chhattisgarh spent 2.5 million rupees (~$28,600) to open a studio space for Tulsi-based creators.

Tulsi has enjoyed several benefits since the creator economy became its primary business. In addition to the financial gains, there have been fresh opportunities for local women like Pinky Sahoo. Indian women face widespread discrimination and sexual violence, but YouTube has turned creators like Sejal Gaba and Geeta Gurjar into self-sufficient stars.

In general, Tulsi’s focus on video production is keeping the community safe. “It is keeping the children away from bad habits and crime,” said local farmer Netram Yadav. “These content creators have made everyone in the village proud for what they have been able to achieve and do.”

Could a remote American location advance itself by following Tulsi’s lead? For most of YouTube’s existence, U.S. creator culture has been concentrated in major cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Dallas, Atlanta, and Salt Lake City. In recent years, stars like MrBeast and Danny Duncan have shown that it’s possible to reach millions of subscribers while maintaining a hometown residence — and small-town mayors should be paying attention.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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As the will-it-won’t-it vibe around the potential TikTok ban continues, with Donald Trump saying he’ll “probably” extend owner ByteDance‘s deadline to divest, the platform is highlighting its contribution to the U.S. economy.

Oxford Economics is an advisory/analytics firm that regularly publishes reports on the creator industry’s financial impact. It’s looked at both YouTube and TikTok in the past, and now is revisiting TikTok to reveal it believes that “over the last seven years, TikTok has become an indispensable platform for businesses all across the country.”

In its report, ‘Measuring the Number of Jobs that benefit from US Businesses using TikTok,’ Oxford Economics estimates 4.7 million U.S. jobs “benefit from utilizing TikTok.”

It says those benefitting include over 3.1 million jobs directly using TikTok in their work by creating content or managing businesses’ accounts, plus more than 1.6 million workers who indirectly benefit from TikTok “in areas like lead generation for sales teams, customer engagement for marketing, or product teams examining user feedback on the platform.”

The report overall estimates that 7.5 million businesses “leverage TikTok’s features,” Blake Chandlee, TikTok’s President of Global Business Solutions, said in a statement. These 7.5 million businesses employ around ~28 million people collectively.

Around three-quarters of these businesses–both large and small–told Oxford Economics that using TikTok has allowed them to scale their operations. This is similar to what Oxford Economics found in its most recent YouTube report: that “84% of [small businesses] with a YouTube channel agree that YouTube played a role in helping them grow their customer base by reaching new audiences.”

YouTube’s report showed it contributed over $45 billion to the U.S.’s GDP in 2023, and supported the equivalent of 430,000 full-time jobs; meanwhile, Oxford Economics’ last report on TikTok estimated it contributed $24 billion, and supported 224,000 jobs.

This latest report doesn’t offer new numbers on that front. Instead, Oxford Economics’ goal was to focus on how many jobs in small, midsize, and large businesses are potentially benefiting from TikTok’s existence in the U.S.

We’re not surprised that’s the tack the firm is taking–and nor are we surprised that TikTok is pretty keen to advertise Oxford Economics’ findings. In discussions around the TikTok ban, the potential impact on creators has been a major concern. But increasingly, thanks to the growth of TikTok Shop and the sheer number of small businesses making hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars on the platform, the conversation has also touched on what a ban could do to American businesses relying on TikTok for sales and/or advertising.

“We started in September 2016 with nothing but a small food stand in a local flea market—just me, my husband, and two employees,” Vanessa Barreat, owner of La Vecindad restaurant in Las Vegas, told TikTok. “Today, we have 60 employees, two locations, and a thriving community of customers who found us through TikTok. Dozens of families now rely on La Vecindad, and we can even send our children to college—something we once only dreamed of.”

Alex Bellman, COO of Bellman Jewelers in Manchester, N.H., added, “TikTok was one of the major factors that helped us triple our business. Because of TikTok, we had to hire eight new employees and are now opening a second location in Boston. Without this platform, we’d have to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to try to compete with larger brands. It’s helped level the playing field for small businesses like ours.”

Putting these kinds of case studies forward might help TikTok convince the Trump administration that its economic benefits outweigh any potential national security issues. Key word: might.

Either way, though, it is interesting to have third-party data showing just how much TikTok potentially contributes to the U.S. economy. And while it’s not contributing quite as much as YouTube yet, if TikTok Shop continues to grow at an exponential rate, we might see Oxford Economics’ estimates for YouTube and TikTok’s 2025 bring the two closer together.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, TikTok by James Hale
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There’s a new event putting a digital twist on the traditional upfront model. Creators like Colin & Samir, MrBeast, Rebecca Zamolo, Kinigra Deon, Dude Perfect, Ryan Trahan, and Jordan Matter will pitch their work to brands and agencies at an event put on by creator economy company Spotter.

The event, titled the Spotter Showcase, will take place in New York City on March 27. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the invite list includes CMOs from more than 150 major brands. Attendees will be treated to a typical slate of upfront presentations. Creators will tease their upcoming projects and give advertisers the chance to buy up inventory on those shows.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the NewFronts — the original digital offshoot of the upfronts — has employed a similar model across more than a decade of annual pitchfests. The NewFronts once featured dozens of high-profile presenters, who shared previews of polished, high-quality shows led by YouTube stars. The 2025 edition of the NewFronts, which counts a dozen presenting sponsors, will return in early May.

The Spotter Showcase accounts for many of the ways original content has changed in recent years. Many of the creator vehicles hyped at the NewFronts didn’t align with fan or critic expectations, and major players like YouTube started chasing TV upfront dollars rather than pigeonholing themselves as digital platforms.

But even as the typical NewFronts presentation took a new form, creators didn’t stop making original content. Instead, many of them started taking on those projects themselves, with no high-profile third parties involved. In a statement, Colin & Samir identified Trahan’s Penny Series and Deon’s Vampire Siblings as two notable originals that are produced and distributed by some of YouTube’s most enterprising creators.

“Spotter Showcase will help brands reach today’s top YouTube Creators, giving them direct access to the voices shaping culture and driving consumer engagement,” added Spotter CEO and Founder Aaron DeBevoise. “It’s not just about ad placements — it’s about deep consumer attention and fostering authentic collaborations that give brands access to the unrivaled scale, trust, and engagement of Creator audiences.”

For Spotter, which offers tools and services tailored to influencers’ needs, the Showcase is another means of uplifting the creator class. The firm has already worked with stars like Colin & Samir to debut new products and help creators discover methods they can employ to optimize their earnings. Those efforts have led to a new wave of polished YouTube content, and the stars of those shows are ready to show off.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Want to know why MrBeast is trying to raise a funding round that would value his company Beast Industries at $5 billion? Just take a look at the investor deck Jimmy Donaldson is using to secure that capital.

The Verge got hold of a pitch deck that shares some financial information about the parent company MrBeast created to encompass all of his entertainment and retail ventures. Beast Industries is a growing company with a lot of promise, but MrBeast’s brand isn’t all about videos anymore. In fact, the deck shows that Feastables, the confectionary brand MrBeast launched in 2022, is now outearning his YouTube operation.

According to leaked information, Feastables generated $250 million in sales last year, achieving a profit of $20 million. Meanwhile, the MrBeast network of channels lost $80 million despite posting its own nine-digit revenue sum ($246 million).

MrBeast has long claimed that he does not wish to turn a profit on his videos, preferring instead to imbue them with eye-popping prizes that come out of his own pockets. The results from the first season of the Prime Video original series Beast Games show how hard it is for MrBeast to turn a profit with his grandiose style of content. The competition series set viewership records for Amazon, but its creator claims it was a net negative financially. “I lost tens of millions of dollars on Beast Games,” MrBeast said on the Diary of a CEO podcast.

Slides shared by Bloomberg demonstrate how Beast Industries’ big costs are affecting its bottom line. Though the company’s revenue has steadily doubled year-over-year, profits haven’t moved much. MrBeast netted about $12 million in 2021 before three straight years of losses followed by a projected return to the green in 2025.

That’s why MrBeast and co. are emphasizing businesses that are more reliable moneymakers. The star creator has gotten into statistics through his ViewStats platform and has gotten into school lunchrooms with his Lunchly meal kits. To make these companies more sustainable, MrBeast has inserted some measures of quality control. A 2024 recipe change, for example, brought better-tasting chocolate to Feastables.

But even with that effort, there is still some skepticism about Beast Industries’ ability to move beyond its namesake founder and his community of fans. Hiccups on the business side of MrBeast have included an ill-fated NBA sponsorship and moldy Lunchly kits.

That’s why the growth of Beast Industries is so important. MrBeast has brought in Jeffrey Housenbold to bring some stability to his parent company, and a big round of venture capital would bring even more security to the company. Based on MrBeast’s pitch deck, his firm makes for an intriguing investment option.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, MrBeast, News by Sam Gutelle
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YouTube‘s automated content review systems are a frequent cause of complaints from content creators. Those systems help review the millions of videos that are uploaded to YouTube every single day, a monumental effort YouTube likely couldn’t accomplish just with human reviewers. But sometimes machines screw up, hence the creator complaints.

Now, YouTube is trying something different to cut down on the number of mistakes made–specifically those made with monetization.

“To improve the accuracy of our yellow icon decisions and get your videos monetizing faster, we are experimenting with automatically sending videos that receive a ‘Limited or no ads’ rating for an additional review,” the company wrote on its official YouTube Help notice board.

YouTube’s system flags videos with a yellow monetization icon when it believes they don’t fully meet advertiser-friendly guidelines. Yellow-icon videos may still get some ads, but it’ll be a limited pool from a limited number of marketers. Basically, the videos aren’t deemed advertiser-unfriendly enough to completely demonetize, but they’re not given the A-OK, either, and that will hamstring their ability to earn ad revenue for their creators.

Before this change, creators who thought their videos were unfairly marked yellow would have to file a dispute with YouTube and wait for it to be resolved. That could take days, and could cut significantly into the video’s overall earning potential, since the period right after upload is when videos tend to bring in the most ad dollars.

With this change, YouTube is saying its system will automatically send yellow-flagged videos to human reviewers, so they can be manually double-checked for any ad-unfriendliness–and potentially monetized much more quickly if it’s determined that they shouldn’t be yellow-iconed.

YouTube says monetization decisions with this new hybrid human-machine review system can still take up to 24 hours. That’s still a sizable period of time, but those human double-checks will be able to do things YouTube’s automated systems aren’t great at, like seeing the full context of the video and judging ad-friendliness based on cultural differences. That may help resolve mistaken demonetizations more accurately and efficiently.

This change additionally means creators won’t have to fight YouTube to be remonetized unless the human reviewer also determines the video deserves its yellow icon. In some cases, creators won’t have to do anything; the human reviewer will decide YouTube’s system mistakenly flagged the video, will correct that decision, and the video will be fully monetized.

For now, this change in procedure is rolling out to “a small percentage of creators,” YouTube said. “[B]ut we’ll keep you posted on our plans to expand it to all creators that monetize with ads.”

Filed under: Homepage Feature, YouTube by James Hale
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Best Buy is partnering with influencers to launch a feature that looks to spruce up the brand’s digital shelves. The new storefronts will provide creators with space they can use to recommend products they endorse.

The announcement of the creator shelves came during Best Buy’s earnings call for the fourth quarter of the 2025 fiscal year. Like many U.S.-based companies, the electronics chain is bracing for the economic impact of President Trump’s proposed tariffs. The resulting rocky outlook contributed to Best Buy’s post-earings market slide.

For the beleaguered retailer, which now operates fewer than 1,000 brick-and-mortar stores in the United States, the creator economy offers potential gains amidst adverse economic conditions. During the earnings call, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said the upcoming storefronts will debut on the Best Buy website sometime in the spring.

Barry described the program as a play that will drive traffic, engagement, and sales for Best Buy. A representative for the brand did not offer further details when contacted by Modern Retail.

Forbes noted that Best Buy already attempted to launch a digital marketplace in 2011. Though that effort failed, the ecommerce industry is currently drawing major interest from investors and consumers, giving Best Buy a chance to see if the second attempt goes better than the first.

The rise of creator-curated recommendations is both a challenge and an opportunity for Best Buy. Consumers — especially those in the Millennial, Gen Z, and Gen Alpha cohorts — trust influencers when choosing what to buy. Through partnerships with those individuals, Best Buy can reach a keyed-in audience that boasts significant purchasing power.

But if creators are the new tech experts, where does that leave entities like Best Buy’s blue-shirted associates, which long served as the chain’s source of quality recs? In recent years, Best Buy has aligned itself with creators like Marques Brownlee, signaling in the process that its decision-makers understand the changing nature of product reviews.

Other retailers are looking in the other direction: While they make affiliate marketing deals with creators, they are also turning their own employees into influencers. Walmart launched a notable experiment in that area with its Spotlight venture, and Dick’s Sporting Goods is going public with its internal influencer program.

That seems like one potential endgame for Best Buy’s creator storefronts. Generating affiliate marketing revenue is good, but imagine if Best Buy could transform its employees into a collective of tech creators. That would give it an in to a community it desperately wants to reach.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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If the U.S. divest-or-ban law goes into effect and forces TikTok offline in the United States, some brands will plan to go south. The Mexican social shopping market is heating up, with multiple agencies advising their clients to invest in Latin American ecommerce.

The increasing interest in the Mexican version of TikTok Shop — which launched last month amid TikTok’s regulatory turmoil — is both a sound investment and a hedge against volatility in the U.S. creator economy. Latin American ecommerce will approach $200 billion in annual sales this year, according to eMarketer.

Authorities in the ad world have drawn up elaborate contingency plans that account for a potential U.S. TikTok ban, but TikTok Shop’s arrival in Mexico has added new layers to those machinations. According to Business Insider, agencies like Outlandish and Orca have worked with third parties in Mexico to onboard local TikTok Shop sellers. Outlandish’s plans even involve the establishment of a south-of-the-border production hub.

Brands like KimChi Chic Beauty, Beast Bites, and Wyze are among the U.S. companies plotting Mexican expansion. “It’s a logical play for any seller that saw success or could see success on TikTok Shop,” Outlandish CEO William August told BI. “Regardless of what happens in the U.S., they should be doing it anyway.”

By moving onto the Mexican version of TikTok Shop, brands can connect with a ballooning local audience of short-form consumers. A viewership boom during COVID-19 lockdowns has bred a new generation of vertical video stars like Caín Guzmán. Several Latin American Shorts hubs currently rank among the most-watched YouTube channels in the world.

Obviously, brands could migrate all of their spend to the other platforms that would remain active in the event of a U.S. TikTok ban. But agencies like Outlandish and Orca are showing clients that there’s another solution. In Mexico, those brands can stay on TikTok, and they’ll encounter plenty of new customers if they do.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News, TikTok 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.

Our latest Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report brings back MrBeast, who–as usual–is unchallenged in spot #1. Hard to compete with someone who churns out 66 million views per video–although we will say this total is lower than totals we’ve seen in the past, which have hovered around ~100 million views. Also on the roster this week is Joe Rogan, who’s moved on from Magnus Carlsen and now has Elon Musk in the hot seat. As for who else joins them in our top 5…you’ll just have to find out below.

#1 100 People Trapped Inside 100 Circles For $500,000
Channel: MrBeast
Brand: Shopify
Views: 66,880,523

MrBeast is back and up to his usual shenanigans. After a few weeks off from publishing a sponsored video, he has Shopify on his side for a competition that pits 100 people against one another to find out who can stay in their tiny circle the longest and win $500,000. Like all of MrBeast’s other competitions, including his Amazon show Beast Games, this one comes with a hefty dose of psychological warfare and a few chances to show good sportsmanship. Will people take them–or will they try to get that bag?

#2 Joe Rogan Experience #2281 – Elon Musk
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: LifeLock, Netsuite
Views: 11,933,107

Joe Rogan has become a mainstay on our Weekly Brand Reports since the leadup to the 2024 presidential election. In January, his channel became the first to take a whopping three spots on our top 5, with episodes guest-starring Mel Gibson, Mark Zuckerberg, and Wesley Huff. Last week he made slot #3 by tapping in chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen. This week? He spent three whole hours with Elon Musk—no blunts involved.

#3 Apes Freaked Out When I Spoke Their Language
Channel: Xiaomanyc 小马在纽约
Brand: MyHeritage
Views: 7,540,218

The whole “white guy SHOCKS locals by speaking their language” trend has been a thing on YouTube for a couple years now, and people seem torn on whether it’s a net positive or not. But one thing is certain: Xiaomanyc has built a business off it. A polyglot who says he’s studied “dozens of languages,” Xiaomanyc travels the world filming people’s reactions to him speaking their dialects. But in this week’s video, he goes beyond people, taking a leaf out of Jane Goodall‘s book and using his skills to forge a connection with some very surprised apes.

#4 Coulda Been Love Episode 3: Stud Check
Channel: Druski
Brand: Ro, PrizePicks
Views: 6,965,625

Move over, MTV. Druski is back–and he’s using his channel as the home for Coulda Been Love, a series where he brings 17 women to his house in hopes of finding love. This show (which made spot #1 in last week’s brand report) packs just as much drama in its 60-minute episodes as all the reality shows of the early 2000s–and thanks to YouTube comments, the entire internet appears to be having a collective watch party every time a new installment drops.

BONUS #2,403 Making An ALIEN BUG FRAME
Channel: Bill Making Stuff
Brand: Squarespace
Views: 27,327

Imagine it’s 2804. You land your spaceship on a distant, unexplored planet, guided by an ancient forum post from a long-dead fellow explorer who theorized there may be never-before-seen insects scurrying along under the planet’s dense cloud cover, using its strange, sap-sticky trees as impenetrable nests. That’s the sort of imagination you need to join Bill Making Stuff on his latest adventure. He uses his vast store of craft supplies to create a display shadowbox of beautiful bugs that don’t exist…at least, as far as we know. Like many creative endeavors on YouTube, his half-hour video is sponsored by website builder/host Squarespace, which also paid for nearly 100 other uploads this week.

…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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One of Instagram‘s simplest products is becoming a major area of emphasis. The app’s direct messages have received approximately 20 new features in recent months, and Instagram Head Adam Mosseri recently said his team is “doubling down” on DMs in 2025.

Business Insider‘s catalog of updates shows a timeline that begins last March, when Instagram added new editing tools (like pinned messages) and announced cosmetic updates (e.g. new chat themes) for its DMs. A steady stream of innovations arrived in the ensuing months; Instagram messages added everything from longer voice memos to AI-powered chats.

Despite Instagram’s overt focus on photos and short-form videos, its DMs have become a cultural touchstone and a primary form of communication for the app’s users. Mosseri acknowledged the format’s staying power last year, when he suggested that Instagram might move its DM icon to make it more prominent on the app’s home screen.

“When you think of Instagram, you probably think of a feed of square photos, but how Instagram works has changed a lot over the years,” Mosseri said. “And if you look at what people share, how people express their creativity, the primary way they do so is actually DMs on Instagram.”

If DMs have long been favored by Instagram users, why has the Meta-owed platform waited so long to update them? One potential explanation concerns Reels. The TikTok-like format has sucked up a lot of Instagram’s resources lately, especially as the app debuts new features and financial incentives to woo TikTokers who would be displaced by a potential U.S. ban. But with Reels potentially splitting off onto its own platform, Instagram could be looking to build up its other in-app experiences.

Trends in the creator economy may also be a factor here. Patreon’s recent “State of Create” report predicted that, in the coming years, creators will profit more from direct fan relationships than on-platform engagement. To get in front of that shift, Instagram is prioritizing the product that drives the lion’s share of its in-app conversations. Shopping features and two-way interactions are two DM updates that have made the format a more promising space for creators.

The humble DM may not immediately jump out as the next frontier in digital media, but Instagrammers will have plenty of reasons to try out the improved messages. The app seems to reward those who experiment with its new products, so creators would be wise to slide into their DMs and see what’s new.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Roblox is now a multibillion-dollar business, having turned over nearly $4 billion in 2024 alone. And a significant part of the growth that made it a multibillion-dollar business is thanks to independent video game development studios that have spent years building games and branded experiences for Roblox‘s platform.

But those studios now say they’re being squeezed out, with Roblox sending them a “dramatically lower volume of brand introductions” in an effort to keep more partnership cash for itself.

Several studios told Digiday that since Roblox began running programmatic ads in May 2024, they feel like they are in direct competition with the very platform for which they produce content.

Back before Roblox introduced ads, the main way for brands to market on its platform was by commissioning their own custom digital destinations. Companies like Vans, NASCAR, Walmart, Fenty Beauty, and more all created places where established fans and potential new buyers could come, soak in the brand identity atmosphere, play some minigames, and collect some rewards.

Roblox itself didn’t build these experiences. Instead, when brands came to it asking about how to connect with its users, it would pass their queries off to independent studios in the Roblox Partner Program. Those studios would then make tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars by creating brands’ custom experiences.

But with Roblox now self-placing ads across games on its platform, it was (allegedly) less incentivized to pass brands’ marketing queries to studios.

“There are limited introductions to studios, unless it’s in Roblox’s best interest,” one studio rep (speaking on the condition of anonymity) told Digiday. “I can tell you that we certainly see a dramatically lower volume of brand introductions than what we were used to in the past.”

As an example of how things are working at Roblox under the new ad push, tax prep firm H&R Block recently partnered directly with Roblox to run ads in Club Roblox and Mega Mansion Tycoon, two games made by independent studios. In the past, H&R Block might have worked with an independent studio to make its own game/experience–but now, it’s paying Roblox to place ads within already-established games.

While the creators of those two games were involved in placing H&R Block’s ads, and presumably got a cut of revenue generated by the placements, it’s still a different scenario than what might’ve happened during tax prep season in 2023.

“We work with Roblox directly to build and work with creators,” Andrew Martinson, H&R Block’s Senior Marketing Manager of Media and Strategy, said in a statement. “So our actual partnerships are with the developers of the two games that we are integrated with.”

When asked about the ad push, another studio exec told Digiday, “I don’t think it’s personal–it’s just incentives. And the incentives are: ‘we’ve got to sell and generate a certain amount of revenue.'”

Despite that sentiment, the push has “soured” the relationship between Roblox and studios in the Roblox Partner Program, people familiar with the matter said. Some said they believe Roblox needs to implement tools that better show brands just how effective in-game experiences built by studios can be compared to ads.

Digiday also reports that while Roblox’s introduction of programmatic ads has affected studios, it hasn’t had the same effect on the sort of creators who made nearly $1 billion last year selling things like in-game items (avatar hairstyles and clothes, decorative and environmental items, etc). Their business is separate.

In a statement, Roblox said it views independent studios as “strategtic creative partners that we bring into the vast majority of brand conversations.”

“As we continue growing our in-house partnerships team and advertising business, our focus is on building tools and solutions that benefit and delight our community of creators, users, and brands,” it said. “We are also expanding our partner ecosystem and connecting creators aligned with this mission with brands for impactful collaborations.”

One thing is clear: Even the perception of competition between creators and the platform for which they make content can hamstring the UGC economy those creators have built. If Roblox wants to continue placing ads, it might want to consider prioritizing its relationship with the independent studios that helped make it the metaverse dominant it is today.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, Roblox by James Hale
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The Sidemen charity match is one of the biggest spectacles in the creator world, and the 2025 edition of the annual soccer showdown delivered on its considerable hype. With big names like MrBeast, iShowSpeed, Logan Paul, Kai Cenat, Mark Rober, and xQc dotting the pitch, the match drew 90,000 in-person attendees, peaked at about 2.5 million online viewers, and raised more than £4.7 million for its chosen charities.

The Sidemen charity match format dates back 2016, but the 2025 iteration took the event series to new heights, thanks in large part to a change in venue. For the first time, the group headlined by creators KSI, Miniminter, Zerkaa, TBJZL, Behzinga, Vikkstar123, and W2S brought its footballing fun to London’s Wembley Stadium, the home of the English national team.

The teams that faced off at Wembley possessed enough star power to fill the venue to its maximum capacity. In previous years’ charity matches, the “YouTube All-Stars” team had only managed a single win against the Sidemen and their friends, but the visitors broke their losing streak in a memorable 2025 contest. Highlights included Logan Paul’s headed goal, iShowSpeed’s assist to Kai Cenat, KSI’s halftime performance of “The Thick Of It,” Zerkaa’s first-ever charity match goal, and xQc’s laughably poor goalkeeping (which was a feature, not a bug).

xQc may have injured himself making one of his only saves of the match, but his counterpart in the opposite goal was the Man of the Match. Madden streamer Sketch kept the score level with multiple spectacular saves. Then, in the ensuing shootout, he stopped a shot from Miniminter, setting the stage for iShowSpeed’s decisive penalty.

There was only one victorious team on the pitch, but the true winners were BBC’s Children in Need, Bright Side, and M7 Education — the three charities that will split the £4.7 million donation pool. Just how big is that fundraising total? When you consider that the last charity match’s record-setting sum was only half of the amount raised in 2025, it puts the septet’s latest accomplishment in perspective.

Where does the Sidemen Charity Match go from here? If it already brings the internet’s biggest stars to England’s largest sports venue, does it have any more room to grow? The Sidemen will answer those questions the next time they face the YouTube All-Stars, but the event’s legacy is already complete. The group’s annual success story has inspired an entire genre of influencer soccer matches. As more creators hobnob with the legends of the pitch, expect the Sidemen to remain in the thick of it.

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