Even though Donald Trump has delayed the U.S. TikTok ban for now, the rest of the social media industry is still eagerly pursuing displaced creators.

Instagram just announced one of the largest incentives thus far: A Breakthrough Bonus that will offer up to $5,000 to new Reels creators. And as the Meta-owned platform looks to expand its user base, it’s also courting some high-profile names with direct cash bonuses that reportedly range as high as $50,000 per month.

Those payouts could be worth “even more” than $50,000, according to The Information. Instagram’s five-digit deals, described as its biggest creator overtures to date, require partners to provide the app with a window of exclusivity.

While top social media stars decide whether to accept Instagram’s offer, other TikTokers can decide whether it’s time for them to break through. The Breakthrough Bonus can be claimed by any TikTok creator who posts content to Reels on Facebook or Instagram. Over three months, the bonuses can rise as high as $5,000. A press release from Instagram noted that Breakthrough Bonus partners will get immediate access to the platform’s newly-united monetization program.

The release also corroborated The Information‘s report, noting that “some TikTok creators” will receive “content deals” to jumpstart their growth on Facebook and Instagram. It’s not the first time a platform has dangled cash in front of creators in exchange for some measure of exclusivity. YouTube provided an early example of that tactic in 2015 when it used financial incentives to prevent its stars from migrating to the upstart video platform Vessel.

More recent exclusivity deals have been branded as examples of overspending, and the streamer version of this type of contract seems to be an endangered species. Meta’s take on the concept seems to be more closely related to the Performance Bonuses it pays to creators of popular content, except this time, the content in question first got popular on TikTok.

Instagram is pairing its cash bonuses with new features and a three-minute max runtime for its Reels (up from 90 seconds). Even as other platforms tout their connections to creator culture, Instagram seems to be wagering that it will inherit the most ad dollars in the event of a U.S. TikTok ban.

Alongside its other Reels enhancements, Instagram announced its version of the popular TikTok-affiliated editing app CapCut. Instagram Head Adam Mosseri will probably provide more updates in the coming days, so you can tune into the bespectacled messenger pictured above if you want to stay on top of all the changes.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Netflix expects live events like the Jake Paul x Mike Tyson boxing match to be “a small percentage of our total view hours and content expense,” but still thinks they will “result in outsized value to both our members and our business,” it said during its fourth-quarter earnings call this week.

The Paul x Tyson match and two NFL games, all aired exclusively by Netflix, helped drive the streamer to record viewership in December, and helped it clinch 18.9 million new subscribers for Q4 2024–more than double what analysts expected, and its biggest single-quarter subscriber growth in history.

This growth puts Netflix at over 300 million subscribers worldwide—and (fortuitously for Netflix) is likely the last official number we’ll hear from the company, since it’s decided to no longer report sub counts moving forward. As co-CEO Ted Sarandos said in November, Netflix is switching to a YouTube-esque watch time model of measuring viewer activity, “because we believe it’s the single best indicator of member satisfaction with our offering, and it is a leading indicator for retention and acquisition over time.”

For now, though, Netflix disclosed the subscriber bump, which handily outpaced its previous record of 15 million new subs in one quarter (set during Q1 2020).

And, according to research firm Antenna, the Paul x Tyson fight was a significant contributor. Fans’ apparent desire to watch the younger Paul brother duke it out with the longtime heavyweight champ led to a record surge of new account signups: 1.43 million people joined Netflix in the three days around the fight.

In a letter to shareholders, Netflix confirmed that its steady lean in to live programming “has already delivered some must-watch moments.” But as we mentioned above, Netflix also appears to caution that it doesn’t plan to significantly increase its investment in live events and sports.

That’s an interesting decision, considering nearly two-thirds of sports content is now consumed on streaming, and social platforms like YouTube and even Reddit are putting serious development into getting more exclusive live sports content for their users.

Netflix, it seems, will continue focusing on scripted and unscripted originals–like Squid Game, which Bloomberg reports was also a notable contributor to Netflix’s Q4 subscriber growth. (The question is, will it be able to bring out another marquee banger after Stranger Things finishes its run later this year?)

The streamer overall reported $10.2 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 16% growth from Q3 2024. Per Bloomberg, that’s its largest quarter-to-quarter gain since late 2021. Netflix says it expects revenue to continue going up, driven in part by ad sales.

Netflix introduced an ad-supported streaming plan in November 2022. Its goal was twofold: first, to give people a lower-priced tier so they’d stop watching shows on their friends’ accounts instead of subscribing; and second, to tap into extra revenue by selling ads.

“We have to continue to improve all aspects of Netflix–more series and films our members love, a great product experience, increased sophistication in our plans and pricing strategy (including more advertising capabilities),” Netflix said in its shareholder letter.

That being said, Netflix is raising prices yet again in the U.S., including for the ad-supported tier. Its standard ad-free tier is going from $15.49 to $17.99/month, its premium ad-free tier is jumping $2 to $24.99, and the monthly price for having an extra member on your account (another attempt to slash password-sharing) is going from $7.99 to $8.99.

As for ad-free, it’s going up $1—the smallest increase overall, but still an increase.

We’ll see how that goes over with subscribers, but so far, it’s going over well with investors: Netflix’s stock rose 13% after earnings were announced.

Looking forward, Sarandos said Netflix will be “constantly trying to broaden our programming.” It expects revenue of $10.4 billion for Q1 2025.

Filed under: Creator, Homepage Feature, Netflix 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. 👇

MrBeast fell from first place to third in last week’s U.S. Top 50 ranking, but the North Carolina-based creator reassumed his position atop the chart during the third week of January. His 780.2 million weekly views, which represented a 38% week-over-week increase, gave him more than 70 billion lifetime views on the world’s most-subscribed YouTube channel.

There’s another brand that arguably has an even more impressive presence in the all-American ranking. The face of that brand doesn’t have his own Amazon Prime Video original like MrBeast, but he’s active across platforms like YouTube and Netflix and is hauling in billions of monthly views across a network of specialized channels.

Blippi is heading for the moon(bug)

The orange-and-blue character portrayed by Stevin John has ties to three of the top 50 channels in this week’s ranking. Of that trio, the highest-ranking entry is the flagship Blippi hub, which got the 17th-most weekly views among all U.S.-based YouTube channels. By adding 201.3 million weekly views, Blippi moved up 11 spots in the Global Top 50.

A secondary channel titled Blippi Toys is also surging. Its name is a good encapsulation of the direction the Blippi brand has taken. Thanks in part to his partnership with children’s media company Moonbug, John and his collaborators have moved from the small screen to the toy aisle.

Blippi’s multiplatform success has been so great that the unmistakable character is even able to buck YouTube trends. In an era dominated by short-form content, the Blippi Toys channel (#34) is unafraid to go long, offering compilations that sometimes run for multiple hours.

The growing Blippi world has also brought some new characters into the fold. Meekah, whose charming, smile-filled videos have helped the Blippi brand venture over to Netflix, is becoming a bigger and bigger hit on YouTube. Her namesake hub filled with “educational videos for kids” is in the midst of its best-ever run in the U.S. Top 50. Meekah’s 112.8 million weekly views put her in 48th place in the star-spangled ranking.

Whether on retail shelves or streaming services, Blippi has found its way to the homes of hundreds of millions of kids. His getup is iconic, and his viewership feats are just as astonishing.

Channel Distribution

This week, there are 38 YouTube Shorts channels in the U.S. Top 50.

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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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.

Here on our Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Reports, it’s not too uncommon for us to have a double-header, with one creator getting two sponsored videos in our top 5. But Joe Rogan has set a new record: he’s responsible for the #1, #2, and #4 most-watched sponsored videos on all of YouTube this week. How? By scoring interviews with in-the-news-cycle figures like Mark Zuckerberg and celebrities like Mel Gibson. In between his vids, we have the return of David Dobrik and a last hurrah for Hawk Tuah Girl.

Check ’em all out right here:

#1 Joe Rogan Experience #2254 – Mel Gibson
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: Athletic Greens, DraftKings
Views: 8,628,193

In the first of his three top 5 vids this week, Joe Rogan sits down with Hollywood’s Mel Gibson, who’s promoting his new film Flight Risk, starring Mark Wahlberg. Their two-and-a-half-hour discussion covered a range of topics–and, as is typical with Gibson, he made several controversial bordering on conspiratorial remarks, including a segment where he said multiple friends with late-stage cancer were cured by taking ivermectin and fenbendazole. “They drank hydrochloride something or other,” he added. Rogan, also typically, agreed with his guest, saying there are “studies on this now where people have proven” that these drugs work on cancer. The episode topped out at nearly 9 million views, and was sponsored by Rogan’s usual partners, Athletic Greens and DraftKings (the latter of which sponsored over 70 videos this week in its pre-Super Bowl ramp-up).

#2 Joe Rogan Experience #2255 – Mark Zuckerberg
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: Athletic Greens
Views: 8,070,603

In Rogan #2, he brings on Meta founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Zuck has also been a center of contention over the last couple weeks, after he announced Meta’s plans to suck up to the incoming Trump administration by axing its in-house fact-checking program and changing its TOS to allow hate speech. They go a little longer than Gibson and Rogan, stretching to three hours, but covering a similarly broad range of topics. Much of the discussion gives Zuck room to talk about the things that fed Meta’s new approach to content management, including his beliefs that news outlets can no longer be trusted to give accurate information and that governments shouldn’t pressure social media platforms to take responsibility for cracking down on vaccine misinformation. Considering he’s echoing much of what we hear from Trump and Elon Musk, we don’t think he’ll have much of a problem with the new government.

#3 SURPRISING FRIENDS WITH BODY TRANSFORMATION!!
Channel: David Dobrik
Brand: SeatGeek
Views: 7,281,709

David Dobrik is back. His three-year hiatus from vlogging, taken in the wake of numerous scandals, is officially over. The Vine star turned YouTuber reemerged with a video where MrBeast challenged him to get in shape with a year of workouts. Dobrik actually did it–and the whole shebang was sponsored by his longtime partner SeatGeek, which pulled away from him during the aforementioned scandals, but seems willing to let him be its poster boy once again.

#4 Joe Rogan Experience #2252 – Wesley Huff
Channel: PowerfulJRE
Brand: ExpressVPN, DraftKings
Views: 5,311,944

For our third and final Rogan of the week, the Central Canada Director for religious organization Apologetics Canada, Wesley Huff, joins him to talk Jesus. Huff describes himself as a former paraplegic who “experienced a miraculous recovery for which the doctors themselves had no medical explanation,” and his three-hour episode with Rogan is mostly faith-centered. Like the rest of Rogan’s material this week, it drew big views, racking up over 5 million. We should also mention that, while this is Rogan’s final episode in the top 5, he was also in at spot #8 with a Theo Von interview.

BONUS #12 Finding Love with the Hawk Tuah Dating App
Channel: Chad Chad
Brand: Trainwell
Views: 2,194,012

To round out a solid week of controversy, we have YouTuber Chad Chad venturing into the depths Hawk Tuah Girl‘s AI-driven dating app, Pookie, so you don’t have to. Hawk Tuah Girl–aka Haliey Welch–had a meteoric rise to memedom and, thanks to her failed cryptocurrency, a just-as-swift tumble. But while she’s all but vanished from the internet, traces of her remain…including this chance to find love.

…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. 👇

The top four channels in this week’s Global Top 50 are making it harder to keep up with their pace. They all saw week-over-week viewership increases, with #1 finisher T-Series pushing its YouTube-leading total to more than one billion weekly views.

It’s not the first time that T-Series has reached that benchmark, and another member of the ten-digit club — MrBeast — is right behind the Indian record label in second place. Meanwhile, individual creators continue to find chart real estate next to dozens of kid-friendly hubs.

Ben Eagle kicks it into high gear

YouTube’s favorite martial arts instructor is back. After breaking out on Shorts toward the end of 2023, the Vietnamese brawler had his biggest year on YouTube in 2024. Based on his early returns from 2025, the upcoming 12 months will be an even bigger coming-out party for Ben Eagle and his cast of characters. His most recent seven-day sum topped out at 340.2 million weekly views.

Eagle gained worldwide attention for his dojo by staging expertly choreographed fight scenes on YouTube Shorts. His work has only gotten more elaborate of late. It’s as if every Ben Eagle video is a sequel that’s bigger and badder than the upload that came before it.

There’s good reason for creators like Eagle to up the ante. YouTube Shorts viewers have shown a tremendous appetite for action-packed mini-films. Another individual with a sharp eye for YouTube trends, Japan’s Issei, has invoked fight-happy characters like Demon Slayer‘s Inosuke as he climbs the Global Top 50 leaderboard.

Issei’s eighth place finish in this week’s Global Top 50 shows that Asia’s YouTube Shorts all-stars are still going strong in the new year. Even Korea’s CRAZY GREAPA (#34) is back in the ranking with a fresh crop of sigma memes. Though Gen Alpha memes move quickly, some elements of the cohort’s taste have staying power.

Channel Distribution

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

• India: 15
• United States: 10
•  Indonesia: 4
  
• Hong Kong and South Korea: 3
• Japan and Vietnam: 2
• Argentina, Belgium, Canada, China, Czechia, El Salvador, Mexico, Norway, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Thailand: 1

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

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

Filed under: Articles, Homepage Feature, News, statistics, Statistics, YouTube, Youtube Chart by Sam Gutelle
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After all that, TikTok was offline for just hours before restoring service to U.S.-based users and telling them it was “fortunate that President Trump” will apparently work with it to keep it unbanned. But though TikTok wasn’t offline for long, competitor companies are still taking advantage to pitch their own solutions to its services—including Instagram, which announced a CapCut clone called Edits.

While platforms like Snapchat and Triller entreated TikTok’s (temporary) refugee user base by promising them a similar scrolling experience full of videos they would like, Instagram’s approach was–and continues to be–different.

Sure, it almost certainly hopes that this event will cause more people to crosspost their content to its TikTok copycat Reels, so they’ll have multi-platform reach should anything permanent ever happen to TikTok. But its main strategy seems to be appealing to content creators who use CapCut.

The ByteDance-owned editing software has over 200 million users–including millions of content creators who use its tools even if they’re not planning to post the end product on TikTok. We see CapCut watermarks on YouTube Shorts, X, Snapchat, and, yes, Instagram Reels. It’s become the industry standard editing app, and while YouTube et al. have their own in-app editing tools, they aren’t as robust as CapCut’s.

Instagram is smart to go after the contingent of people who rely on CapCut to edit videos on their phones–especially because, while TikTok was quick to become available again, CapCut wasn’t back online for U.S. users until today, Jan. 21. That gave creators a long taste of what it would be like should CapCut go offline permanently.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Adam Mosseri (@mosseri)

“There’s a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said in a video posted to Instagram.

He described the uncreatively named Edits as “more than a video editing app.”

“It’s a full suite of creative tools,” he said. “There will be a dedicated tab for inspiration, another for keeping track of early ideas, a much higher-quality camera (which I used to record this video), all the editing tools you’d expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators, and–if you decide to share your videos on Instagram–powerful insights into how those videos perform.”

It also includes green screen capabilities, something that’s become a hallmark of CapCut.

When someone on Threads quoted-retweeted (wait…what’s the word for quote-retweet on Threads?) his post and simply said, “CapCut,” Mosseri shot back, “CapCut, but more for creators than casual video makers. Not just video editing, but an inspiration tab, idea tracking, and insights built in.”

Basically, Instagram is swinging big for pro creators—and, if it can build a mobile editing suite that’s truly better than CapCut, it might get them.

For now, though, CapCut is back online, and we expect most creators will flock back to its familiar tools.

Mosseri told The Verge reporter Chris Welch that Instagram has been working on Edits “for months” (perhaps the same number of months since TikTok’s path to remaining in the U.S. began narrowing significantly). He added that it will “end up pretty different than CapCut.”

We’ll see.

Edits makes it grand debut March 13, 2025.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, Instagram, TikTok by James Hale
Comments Off on While everyone else goes after TikTok’s users, Instagram is wooing its creator population with a CapCut competitor

After the end of a chaotic weekend, TikTok received a 75-day lifeline from the new U.S. president. Donald Trump signed an executive order to give TikTok parent ByteDance some time to negotiate a permanent deal.

On Friday, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law that forces either a ban or divestiture of TikTok, the app’s fate seemed to be sealed. As its rivals swooped in to divvy up the spoils, TikTok went dark for U.S. users on Saturday.

That downtime turned out to be short-lived. TikTok welcomed its U.S. community back onto the app on Sunday, citing Trump’s 75-day reprieve as the reason for the turnaround.

Trump’s executive order doesn’t overturn the divest-or-ban law, even though the new president has promised to take that action during his second term. Instead, Trump is ordering the attorney general to avoid enforcing the law while his administration negotiates with TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company.

During a press conference, Trump said he had a change of heart about TikTok (which he tried to ban during his first term) “because I got to use it.” He is seeking a deal that would split ownership of the app 50-50 between “the United States” and China. To Trump, if ByteDance were to turn down that offer, it would be “somewhat of a hostile act.”

Previously, Chinese officials had indicated that they would oppose any efforts to divest TikTok in response to the new U.S. law. But as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and attended his inauguration, the Chinese Foreign Ministry suggested that it would put power back in ByteDance’s hands.

Instead of blocking a deal, China may let TikTok’s owner come to its own terms. That deference would please Trump, but users on Chinese social media platforms wouldn’t be as thrilled. On Weibo, posts called Trump’s offer “robbery” and suggested that they should be able to own half of American corporations like Nvidia.

Even with all that animosity, the first hours of Trump’s second term showed Americans that they can hold out some hope for the permanent reinstatement of TikTok. The app’s U.S.-backed co-owner could be MrBeast or Elon Musk, but there’s still a chance that ByteDance will retain control of its most famous property.

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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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, an influential Minecraft server is a hotbed for drama, Twitch’s top female streamer is back, and Chinese social media is all the rage.

Creator commotion

TommyInnit calls out Dream’s bad behavior. “Four years ago, you were awful to me.” That’s one of the crucial lines in TommyInnit’s excoriation of Dream, the titular figure behind the influential Minecraft server Dream SMP. What was once a meeting ground for friends is now a cesspool of infighting. Dream’s childish response to TommyInnit’s tongue-lashing shows that he’s just as immature as his former gaming buddy makes him out to be.

Allegations against Mizkif have been “thrown out,” the streamer said. Mizkif said that a defamation lawsuit against him “ruined his life” by claiming that he covered up sexual assault. The court presiding over that case has dismissed it, and Mizkif now plans to return to semi-regular uploads on his YouTube channel.

SteveWillDoIt says his banning on YouTube “changed” him. In 2022, the Nelk member earned a permaban for a gambling-related infraction. Two years later, SteveWillDoIt is “not passionate” about content and doesn’t know how to proceed in his post-YouTube era. He also wants to know why other members of Nelk can promote gambling companies while he was banned for something similar. Good question.

Platform headlines

Valkyrae wastes no time at all before returning to the top of Twitch. Gamer Rachell Hofstetter reanimated her Twitch presence after the expiration of her streaming deal with YouTube. After getting 706,000 hours of watch time during her first week back, she became the most-watched woman on Twitch (again). Watch out, Valky: Last time you were the stream queen, there wasn’t a precocious VTuber angling to steal your crown.

Google, YouTube pledge $15 million to combat L.A. wildfires. The eight-digit donation joins other relief efforts organized by members of the tech and creator communities. Amazon and Disney are collaborating on a benefit concert, and individuals like xQc have raised thousands on their own to add to the running total.

Vimeo’s Best of the Year includes some award season hopefuls. Here’s the complete list. The top-ranked short, Sander Joon’s Sierra is as vibey as you’d expect from a lauded Vimeo upload. Sadly, with the platform limiting the scope of its Staff Picks, it risks losing some of its indie cred.

The biz

Mr. Make It Happen opens a restaurant in D.C. The self-proclaimed “self-taught home chef” has hit the big time with Fraiche, which will blend some of his favorite flavors from Southern cuisines. He couldn’t accomplish that rags-to-riches story on his own; he also has more than one million subscribers with whom he can share his success.

The PGA Tour’s latest apparel sponsor is Good (Good). 2025 is shaping up to be a massive year for Good Good Golf. The breakout YouTube hit is teaming up with PGA pros while also launching a unique live competition alongside the Golf Channel. It’s a good time to be the so-called “boy band of the links.”

Walmart sells physical goods on a Roblox avatar creator. Is Zepeto the retail outlet of the future? Walmart sure seems to think so — and recent search trends showing the popularity of avatar creation platforms help explain why.

Tales from the Red Note

Americans on Xiaohongshu are learning about Chinese censorship. The “Chinese Instagram” known internationally as Red Note has seen a surge of users ahead of the upcoming U.S. TikTok ban. Some of those new users are learning about the large number of verboten topics on China-controlled social media hubs. They might get some more guidance if Xiaohongshu hires the English-language moderators it’s reportedly recruiting. Speaking of which…

Mandarin lessons are skyrocketing on Duolingo. The number of Duolingo users who want to learn how to communicate with Chinese people has tripled in recent days. As someone who took two weeks of Mandarin lessons on Duolingo before getting frustrated and giving up, I wish all these newbies well. Also, how do you say “ice cream tastes good” in Mandarin?

Anyway, Xiaohongshu is reportedly worth $20 billion now. So say the investors who are looking to offload some of their stock. If Red Note can successfully retain the American users who are currently flocking to it, its valuation could soar even higher than it is right now.

The internet is a strange place

Bob Dylan is a little late to the whole TikTok thing. Did the legendary singer-songwriter troll us all by joining TikTok just a few days before the enactment of its U.S. ban? He poked fun at that reality with a clip of him saying, “good god, I must leave right away,” so he’s clearly in on the joke. If his fans booed him for playing an electric guitar, imagine how they’ll react when he becomes a Jason Derulo-level reposter.

Kallmekris learns the savagery of the romantasy community. The comedian was criticized for saying that some #BookTok faves lack substance and feature hackneyed writing. The backlash was so intense that she ended up apologizing for her claims. At least she didn’t get roasted and eaten alive by Violet Sorrengail’s dragons.

“Mukbang in the car.” Don’t do it. So says a doctor who advised people not to eat while driving. Ever since I read that headline, I’ve been singing “mukbang in the car” in my head to the tune of the Irish folk song “Whiskey in the Jar”.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
Comments Off on Have you heard? The Dream SMP stars are fighting and Bob Dylan is a little late to join TikTok.

Here’s something we’re living through in the year 2025: Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the known universe, has decided to spend his time beefing with Asmongold.

What? How? Why? Buckle up. The tl;dr is that Musk likes to brag about being one of the most elite video gamers in the world, but people have their doubts about whether he’s really the one grinding levels in games like Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2.

The first round of boosting accusations came last November, after Musk went on Joe Rogan‘s podcast and bragged that he was a top Diablo 4 player. Boosting, for those who don’t know, is a frowned-upon practice in gaming where a player hires someone else—often someone pro-level—to play on their account for them. The booster gets paid, and the player gets things like inflated stats and high-tier loot.

Following his appearance on Rogan’s podcast, Musk posted a clip of someone who was supposedly him clearing an extremely difficult, timed dungeon called Pit of the Artificer in record time. However, his record was not accepted by the official community leaderboard, Helltides, spurring suspicion about whether he was actually the one playing when the record was broken.

Fast-forward to the December release of dungeon-crawler game Path of Exile 2, and Musk once again claimed to be among the top players in the world. Except this time, he seemingly set out to prove the haters wrong—by livestreaming his gameplay on X.

There was just one problem.

As Twitch streamer and experienced Path of Exile player Quin69 points out in a YouTube video called Elon Musk is Lying About Being Good at Video Games, Musk was for sure controlling his high-level Path of Exile 2 character during the stream.

The problem is, he was controlling it badly.

In one example mishap, Musk tries to open a map so he can start a dungeon instance. Quin69 explains that by Path of Exile 2‘s endgame (the section of the game Musk was playing on stream), players have been well educated about how to progress through its map system. Musk, though, clicked around on different map nodes aimlessly, trying to get it to work, and then gave up.

When he finally did manage to load into an instance and start slaughtering enemies, he walked straight past an extraordinarily rare piece of loot—something regular players would scoop up instantly. Quin69 also points out that during combat, he spent an unusually long stretch of time apparently unaware that his character was out of mana, which would’ve allowed use of combat abilities. Instead of pulling back and waiting for the mana to replenish, Musk continued battering the enemy with basic attacks (the equivalent of tossing a pebble at Godzilla).

So where does Asmongold come into this? Well, as he often does, he decided to film reaction content—and this time, he reacted to Quin69’s video.

His own YouTube upload was called Elon Musk is not getting away with this.., and in it, he said Musk appeared to be a classic case of boosting. “[Musk doesn’t] need to pretend to be this elite, top, number one gamer in order to have people that like video games [like him],” Asmongold said.

Not long after the video went up, Musk started talking about it on X.

“Asmon behaves like a maverick ‘independent’, but in reality has to ask his boss for permission before he can do anything. He is not his own man,” he wrote.

He then leaked prior DMs between himself and Asmongold where they were discussing content, and Asmongold mentioned asking his YouTube editors what they thought about starting a second channel.

“Who are these mysterious editors?” Musk replied, seemingly unaware of what YouTube editors are, and that they work for creators–not the other way around.

Musk then wrote that Asmongold “is NOT good at video games,” unfollowed him, and Asmongold’s verified checkmark was stripped from his account. (It appears to be back now.)

Asmongold’s response? “Leaking my DM’s is one thing but this is absolutely uncalled for,” he posted, about Musk saying he’s not good at games.

Here at Tubefilter, we like to close stories with some industry insight and context from our decades in the digital content business. In this case, though, the only conclusion is that a billionaire businessman who controls massive market share in the aerospace, electric vehicle, and communications industries, and who is involved with the incoming Trump administration, is spending his time worrying about a YouTuber saying he doesn’t really play games.

Filed under: Creator, Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Luminary director David Lynch has passed away, and while every Twin Peaks, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Mulholland Drive fan has something to mourn, over on YouTube, viewers will be missing one of his most beloved artforms: his weather reports.

At Tubefilter, we’ve have had our eye on Lynch for almost two decades, because while he was known to most for his TV and film projects, to us here in the world of digital content, he was recognized for being possibly one of the first people from Hollywood’s upper echelon to embrace online video.

His weather reports caught the internet’s attention when he started posting them to his YouTube channel, DAVID LYNCH THEATER, in May 2020. But that wasn’t the first time he blessed viewers with a little friendly meteorology. Way back in 2005, he used to post similar video weather reports on his now-defunct website, DavidLynch.com.

Lynch would go on to launch his own members-only website in 2008—years before Patreon was a twinkle in Jack Conte and Sam Yam’s eyes. There, people could pay $9.97/month to access things like a 2006 video diary of Lynch’s time at the Cannes film festival and episodes of his animated comedy series Dumbland, and directorial experiments like Coyote #1, where the titular canid sniffs around an empty living room with the caption, “The coyote is hungry and wants to kill and eat the small creature. The coyote doesn’t yet know the creature’s powers nor what surprises this environment may hold.”

Lynch was also supposed to produce a webseries with new media company ON Networks that was based on his book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity, but the show never materialized. That wasn’t the first nor the last time he struggled to put out a project; in the wake of his passing, there is much discussion about the roadblocks he faced trying to make films over the last decade.

Anyway, we knew him back then, but like we mentioned above, the younger and terminally online crowd got new exposure to Lynch when he joined YouTube during COVID lockdowns.

His weather reports always featured him in sunglasses, talking about Los Angeles’s skies and giving glimpses into his life and little bits of insight about his creative process. He often talked about the small things, like being excited to get a hot coffee to combat the chilly weather.

Lynch was sincere more than anything in his work, I think that’s a big part of why it’s hitting so hard for everyone. His weather reports were/are a distillation of his love for art and humanity. Thank you for your never ending journey to express yourself, David. pic.twitter.com/IyqZvMnk5i

— sam (@icecreamyoga) January 16, 2025

He posted daily reports through the end of 2022, racking up over 400,000 subscribers and 26 million views.

As Dexerto points out, however, Lynch’s reports weren’t only viewed on YouTube. They were often reposted same-day by fans to Twitter and TikTok. Even after Lynch stopped making the reports, people would sometimes repost them on the same day the next year, revisiting what he’d said.

Now that he’s gone, fans are memorializing him by sharing their favorite reports–including his very last one, which opens with Lynch cheerfully shaking the camera and ends with him letting viewers know the weather will be “partly cloudy all along the way.”

Filed under: Homepage Feature, YouTube by James Hale
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Ecommerce platform Shopify operates an in-house esports organization, and that firm just brought a pair of big-name creators on board. A merger between Shopify Rebellion and Moist Esports will see Charlie White (a.k.a. Moist Cr1TiKaL) and Ludwig Ahgren become co-owners of the former operation.

The combined companies will coexist under the Shopify Rebellion banner. They announced their team-up with a flashy announcement video that imagines the two parties as anime characters:

The merger comes amid growing tensions about the unprofitability of esports. Creators like Disguised Toast have tried to address that overarching issue, but a change of that magnitude is easier said than done.

In a video on his YouTube channel, White admitted that esports is a “worse investment than Hawk Tuah coin.” He claimed that Moist Esports (which brought Ahgren on board as a Co-Owner in 2023) has lost approximately $4.2 million over the past four years.

If esports is such a bad deal, then why is Moist Esports “fully merging with Shopify Rebellion,” as White put it? The man known as Moist admitted that the merger is happening “for the love of the game.” Being the owner of esports teams requires a passion for competitive gaming, which Moist, Ludwig, and the Shopify Rebellion team all share. (White also uses Shopify to power his digital merch storefront.)

Of course, the merger is not entirely about vibes. The combination of two deep-rostered lineups will allow Moist Esports to compete in games like League of Legends and Dota 2. That type of synergy is what initially brought the two companies together. Last year, they merged their Valorant teams to become more competitive in the first-person shooter. White also noted that Shopify Rebellion let Moist Esports use its facilities in Canada when the latter firm’s Apex Legends team needed assistance.

“Over the last year we’ve been working together both publicly (with projects like MxS Valorant) but also behind the scenes, supporting each other’s teams and program and realizing pretty quickly that we were headed the same direction on how we wanted to build in esports over the next decade and beyond,” Shopify Rebellion General Manager Jeremy Steeves said in a statement. “Coming together allows us to field more and stronger teams, invest deeper for fans, provide more to our players, and create a singular, more resilient organization over the long-term.”

That level of cooperation will help the new Shopify Rebellion stay afloat in the volatile world of esports. Recent examples of consolidation, such as GameSquare’s merger with FaZe Clan, show that gaming organizations are willing to pool resources to help offset the types of financial losses White described in his announcement video. With their high-profile owners all aboard, Moist Esports and Shopify Rebellion are the latest partners to embark on that mission together.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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The U.S. Supreme Court has officially decided that it will not spare TikTok from the “divest-or-ban” law that goes into effect on January 19. Two days before that date, the highest court in the land decreed that the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act does not violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

TikTok appealed to the Supreme Court after a District Court chose to uphold the controversial law. In a 20-page order, the Supreme Court claimed that the “scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment” for TikTok. There were no noted dissents from among the Court’s nine justices.

Now that the legal drama surrounding the TikTok ban has subsided (and it does seem like it will be a U.S. ban, not a divestiture), the fallout is starting to take shape. Which platforms are angling to be the next TikTok? How will brands reallocate their budgets? And perhaps most importantly, where will platformless creators and other so-called “TikTok refugees” go next?

Platforms

The general belief seems to be that YouTube and Instagram stand to gain the most in the wake of TikTok’s delisting on American app stores. Both of those platforms have developed full-featured versions of TikTok’s signature format (Shorts for YouTube and Reels for Instagram) and have rolled out multifaceted monetization suites to reward the creators who upload those vertical videos.

Some other players are also determined to woo TikTok refugees in large numbers. Snapchat has pointed out its connections to the subset of creator culture TikTok incubated, and it has noted that 60% of its users are also daily visitors to the TikTok app.

Substack has also made overtures to displaced TikTok users. Its rollout of live video could attract some of the creators who made bank on TikTok with lucrative, shoppable streams.

Or maybe the next hot video app hasn’t been launched yet. Entrepreneur Mark Cuban has expressed interest in funding a TikTok clone that would be built on the decentralized protocol that powers X alternative Bluesky. That could be a good long-term solution, though it won’t do much to help the creators who will lose access to major accounts on Sunday.

Brands

At the end of the day, creators leaving TikTok will probably go to the platforms that can pay them the most, which is why there’s currently a feeding frenzy going on in the world of influencer marketing. Digiday has published a rundown of the incentives platforms are offering to convince brands and agencies to send ad dollars their way.

The most common carrot dangled by these competing platforms seems to be ad spend matches. YouTube, Pinterest, Meta, and Reddit have all offered to provide advertisers with ad credits that will scale depending on the amount of spend. Reddit is matching up to $1,000 of ad spend, whereas Pinterest and Meta are using fixed percentages to calculate those rewards.

The timing of these initiatives — Meta’s is specifically tied to the month of January, for example — shows how the TikTok ban is warping the influencer ad market. “We’ve definitely seen ad credit opportunities across channels — Pinterest, in particular, has been pushing our team quite hard on these offers lately,” Markacy Co-Founder and Co-CEO Tucker Matheson told Digiday.

Creators

As high-level entities jockey for position amid a shifting landscape, are the TikTokers who made the app into a social phenomenon getting lost in the shuffle? Many of them have consistently opposed the TikTok ban and have even filed their own suits in hopes of keeping the law from taking effect. With those efforts spurned, thousands of professional creators must figure out what’s next.

Short-form stars who kept on trucking after the downfall of Vine advised disgruntled TikTokers to keep at it. They encouraged other creators to focus on the process of content creation while also paying attention to the social media platforms that are bubbling under the surface.

But at the end of the day, the TikTok ban will still hurt the careers of U.S.-based creators. Twitch streamers are frustrated because they’ll be losing access to one of their strongest audience-building tools, and the shuttering of TikTok is expected to have an extraordinary economic impact for small business owners as well.

Of course, it could all end up being a whole lot of nothing, too. Incoming president Donald Trump has vowed to overturn the TikTok ban, so by the time his second term kicks into high gear, platforms may find that their efforts to convert TikTok refugees were a bit premature.

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