The influencer marketing industry continues to grow, and one company in that space is capitalizing on a major funding opportunity. ShopMy has set itself up for future expansion with a $77.5 million Series B funding round.

The round was co-led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Bain Capital Ventures, according to the Wall Street Journal. ShopMy works with more than 550 brands to bring influencer campaigns and affiliate links to a network of more than 100,000 creators. By playing the matchmaker between advertisers and microinfluencers, ShopMy generates revenue for itself (through subscriptions and sales cuts) and creators (through link commissions) while helping brands reach their goals.

ShopMy has typically applied that business model for brands in the beatuy, fashion, and makeup categories, but it plans to use its latest funding round to expand its scope, according to Harry Rein. The ShopMy Co-Founder told WSJ that his company will set its sights on wellness, maternity, family, and food and beverage — and advancements in AI will bring more value to the human-centered influencer world, too.

“AI has not really infiltrated advertising yet in the way that it’s about to, and when that happens, our theory is that the human-connection recommendation systems are going to become even more dominant,” Rein said. “That’s when we’ll be well positioned to really become a major player.”

Even if ShopMy has a clear path to the top of the ecommerce industry, it must contend with shifting perceptions of affiliate links. Despite increasing support from platforms like YouTube and Instagram, the affiliate marketing industry contains notable inefficiencies, as demonstrated by the ongoing link-poaching scandal involving browser extension Honey.

ShopMy’s plan to dress up the humble affiliate link involves some direct connections with creators. Brazilian YouTuber Camila Coelho and Instagram star Campbell Puckett are two backers who participated in the Series B round.

The latest jolt of funding added to the existing VC raised by the company formerly known as ShopMy Shelf. It picked up an $8 million Series A back in 2022.

Filed under: Alloy Entertainment, Alternate Reality Game (ARG), AMC, American Music Awards, Animated, Animé, Annoying Orange, Anyone But Me, Applications, Arrested Development, Art, Articles, Auto-tune The News, Emmy Awards, Emmys, Featured, Format, Fox International Channels, Friday Rewind, Fullscreen, Fun Little Movies, Funding, Funny Or Die, Game of Thrones, Game Show, Grace Helbig, Hank Green, Homepage Feature, iJustine, Issa Rae, Mortal Kombat: Legacy, News, Vine by Sam Gutelle
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On Jan. 19, millions of users got a taste of what short-form video would be like without TikTok. Other platforms saw floods of new users and upticks in traffic–even platforms without a direct TikTok competitor, like Tumblr.

But do competitors like YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels actually have the oomph to pick up where TikTok would have left off?

Well, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, they’re far behind TikTok when it comes to how much time they’re able to get users to spend actually scrolling through short-form content.

When users have TikTok’s app open, they’re spending 55% of their time watching short-form videos, Sensor Tower found in its State of Mobile report covering data from the past 12 months.

Compare that to Instagram, where users spend 37% of their time watching Reels, and YouTube, where viewers spend 26% of their time watching Shorts. On Facebook, it’s 21.5%, on X it’s 10.1%, and on Snapchat (which recently announced another revamped creator monetization program aimed at enticing short-form video creators) viewers spend just 9.6% of their time watching short-form content.

On Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X, and Snapchat, users instead spend the majority of their time on the platform’s main feed (Instagram, Facebook, X), on social messaging (Snapchat), or on longer-form video YouTube.

That means while all of these apps have managed to shift some viewership to short-form video, their users still come to them for their original core offerings. On Facebook and X, that’s text and photo posts from friends, family, and strangers. On Snapchat, it’s DMs (as the app loves to remind people). And YouTube, of course, is the internet’s long-reigning long-form king.

TikTok also has an edge there: its core offering has always been short-form content. And it’s worth pointing out that if YouTube were to disappear, TikTok would probably face similar issues taking its place, since internet denizens have an association between YouTube and long-form.

“TikTok is the clear leader among short-form video apps,” Sensor Tower said in the report.

At least part of TikTok’s dominance is likely due to the engrossing design of its algorithm and the increasing tendency for Gen Z (TikTok’s primary user demographic) to scroll, scroll, scroll. We don’t think it’ll lose its #1 spot anytime soon (so long as it remains unbanned on U.S. soil). What we are curious about is whether it will lose short-form video view time to shopping instead, as it continues to promote TikTok Shop in an effort to compete with ecom giants like Amazon and Temu.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, TikTok by James Hale
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If the 90s are coming back into style, then it’s time for a new era of Nickelodeon cartoons, and that’s exactly what the Paramount-owned network is providing. A western series called Kid Cowboy is described as the first original animated series Nickelodeon has ever developed for YouTube.

That description comes from The Hollywood Reporter, which noted that Kid Cowboy is available through a different show’s YouTube hub. The Nick Jr. hit Blaze and the Monster Machines has brought more than six million subscribers to a namesake YouTube channel, and Nick is harnessing that built-in audience to give Kid Cowboy a rip-roaring start.

Kid Cowboy’s adventurous spirit is reminiscent of Dora the Explorer; its big-eyed, big-headed, three-dimensional animated characters bear a closer resemblance to the most popular children’s fare on YouTube. In particular, Kid Cowboy seems to be after the audience that delivers billions of daily views to channels affiliated with the CoComelon franchise.

Nickelodeon’s YouTube original is appealing to those kids through sing-songy content produced by industry leaders. Kid Cowboy creator Freddy Wexler is a Grammy nominee, as is co-executive producer and co-composer Emilio Estefan.

“Ninety percent of all kids are on [YouTube]. It has 60 to 70 percent more reach among kids than Netflix does. Kids spend 80 minutes a day watching content there, and its influence on the biggest IP is super clear,” Nickelodeon EVP of Unscripted and Digital Franchise Studio Ashley Kaplan told THR. “It probably has the most critical role in how kids discover shows, brands, toys, music, culture.”

Though Kid Cowboy is Nick’s first animated original on YouTube, the network is well aware of the platform’s influence within the world of children’s media. Albie Hecht, one of the architects of the golden age of Nicktoons, became the Chief Content Officer at creator-facing media company pocket.watch. Then there’s the case of current Nick President and Paramount Co-CEO Brian Robbins, who previously led digital network AwesomenessTV before assuming his current position.

Since 2018, when Robbins became Nick’s President, the network has found ways to stay connected with YouTube stars like Guava Juice and JoJo Siwa. There have also been content initiatives that pair popular creators with established Nickelodeon IP like SpongeBob SquarePants. Animation, however, is a space where Nick’s YouTube operation has a lot of untapped potential. Kid Cowboy is boldly venturing into that wilderness.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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When we spoke to LegalEagle last month about the class action lawsuit he filed against Honey on behalf of all content creators, he mentioned a handful of other coupon-finding browser extensions that appeared to operate similarly. They too would (allegedly) snatch commissions by replacing content creators’ affiliate links with their own at the very last second before checkout.

Now, one of the extensions he mentioned, Capital One Shopping, is officially facing its own class action suit.

Filed Jan. 23 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the suit alleges that Capital One Shopping (owned, of course, by credit card company Capital One) “uses its approximately 10 million unwitting subscribers to perpetrate a huge scam against Creators.”

“Defendants advertise Capital One as an extension that promotes savings and convenience to consumers by ‘instantly searching for and testing coupon codes or searching retailers for better prices,'” the suit claims. “However, what Defendants do not tell consumer is that alongside scraping the internet for coupons, Capital One Shopping also acts to steal commissions from Creators by replacing the Creators’ information with Capital One Shopping’s in cookies that are used to track and attribute commissions just as consumers are about to complete their purchases.”

YouTubers Edgar Oganesyan (who runs TechSource, which has 3.8 million subscribers) and Matthew Ely (who runs Toasty Bros, with 750K subscribers) are the principal plaintiffs in the case. They both allege their revenue from affiliate earnings has declined “despite increased viewership and engagement.”

“Capital One’s actions are a blatant exploitation of content creators’ hard work, diverting their rightful earnings through deceptive practices,” Daniel Schwartz, a partner at DiCello Levitt who filed the suit, said. “We are committed to ensuring Mr. Oganesyan, Mr. Ely, and other affected Creators receive the compensation they deserve.”

Fellow filing attorney Douglas J. McNamara, a partner at Cohen Milstein, added that Capital One Shopping’s alleged practices are “pure and simple consumer abuse, but at a nationwide level.”

Like the suit against Honey, this one is seeking financial compensation for all creators who may have been affected. That means, if judgments for both suits land in creators’ favor, some may be getting two (or multiple…) payouts. Those payouts likely won’t replace all the income they may have lost over the past few years, but they’ll be something.

And, as LegalEagle pointed out in our conversation about Honey, these suits might bring attention to the structure of the affiliate marketing industry and the fairness of how creators are compensated and credited for sales. If Honey, Capital One Shopping, and other coupon-finding browser extensions have been replacing creators’ affiliate links with their own, that would not only take income from creators, but traffic, giving brands a lowball impression of how much purchase-driving power creators have.

Consider this scenario: A creator partners with an energy drink brand and 15 of their subscribers follow their affiliate link to buy a case. Seven of those people use a coupon-finding browser extension and (allegedly) end up with the creator’s affiliate attribution erased. To the partnering brand, it looks like the creator only sold a product to eight people–around half of their actual sales power. That brand might go on to invest less in creator marketing.

And, if this happened to enough brands with enough creators, it had an industry-wide impact on data about creator sales efficacy. Brands and marketing agencies simply cannot know how well creators have been selling their products.

Other extensions LegalEagle cited as potential targets for creator-protecting class action suits include Karma and Pie, which was founded last year by Honey co-founder Ryan Hudson. For now, though, creators should keep an eye on the suits against Honey and Capital One Shopping, and be prepared to throw their names in for class action payouts if applicable.

Filed under: Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry. This week, there’s a new Twitch charity drive joining the Mafiathon, a new channel for a disgraced pop star, and a new rule in chess.

Creator commotion

Shrould raises over $100,000 with month-long Fragathon. The streamer known for playing tactical shooters like Valorant and Counter-Strike is spending the whole month of January raising funds for St. Jude’s. The Fragathon is personal for Shroud; his father passed away from lung cancer about two years ago.

Alex Cooper’s Unwell Network ventures onto YouTube. The Call Her Daddy host has made a play in the podcast world with a media company that partners with popular creators. Unwell is now bringing that operation to YouTube, where a short-form series led by Kierra Lewis is among the initial offerings.

The king of video game rants is making a game of his own. The Angry Video Game Nerd is bringing us all back to the past with an 8-bit game that runs on original NES consoles. AVGN is a legend, so I hope his game gets good reviews, but if it doesn’t, he’ll at least get to opportunity to roast himself.

Agency dealings

Bailey Sarian brings her spooky storytelling to Underscore. The creator known for her innovative combination of makeup and murder mysteries has landed new representation. True crime is red hot right now, so it’s a good time for Sarian and Underscore to expand the creator’s product lines.

Ahead of the Super Bowl, Katie Feeney signs with CAA. The sports reporter-turned-creator typically flies across our radar during the NFL playoffs, and this year is no exception. Her agreement with CAA will help her level up her content operation on her channels and on the field.

Wilkommen! Electrify greets German market. The firm that invests in YouTube content has backed German creators Simplicissimus and Unfassbar. Those deals, plus a staking of American video essayist fern, give Electrify a strong foothold in the worlds of journalism and politics.

Pop culture minute

Addison Rae is a Rolling Stone cover girl. The creator’s transformation from TikTok star to Grammy nominee is the subject of a feature that chronicles her unusual career turn. In the past, a pivot like the one Rae is making would be difficult to pull off, but in the era of TikTok-driven pop music culture, stars like Rae get a leg up.

Lizzo thinks it’s about damn time to join Twitch. As she looks to rehab her public image after getting hit with some serious accusations, Lizzo is launching her own Twitch channel. You may think it’s too soon to check out the lizzobetwitchin account, but Kai Cenat is already a fan.

Warner Bros drops free movies on YouTube. A lot of the available titles are little more than forgotten schlock, but there are some gems in there (like the mockumentary Waiting for Guffman and Richard Linklater’s subUrbia). No matter the quality of these movies, I’m willing to support any initiative that involves free, fully licensed film distribution.

The biz

Flip hunts for TikTok Shop cast-offs with $100 million equity fund. We can now add another social commerce app to the list of tech companies that are trying to pick up TikTok’s discarded scraps. Money for creators is nice, even if the stalled TikTok ban could be officially reversed at any moment.

Creators look to “own the creative” with TikTok takeover bid. Old-school YouTuber Adam Juegos is leading an initiative that looks to put 51% of TikTok shares in the hands of creators. It’s not the first “people’s bid” that has been proposed for TikTok, but if ByteDance does end up selling, I’d still bet on the billionaires to take control.

Google won’t have to pay Russia undecillions of dollars. A U.K. court has ruled that YouTube will not have to pay a fine that is many times larger than the entire world’s GDP. For Russia, it’s on to the next bit of strongarm tactics, I guess.

The internet is a strange place

Buffed bishops are the hot pieces in the new chess meta. The ages-old strategy game has regained much of its popularity thanks to streamers like Alex Botez and Gotham Chess. Like any esport, chess could use a fresh meta from time to time, and that’s what Chess.com provided with a rules update that gives bishops a special move. Sadly, the “Bishop Bosse” is not actually playable; if you try it on the board, you’ll look more like Ding Liren than Magnus Carlsen.

Phones with TikTok installed are selling for thousands on eBay. The app’s endangered status in the United States has made old phones into coveted commodities among digital buyers. All I’ll say is that a VPN is much cheaper.

Turns out Charli D’Amelio’s “anxiety pen” was a vape all along. In 2020, then-16-year-old D’Amelio was caught vaping and tried to play off the device as an inhaler she uses to manage her anxiety. Years later, she revealed that excuse as the lie it is. Look, all I’m saying is, if we could make an anxiety management device into an actual product, I’d buy one.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Substack is giving creators 20 million reasons to migrate to its platform. The newsletter distributor has announced a Creator Accelerator Fund that sets aside $20 million for creators who promise to relocate their “paid-subscription audience.”

A blog post from Substack describes the fund as a measure of consistency on an increasingly unpredictable internet. Substack differs from some other newsletter platforms (including beehiiv) because it takes a 10% cut of revenue from the periodicals it delivers. To convince creators to accept that surcharge, Substack is sweetening the pot with more upfront payments.

“We established this fund because we’ve seen creators who specialize in video, audio, and text expand their audience, revenue, and influence on Substack, where the platform’s network effects amplify the quality and impact of the work they’re doing,” reads the post. “The Substack app, which has millions of weekly active users, is the single largest source of growth for publishers on the platform, accounting for more than 50% of all new subscriptions and 30% of paid subscriptions.”

The Creator Accelerator Fund also serves as a response to the increasing competition in the newsletter space. As beehiiv raises millions, it is launching creator-friendly programs like the beehiiv Media Collective, further empowering journalists, podcasters, and other independent personalities.

For Substack, it may be simpler to shift its target audience rather than play catch-up with beehiiv — and that’s where TikTok comes in. The app’s uncertain future has opened the door for other platforms to appeal to short-form video creators. Substack is one of those potential TikTok successors. Its recently launched live video product makes it a suitable home for creators who are looking for a new home for their news updates. Fittingly, leading TikTok newsperson V Spehar of Under The Desk News is named in the blog post as one creator who has “successfully migrated to Substack.”

If Donald Trump is able to keep TikTok running in the United States, Substack’s $20 million wager might not click with the TikTok crowd. But in the mean time, if you’d like to apply for a piece of the Creator Accelerator Fund, you can do so right here.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Instagram‘s Trial Reels feature was launched to preview new content, but it has become a trendy tactic for gaining followers. Multiple creators have claimed that they have gained thousands of new followers by using Trial Reels to deliver existing videos to new viewers.

Trial Reels, launched six weeks ago, lets users share videos among non-followers and evaluate them. Based on the test results, the videos can either be uploaded to all followers or discarded.

Top stars like MrBeast use A/B tests to determine the content formats, video titles, and thumbnails that perform the best. With the launch of Trial Reels, Instagram seemed to be catering to those creators.

But instead of using Trial Reels to test new content, many Instagrammers are employing the feature as a growth hacking tool. By feeding it old videos, those creators are gaining fresh traffic from the non-followers who are introduced to their accounts thanks to Trial Reels.

 

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Instagrammer @chelsea_explains cited Trial Reels hacking as one of the main factors behind her two-month rise to 450,000 followers. “I’ve had so many people DM me saying they tried this hack and got hundreds, if not thousands of new followers after months of stagnation,” she wrote.

The videos that perform the best when repurposed as Trial Reels are those that have the highest view counts, engagement rates, and follower conversion, according to a post by @ccc.growth. Instagram Head Adam Mosseri partially corroborated those priorities; in a post of his own, he cited watch time, likes, and sends as key metrics valued by the app’s ranking.

Mosseri and Instagram don’t seem to mind if creators “hack” the platform in search of get-rich-quick solutions. Even if Trial Reels users are reimagining the feature’s purpose, they’re still uploading new Reels during a time when Instagram is eager to make the numbers go up on its TikTok competitor. Translation: Growth hack away, because Trial Reels might be more than just a clever exploit.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Every once in a while, a social media platform runs into bad luck. Sometimes that’s because its new owner decided to forget what the word “verified” means, and sometimes it’s because the U.S. government decides to ban it. But one thing is consistent across these situations: Tumblr will be there to take advantage of them.

When X introduced its new verification system under Elon Musk, Tumblr trolled it by selling “important blue checkmarks” that “may turn into a bunch of crabs at any time” to its own users. (And people bought them.)

Now, in a less troll-y move, it’s following in every other platform’s footsteps and launching a TikTok competitor. But for those of you rolling your eyes, hang on–this isn’t as random as it seems.

In the leadup to TikTok’s (ultimately temporary) ban, pretty much every competitive platform began appealing to its user base, the soon-to-be “TikTok refugees,” in a desperate move to steal some of TikTok’s short-form domination. Instagram, for example, reportedly offered a whopping $50,000 a month to TikTokers who would start posting their videos on Reels instead. That makes sense, because they’ve all been riding TikTok’s wave, and all offer similar video products that theoretically could capture and keep users.

Tumblr, however, was one of the few platforms that didn’t have its own TikTok copycat–so it was surprising, then, that it too saw a surge of new users when TikTok was banned Jan. 19.

The platform told TechCrunch it saw a 35% spike in iOS app installations and a 70% increase in people joining Communities, where users can congregate forum-style to discuss shared interests. Several Communities that rose to prominence were specifically about TikTok, including TikTok Refugees and TikTok Repository, where creators encouraged one another to post the videos they’d made for TikTok.

Based on that traffic, Tumblr is taking an experimental project from 2015–a GIF discovery feature called Tumblr TV, which later was further developed to support video–and rolling it out to all users.

Whether the project is actually ready for wide rollout is another matter. Like TikTok’s feed, Tumblr TV is vertical and swipeable, but as TechCrunch points out, it’s got issues. Tumblr TV includes both GIF and video content, but the GIFs are sized-up and grainy, and many videos are cropped awkwardly because they were never intended for vertical viewing.

TikTok may have its own issues, but it also has, at its core, an elegant UI experience for both creators and viewers. And right now, Tumblr TV, well…doesn’t.

If TikTok ever were to be permanently banned, we don’t think its users would turn to Tumblr as their next vertical video platform. Tumblr has always been a text- and photoset-based platform rather than one optimized for video. But we do think that, judging by the user surge it saw Jan. 19, it may become a place where creators can commiserate if TikTok leaves U.S. soil.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, Tumblr by James Hale
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Last year, Roblox revealed it paid out a whopping $741 million to creators who made games and cosmetic items on its platform in 2023. Now, Fortnite has decided to similarly highlight just how much dough it forks over to creators–and how much game time their content gets from its user base of over 400 million registered players.

According to Epic Games‘ first-ever Fortnite Ecosystem Year in Review, it paid out $352 million to creators in 2024. Those creators–around 70,000 of them, tripled from the 24,000 Epic says it paid in 2023–made a total of 198,000 “islands” within the game that often contain fully customized settings, minigames, plotlines, and more.

Take Lumberjack Heroes, for example, which is an RPG where players (as you may have guessed) roam a map chopping wood to level up their axe-wielding characters, unlock new areas, and hatch pets. It’s an “island,” and its creators built it on the Unreal Editor for Fortnite game engine. Though it’s a third-party game built entirely by outside developers, players still have to be logged in to Fortnite to play it–and it earned a portion of that $352 million.

And, speaking of players being logged in, they’re spending a lot of logged-in time playing creators’ games. Epic said that in 2024, players spent 5.23 billion hours playing third-party games—”a number that represents 36.5% of total Fortnite playtime and continues to rise.”

On average, it added, 60,000 creator-made islands were played each day, and 70% of all Fortnite players played both creator- and Epic-made games throughout the year. They also played an increasing variety of games, with more than 30% of time spent on creator-made islands with genres that don’t strictly involved typical Fortnite-esque combat, like RPGs, party games, and horror sims.

“While engagement varies monthly due to seasonality, the average number of players engaging with creator islands on a daily, monthly, and annual basis has increased across the board this year, with average daily players up 15% in 2024,” Epic said.

All this playtime is paying off big for some creators. In 2024, 37 creators earned over $1 million by developing custom islands. 14 of those creators earned over $3 million, and 7 earned over $10 million.

But while that’s only a very small portion of Fortnite‘s creator population, there is a somewhat broader segment making good salary money, too. A total of 1,728 creators made at least $10K in 2024, with 418 crossing the $100K threshold and 154 making at least $300K.

For comparison, Roblox‘s breakdown for 2023 had it paying out at least $10K to 3,500 developers; $100K to 750 developers; over $1 million to 100; and over $10 million to 9 creators. We also know that in 2022, Roblox‘s top 10 creators earned an average of $23 million apiece and “nearly every creator in our top 500 earned at least $140,000,” it said.

We’re not sure yet if Fortnite can catch up to Roblox, which is its closest competitor in making game development accessible and (relatively) easy for creators. However, it certainly plans to make an effort: Epic said that in 2025, it will move set dressing suite Scene Graph into beta, introduce the ability to create custom items, and launch “additional tools to help you build deeper, more complex games with [Unreal Editor for Fortnite] in new and popular genres.”

Filed under: Epic Games, Fortnite, Homepage Feature by James Hale
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The 2024 holiday season brought a boost to the ecommerce landscape, and it was also a prosperous time for a related industry: streaming. Platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, and YouTube soared to record-high viewership numbers in November and December, with much of that traffic coming on live sports broadcasts.

Nielsen noted that Netflix accounted for 8.5% of all TV traffic during December 2024; that was the highest monthly share it had ever received. Prime Video’s 4% share also set a new one-month record, and YouTube — which was already dominating watch time on TV screens — pushed its top-ranked viewership share up to 11.1%.

Per Nielsen, the most-watched broadcasts during the holiday season were sporting events, and an increasing number of those broadcasts went live on subscription-based streaming services. Both Netflix and Prime Video boasted NFL broadcasts on Christmas Day. Netflix also benefitted from the ballyhooed event Paul v. Tyson; the streamer rode the influencer boxing wave to achieve record subscriber growth.

Even though FOX delivered the top broadcast of the holiday season with its Thanksgiving Day football coverage, the increasing number of big-ticket sports contests on streaming services represents an ongoing sea change in the streaming world. To chase the 43.3% of TV viewers who watch via streaming (according to Nielsen), media partners like the NFL are handing the keys to the broadcast to companies like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon.

But there’s more to the holiday season streaming bump than just the shifting landscape of live sports. Buzzy scripted debuts, such as the second season of Squid Game on Netflix, also turned millions of heads in December. The streaming industry’s means of measuring watch time may produce uneven results, but Nielsen’s watch time measurements tell us a clear story about the family that once crowded around the TV during holiday season. These days, that family seems to be sitting in front of the over-the-top device.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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As TikTok’s U.S. operations hang in the balance, some platforms are chasing the app’s ad dollars while others court its creators. Meanwhile, X and Bluesky have their sights set on TikTok’s design. The social platform led by Elon Musk and its decentralized successor have both rolled out copycat versions of the For You Page — and Bluesky’s take on the layout proposes a different type of TikTok successor.

X’s work on its vertical video feed began when it was still known as Twitter. Though Musk’s takeover of the app has come with many changes, the world’s richest person has advanced the platform’s TikTok clone. An “immersive new home for videos,” according to an official post with Musk-ian formatting, arrived in the United States on January 19.

At this point, TikTok-style video feeds are a dime a dozen, so X’s announcement doesn’t move the needle too much (even if it gives Musk an easy way to integrate more vertical videos into X should he become the partial owner of a divested TikTok.) Bluesky’s reveal, on the other hand, potentially addresses one of the main causes of TikTok-related skepticism.

On January 19, the day the TikTok ban briefly went into effect in the United States, Bluesky added a trending videos tab in its mobile app. “We had to get in on the video action too — Bluesky now has custom feeds for video,” reads a post on the decentralized hub. “Like any other feed, you can choose to pin these or not. Bluesky is yours to customize.”

Bluesky’s appeals to user choice make it immune to regulatory efforts that target addictive algorithms. TikTok’s recommendations got it sanctioned in Europe, where the E.U. ordered it to debut a depersonalized feed. That’s the experience Bluesky has offered from the jump, and entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban have suggested that vertical video communities can benefit by moving to a network powered by a decentralized protocol.

Instead of waiting for Cuban to find his startup, Bluesky has debuted that feed itself. If X’s take on TikTok isn’t to your liking, you might prefer the algorithm-light alternative.

Filed under: Alloy Entertainment, Alternate Reality Game (ARG), AMC, American Music Awards, Animated, Animé, Annoying Orange, Anyone But Me, Applications, Arrested Development, Art, Articles, Auto-tune The News, Emmy Awards, Emmys, Featured, Format, Fox International Channels, Friday Rewind, Fullscreen, Fun Little Movies, Funding, Funny Or Die, Game of Thrones, Game Show, Grace Helbig, Hank Green, Homepage Feature, iJustine, Issa Rae, Mortal Kombat: Legacy, News, Vine by Sam Gutelle
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Donald Trump is known for communicating with citizens via X, but his YouTube activity received a bump at the start of his second term. On Inauguration Day, videos featuring the 45th and 47th President received millions of views as Trump family members raked in thousands of new subscribers.

The bulk of Trump’s Inauguration Day YouTube viewership came on the channel assigned to his presidential campaign. That’s where the full-length, VOD version of the swearing-in has received more than five million views in just two days.

That type of YouTube content looks a lot like the videos uploaded during the president’s previous term. Trump, a longtime YouTube user, made the platform one of the White House’s distribution channels from 2016 until he was banned on the platform one week after January 6.

Trump was reinstated on YouTube in 2023, the same year as the platform’s about-face on election denialism. His second term begins in a media landscape that’s much different from 2016: Trump appearances now draw millions of viewers on channels led by young male influencers who catalyzed the red wave that swept the U.S. during the 2024 election. A recent analysis performed by Bloomberg found that Trump’s guest spots across nine major influencer channels drew more than 100 million views in total.

“We definitely helped with the young male vote,” Nelk member Kyle Forgeard told Bloomberg. “On the podcast, we just speak our mind, try to be true to ourselves and say what we think.”

But even if Nelk, Logan Paul, and Theo Von assisted Trump’s reascension to power, the creator who got the most shine on Inauguration Day was someone else: The president’s granddaughter. Kai Trump launched her YouTube channel amid the hubbub of election season, and her Inauguration Day vlog has brought more than 1.4 million views so far. Per Gospel Stats, Kai got 28,000 new subscribers the day after posting her viral video.

Vlog-style videos could be an asset for the elder Trump during his second term — if YouTube allows him to maintain his channels. The platform’s actions in Russia show it’s not afraid to stand up to autocrats. Will Trump make it through four years without earning a YouTube suspension or an outright ban along the way?

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