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.

December was one of our biggest months here at the Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report, with holiday sales fervor driving more sponsored videos than ever. We hit nearly 3,000 some weeks–but, now that commercially oriented winter holidays are over and the new year has arrived, we’re seeing things return to normal: just over 1,500 videos were uploaded this week. Another thing returning to normal? Science creators taking the top slots. We also have more double trouble this week–but instead of a creator getting two spots like last week, it’s a sponsor: Brilliant.

Check this week’s report out right here:

#1 Western Airsoft Battle Royale
Channel: Dude Perfect
Brand: Bodyarmor
Views: 3,635,991

For those craving a little Red Dead Redemption, longtime trickshot group Dude Perfect put together a fully stocked Western town that looks straight out of a John Wayne movie. The Dudes–Tyler Toney, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and brothers Coby and Cory Cotton–split into teams to take each other out across numerous challenges, complete with horseback riding, good old-fashioned dustups, and helpful townspeople trying to defeat dastardly villains. The five-man desert duel is (appropriately) sponsored by hydration brand Bodyarmor, which also sponsored #397 and #662 this week.

#2 How one man exposed your DNA
Channel: Veritasium
Brand: Brilliant
Views: 3,448,535

Kary Mullis was a surfer, a scientist, and–according to Veritasium, both an “LSD fiend” and “the weirdest person ever to win the Nobel Prize.” Like many other Veritasium videos, this one is sponsored by STEM education company Brilliant, which also paid for the video in our #3 spot. Also like many other Veritasium videos, this one delves into a piece of science history most viewers have probably brushed up against, but haven’t investigated in depth. In this case, Mullis helped to invent the tech that now allows us to take a very very tiny sample of a person’s DNA and spin it out into samples big enough to study. Pretty DNA-mazing.

#3 Making coffee from scratch (is hard)
Channel: NileBlue
Brand: Brilliant
Views: 2,912,262

What if we took the whole “if you stopped buying coffee from Starbucks you could save enough money to buy a house” thing and extrapolated it? What if, instead of buying any coffee, we just went out and made it ourselves? Well, turns out it would suck. For Brilliant’s second video this week, we have NileBlue showing us the science behind why processing raw coffee beans into a palatable cup of joe is far more difficult than most people think. We think we’ll just nip down to the corner store, thanks.

#4 The Best Self Defense Videos (w/ @kurtisconner)
Channel: Danny Gonzalez
Brand: ExpressVPN
Views: 2,665,911

Next time you get accosted by a bear in the woods, this latest video from Danny Gonzalez and Kurtis Conner won’t help you. However, it will help if you get accosted by a person. Maybe. In this video sponsored by ExpressVPN, these longtime buds react to “the best” self-defense videos on the internet. As one commenter puts it, this video is 20% self-defense and 80% Gonzalez and Conner giggling, so your mileage may vary, but there are some clips of self-defense situations. Whether they’ll be helpful or not…maybe book a class.

BONUS #747 This Drained lake is Loaded with Fishing Lures!!
Channel: Brendan Miller
Brand: HISEA
Views: 84,071

Magnet fishing and river bottom-scouring videos have been a popular genre on YouTube for years now, and Brendan Miller‘s channel is no exception. In this video, he gets a look at what’s left after a lake is drained, and it’s a fisherman’s dream. His adventure is sponsored by waterproof work gear brand HISEA.

…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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If iShowSpeed‘s latest boast is to be believed, the 19-year-old creator is about to reshape the streaming meta. Speed (whose real name is Darren Watkins, Jr.) claimed that he has permission from “the producer of One Piece” to rebroadcast episodes of the long-running anime series.

Speed shared the update on his stream. Though he didn’t reveal the identity of the One Piece producer he spoke to, he claimed that she put his channel on a whitelist so that he can stream One Piece episodes without retribution. He said the producer is “the only person who met Oda,” referring to One Piece author Eiichiro Oda. Presumably, that’s not a literal statement, but rather an expression of this producer’s power in the One Piece world.

Since its initial premiere in 1999, the One Piece anime has run for more than 1,100 episodes. Along the way, it has become one of the most popular and enduring cultural exports from Japan. Speed himself is a One Piece diehard who credits the show with pulling him out of a depressive funk during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. He has incorporated One Piece merch into his streaming setup and has dressed up as protagonist Monkey D. Luffy (as pictured above).

🚨| WATCH: Speed reveals he’s been given permission by the One Piece producer to stream every episode of the anime live on his channel 👀🔥 pic.twitter.com/I9F75FjeNh

— Speedy HQ (@IShowSpeedHQ) January 5, 2025

Speed has a penchant for making outlandish statements, and some people are not convinced that One Piece studio Toei would actually relinquish the broadcast rights to its most prized piece of intellectual property. After all, numerous streamers received temporary Twitch bans in early 2022 as part of the so-called “TV meta,” which saw the unlicensed rebroadcast of popular shows — including some anime series like Death Note.

Despite Speed’s history of unsubstantiated boasts, the Cincinnati native has become a global icon, and Toei could gain a lot by giving him the keys to the vast One Piece library. Some rudimentary polls have shown that a significant number of anime viewers watch via pirated sources, leading to a multibillion-dollar loss for studios. Whitelisting Speed’s channel would be a way for those rights holders to turn some of that unlicensed viewership into a jolt of positive PR.

A similar story has played out in the world of professional sports. In response to the high viewership earned by third-party highlight channels, leagues like the NBA and NFL have published thorough game recaps on platforms like YouTube. Is a similar shift about to hit the world of anime?

If so, the coming months would be a good time for Toei to authorize Speed’s One Piece marathon. With the return of the Straw Hat Pirates slated for April 2025, One Piece‘s owner is using promotional tie-ins to build hype. It looks like it’s Speed’s turn to become one of those partners.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Homepage Feature, News by Sam Gutelle
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Lots of get-rich-quick dropshipping gurus on YouTube and TikTok have similar advice: To sell a product, you need good video ads. And if you want good raw video content to make into good video ads, you can just find what you need on social media. Countless tutorials show dropshippers scraping product review videos posted by customers. These customers bought the item from someone else, posted their experience on some social media site, and never gave consent for dropshippers to use their content. It may be common, but it’s still unethical.

And it’s also happening to creators.

Actually, it’s been happening to creators. Six years ago, HopeScope posted a video razzing the brands who’d stolen her content to promote their activewear. Back then, this phenomenon was less common, because brands had to scrub through long-form videos and do some editing to steal creators’ content for their own purposes.

But with the rise of short-form, short-form editing tools, and the ever-growing ecommerce deluge on TikTok, the internet has found itself in a place with more product-centric content that’s easier than ever for brands to repurpose for their own uses.

Does that make it legal?

Not necessarily.

What can creators do?

The Daily Dot investigated the growing number of brands using creators’ short-form content in their marketing, speaking to Kylen Chen-Troester and Anna Konstantopoulous, two creators whose videos were (allegedly) snatched by skincare brand Soft Services and self-care brand TheraBox, respectively.

Both brands used the creators’ content in ads without permission, and both creators were able to get the ads taken down—but that didn’t change that the brands had used them as representatives.

“It’s because they technically did give me credit for my video, I think they thought that that was fine,” Konstantopoulous (whose video didn’t even involve TheraBox’s products) told the Daily Dot. “But again, I don’t even know that brand. I’ve never partnered with them before. I’ve never used any of their products. And so it felt like I was endorsing a product that I’ve never used before.”

Chen-Troester was ultimately forgiving: “When it’s a small brand and there’s just kind of one person behind it and the situation was clearly an accident or a misunderstanding, I think there should be a level of grace that should be extended,” she said. “But when it comes to large corporations that are constantly ripping people off, stealing IP, and just don’t really have a moral compass. I absolutely think that creators should be going after them and demand monetary compensation.”

Could creators get compensated? Konstantopoulous’s comment about how she felt like she was “endorsing a product that I’ve never used” could be the ticket there.

University of Minnesota associate professor Christopher Terry told the Daily Dot that if a brand misuses a creator’s identity, it can be legally liable.

“For example, if someone were to use a Kardashian’s content in order to promote their products without their permission, it can be legally disputed because their identity as a popular celebrity is being misused,” he said.

99.999% of creators don’t rise to the same level of public celebrity as the Kardashians, but their content still belongs to them, and many have established their own personal brand identities. If they have 5,000 or 10,000 or a million followers, they might be able to demonstrate that their followers would’ve falsely thought the brand’s video was them endorsing a product.

As the Daily Dot points out, copyright law is still murky when it comes to creators’ content. That doesn’t mean, however, that if creators see their videos stolen by brands, they have no avenues to pursue for recompense. They can reach out directly to brands. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other platforms also allow people to report ads. And, in the case of Chen-Troester and Konstantopoulous, sometimes a callout video is all you need:

@kylenct stealing from creators is lame :/ @Soft Services ♬ original sound – Kylen

Filed under: Homepage Feature by James Hale
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Meta is talking up its vision for the future of content creation–and that vision involves human creators posting their stuff alongside posts from AI bots.

The company (like many others in our space) has been bullish on AI since the metaverse failed to work out for it. Over the summer, it rolled out a new tool that lets users create their own AI bots. The tool came with a Black Mirror-esque tagline: “Now anyone can create an AI character based on their interests, and creators can even build an AI extension of themselves. Start chatting with these AIs on Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.”

Now, Meta’s VP of Product for Generative AI, Connor Hayes, tells Financial Times that hundreds of thousands of these characters have been created. The vast majority have been kept private for now, but Meta hopes that will change.

“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” Hayes said. “They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform…that’s where we see all of this going.”

Meta is hardly the first to think of making an artificial influencer. Lil Miquela debuted “her” Instagram account way back in 2016, and we just saw an AI chatbot (originally built in 2018) set Twitch‘s new Hype Train record, potentially earning her creator over $200,000 in the process.

But Meta’s vision, where it wants creators and AI-powered, content-churning mills to share the stage in a new era of digital content, is unusual. AI skepticism is understandably high among creators, and most platforms, like YouTube, have leapt to reassure them that promoting human-made art remains the core goal. Meta, however, doesn’t seem as concerned about calming creators’ worries.

Instead, its “priority” is making “more entertaining and engaging” platforms, Hayes told FT. Part of that is placing the bots made by its tool on equal footing with human creators—and powering those bots with generative AI tools presumably also owned by Meta.

Right now, the AI character creator tool is limited to users in the U.S., but Meta has said it plans to roll it out wider. In its ideal future, its 3 billion users could all create their own AI bots, and use them to fill Facebook and Instagram with a deluge of generated content. We can’t say what Meta’s intentions are here, of course, but from the outside, wide implementation of bots seems like it could drastically pump up the amount of UGC on Meta’s platforms.

That generates (no pun intended) some questions. Will AI-made UGC be eligible for ads? Will the traffic they bring be counted identically to traffic brought by human creators? Will advertisers want their marketing to run alongside AI UGC? Will the average user engage with bot accounts, or will they find it gimmicky?

There is already a deluge of AI content across virtually all social media platforms, from “faceless” YouTube channels with AI voiceovers and Midjourney slideshows, to engagement-farming blue-check bots on X. And some of those posts bring up another point: While scrolling Facebook videos, we’ve seen things like random clips from TV shows and cooking Reels that have seemingly unrelated, AI-generated captions advertising the latest car model or a financial services company. Are the people–or bots–posting these videos being compensated if a viewer clicks their link to learn more?

We recently wrote about how TikTok is making it easier for everyone to become an affiliate marketer, potentially increasing the amount of advertorial content we see woven in with regular videos. That lowered barrier to ecommerce entry could couple with Meta’s tool, turning social media sites into AI markets where bots shout generated content that’s all intended to sell products.

Whether that will happen or not remains to be seen, but it’s possible that if Meta’s AI character tool is sophisticated enough, people will try deploying affiliate-link-hawking content bots to make a quick buck.

Filed under: #SMWLA Previews, Artificial Intelligence, Facebook, Homepage Feature, Meta by James Hale
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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.

It’s not rare that Ryan Trahan pops up on our Gospel Stats Weekly Brand Report, but it is rare that he appears twice in one week—and on two different channels! One video, a collab with chef extraordinaire Nick DiGiovanni, is sponsored by YouTube itself. Also making this week’s list: MrBeast and The Sidemen, along with a robotics enthusiast sharing his tiny laboratory.

Let’s dive right in:

#1 2,000 People Fight For $5,000,000
Channel: MrBeast
Brand: MoneyLion
Views: 129,583,486

MrBeast‘s $100 million Amazon series Beast Games came out Dec. 19, with 10 episodes following 1,000 people competing for a $5 million prize. But those 1,000 people weren’t the only contestants who wanted in–and the 10 episodes available on Prime Video aren’t the whole story. MrBeast’s latest upload is a behind-the-scenes look at the (now infamous) first round of qualifications, where 2,000 contestants gathered just outside Las Vegas to compete for a chance at being on Beast Games. We’re guessing this is the first in a series of BTS videos about the show’s production–and this episode is sponsored by financial services company MoneyLion, which is giving away $4+ million as part of their partnership.

#2 I Flew Around the World in First Class
Channel: Ryan Trahan
Brand: Saily
Views: 10,178,047

Casey Neistat isn’t the only one who can go viral for living it up in first class. Ryan Trahan‘s first appearance on our list this week is at spot #2 with a round-the-world journey in airlines’ top accommodations. Will they be good? Bad? Will he spend his time eating “ambiguous filet of fish” while watching Frozen 35,000 feet in the air? We won’t spoil it–but we will say all this jetsetting is (appropriately) sponsored by e-SIM brand Saily, which has popped up more and more frequently on our Weekly Brand Reports. It sponsored five other travel videos this week, including #70 and #204.

#3 Can I Turn Ryan Trahan Into A MasterChef?
Channel: Nick DiGiovanni
Brand: YouTube
Views: 7,660,543

For more Trahan, he’s guest spotting on Nick DiGiovanni‘s channel, where the latter attempts to  turn him into a bona fide master chef. Trahan just had a cooking crash course with Gordon Ramsay, but how much of that Michelin star quality rubbed off on him? Well…not much, but that’s fine, because DiGiovanni is here–courtesy of YouTube itself as sponsor–to teach him everything he needs to know to get on the line.

#4 SIDEMEN YOUTUBER DRUNK BINGO
Channel: Sidemen
Brand: Side+
Views: 5,124,792

Back in 2021, the Sidemen uploaded Sidemen Drunk Bingo, which is exactly what it sounds like: the Sidemen getting sloshed while trying to accurately stamp those bingo cards. According to the seven-man group, a part 2 for that video has been one of fans’ most popular requests. And now, for Christmas 2024, they delivered. Sidemen YouTuber Drunk Bingo is an even bigger affair–an hour-and-a-half-long video where teams of YouTubers led by Sidemen members compete for bingo glory–all sponsored by the Sidemen’s own streaming service, Side+.

BONUS #2,260 Tiny Home Robotics Lab: 25 Renter Friendly Tips
Channel: Will Cogley
Brand: Onshape
Views: 32,656

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen more sponsored videos on YouTube than ever before. In early December, creators and brands set a record with 2,536 sponsored videos. That record hasn’t yet been broken, but we’re still consistently seeing over 2,300 sponsored videos a week–including this week. We scrolled down the report to see what videos are pulling in sponsors for niche audiences and found Will Cogley, a creator who says he’s “all about fusing mechanics, electronics and a little artistic creativity to make top-notch robotics and animatronics.” Since not everyone has room to build their own CrunchLabs, Cogley spends this video sharing his tips for fitting a functional robotics lab into a tiny space. His endeavor is sponsored by product development platform Onshape, which only paid for his video 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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The TikTok ban might actually be happening, and while we’ve been talking about the potential impact on creators since the ban was first floated five years ago (yes, it’s really been that long), there’s another cohort of people who could be significantly impacted: small business owners.

According to the Associated Press, TikTok estimates that small business owners will lose out on more than $1 billion in revenue per month if the ban goes through.

The platform didn’t say exactly how that revenue is generated, but we can safely assume a significant chunk comes from its ever-growing ecommerce hub TikTok Shop. TikTok doesn’t often disclose sales numbers from the hub, but it did say that sellers there made over $100 million on Black Friday alone, with some independent brands (like creator-owned cosmetics company Canvas Beauty) seeing six figures’ worth of sales in the 24-hour period.

Outside of TikTok Shop, small businesses can also generate revenue by making content that drives sales, or just by running digital ads. If TikTok gets banned, that’s all gone.

We’ve spoken to dozens of small business owners over the years whose companies started to take off thanks to short-form videos. The AP spoke to a few more who are bracing to lose that reach.

Desiree Hill, for example, started as a mobile mechanic and, thanks to TikTok, was able to purchase a 9,000 square foot shop and hire five employees.

“Every day I get at least two to three customers that have seen me on TikTok, watched my videos and wanted to become a customer,” she told the AP. She added that she has accounts on other platforms like YouTube and Instagram, but doesn’t see the same traffic that TikTok brings.

“I am worried because there is no preparation for this,” she said. “It holds such a significant place in regards to my customer base and how I reach customers that if I lose TikTok, I will lose a large part of my business or I will lose my ability to grow anymore.”

Another entrepreneur, STEM educator Crystal Lister, said she’s similarly tried to expand off TikTok onto YouTube and Instagram, but struggles with their comparative lack of content creation tools. (Both platforms have video-making capabilities, but they pale next to ByteDance‘s CapCut, the same way their ecommerce offerings haven’t had the catching power of TikTok Shop.)

“It is going to be a challenge if TikTok is banned because we’re losing kind of all the functionality you want—the ability for a video creation, the ability to spread the word via social media,” Lister told the AP. “So we’ll have to use many other platforms to supplement what TikTok did in one.”

If TikTok is banned, it’s possible that both creators and viewers will influx to other platforms and small business owners will be able to find more reach. But as both these entrepreneurs pointed out, TikTok has things other platforms don’t, including an astronomical audience growth rate in the wake of viral videos. People who’ve been able to capitalize on their TikTok virality have become full-time creators and/or owners of burgeoning businesses. We’re not saying that’s never happened on YouTube, but if TikTok goes away, can YouTube Shorts in its current state fill those shoes and restore that $1 billion in lost income?

As of right now, we don’t think so—which means all that TikTok creators (whether they’re small business owners or otherwise) can do is be smart with the money currently coming in. They can also try building connections with their TikTok viewers off-platform by doing things like collecting email addresses for newsletters or special shop offers, and starting communities like Discord servers.

TikTok’s ban is due to come down Jan. 19.

Filed under: Homepage Feature, TikTok by James Hale
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Twitch has a new Hype Train record—and it wasn’t set by a human.

As you probably know, artificial intelligence is a contentious topic in the creator space. Platforms like YouTube and creator services companies like Spotter have gone all-in on this latest thing, making AI-powered production tools and promising that creators (and creators’ control over their content) remain an important directive for their projects.

But YouTube and other platforms have also seen a deluge of short-form AI slop challenging real videos for views, and creators have potentially had their content scraped without their consent by multiple LLMs. Both those things have stirred AI anxiety among creators.

Some uses of AI, though, seem to generate significant support from the creator community at large—and one of those uses is Neurosama, an AI VTuber created by game developer/self-dubbed “professional turtle” Vedal.

Vedal originally created Neurosama back in 2018 as a bot that would play the rhythm game osu!. They recently revamped her as a full-fledged VTuber with her own cutesy animated model. Basically, at her bones, Neurosama is an advanced chatbot that can play games like Minecraft and converse with viewers. She’s helped Vedal’s channel grow to nearly 700,000 subscribers, and at press time is live with 21,000 concurrent viewers.

And, as of Jan. 1, she’s also the record holder for longest Hype Train, beating out streamer and game developer Pirate Software (aka Jason “Thor” Hall).

so it seems we have somehow broken the twitch hype train world record

shout out to the swarm, wouldn’t have been possible without you 💜 pic.twitter.com/re17MLqJhP

— Vedal (@Vedal987) January 2, 2025

Hall originally set the record back in December 2023, but broke his own record this past April, setting the new bar at Level 106, with 54,380 subs and more than 8.2 million Bits bought/gifted during one three-hour train. (For those unfamiliar, Hype Trains are sort of like mini impromptu subathons that are kicked off and kept going by viewer actions like gifting subscriptions and cheering. They can theoretically go on forever, but most taper off after a few minutes, since keeping them going requires viewers to be constantly gifting/donating/etc.)

Neurosama’s new record is Hype Train Level 111, with 84,904 subs bought and 1,201,225 Bits gifted.

If we assume Neurosama has a 50/50 revenue split with Twitch for subscriptions, that means she made nearly $212,000 in subs (if all those subs were Tier 1, which costs $4.99/month; she may have made more with higher-tier subs). As for Bits, streamers get $1 for every 100 donated, which shakes out to another $12,000.

This is right on track with Zach Bussey’s previous estimation that it would take at least $500,000 of viewers’ money to reach a Level 100 Hype Train.

“so it seems we have somehow broken the twitch hype train world record,” Vedal tweeted after the stream wrapped. “shout out to the swarm, wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

It wouldn’t be Twitch without a little friendly rivalry, so Hall responded shortly after the record break, congratulating Vedal but also promising that his community of “goblins” will “return fire” on April Fools’ Day.

Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Homepage Feature, Twitch by James Hale
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