Have you heard? Noah Beck becomes a ‘Baywatch’ heartthrob while tic-tac-toe becomes an esport.

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, a TikToker hits the beach (and network TV) as part of an anticipated reboot, a Paul brother receives a presidential stamp of approval, and gamers compete in the realm of noughts and crosses.

Pop culture minute

Noah Beck joins the cast of FOX’s Baywatch reboot. The TikTok star will portray a “rookie lifeguard” in the upcoming reboot of the classic Pamela Anderson/David Hasselhoff series. Beck showed off his acting skills (and his smoldering looks) on Tubi’s Sidelined: The QB and Me. Now he’s headed to another FOX-owned network as part of an ensemble cast.

An official BookTok chart is coming to the U.K. We already know that TikTok’s literary videos drive millions of sales while shifting tastes toward genres like romantasy. Later this year, we’ll learn just how impactful those clips can be when NielsenIQ BookData contributes its numbers to a new BookTok chart. The 20 titles generating the most engagement on TikTok will crack the ranking.

Vanity Fair is bringing creators to its Oscars afterparty. On its official YouTube channel, the culture publication will feature Quenlin Blackwell, Brittany Broski, and Jake Shane as they host a stream filled with hobnobbing, celebrity interviews, and celebrations of the night’s victors. Of course, there will be short-form social media content on tap as well.

Creator commotion

Donald Trump gives Jake Paul his “complete endorsement” for any future political campaigns. In the wake of the endorsement, I only have one thing to say: This bit from the 2017 Streamy Awards has aged…interestingly.

Simone Giertz is back with a storage unit for your not-yet-dirty laundry. The Swedish inventor’s YouTube channel is filled with more than a decade of “shitty robots” and other gadgets with questionable utility. For her next move, Giertz has launched a Kickstarter campaign for a chair that doubles as a hamper. If you never know what to do with clothes that aren’t clean but aren’t ready to be laundered either, consider throwing a few bones Giertz’s way.

The PGA tour is hitting the brakes on its Creator Classic. Last year, the top golf circuit embraced YouTube stars like Grant Horvat and Luke Kwon with a three-part series of creator tournaments. In 2026, however, the Creator Classic will not return to The Players Championship. Is the PGA Tour appeasing older fans who don’t want anything to do with creators, or is it just restructuring its creator plans heading into 2027?

The biz

FiveTwoNine, Billion Dollar Boy, and Patreon are making space for creators at Cannes Lions. The creative festival is increasingly geared toward influencer marketing, so three companies that are active in the creator economy are teaming up to send 20 people to France. The Cannes Lions Creator Fund will cover more than just travel expenses. It also opens doors for its recipients by connecting them to decision-makers who can advance their careers.

Feastables gets a branded tie-in with a line of Super Mario Galaxy candies. Everyone’s favorite red-capped plumber is making his big-screen return this April. When he does, moviegoers will get the chance to eat some on-theme sweets courtesy of Feastables

. This might become the biggest Gen Alpha movie theater meme since the Minecraft chicken jockey.

Jomboy Media is integrating Fanatics’ sportsbook and prediction market into its baseball content. Jimmy O’Brien’s media company is one of the most prominent creator brands in the baseball world. Jomboy’s success has attracted the interest of Fanatics and its betting products. We’re going to see a lot of deals like this in 2026: As some leagues remain skeptical about prediction markets, there is a huge market for creator partnerships in the sports gambling world.

The latest tech

What will ByteDance do with access to top Nvidia chips? The parent company is already a major player in the world of generative AI. Now that it has access to about 36,000 top-end chips, it is well-equipped to make a run at competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Meta. TikTok redefined video content in the West; can ByteDance pull off a similar coup in the world of AI?

Patreon CEO Jack Conte is both “amazed and furious” about AI. Conte is also a creator himself, so he knows how frustrating it can be when hard work doesn’t lead to deserved rewards. That’s why he’s advocating for creators to receive “consent, credit, and compensation” as their content is used to train increasingly powerful AI models. Until that happens, those creators will just have to keep using Patreon, I guess.

Meta acquires a social network where AIs can communicate with one another. The tech giant has a lot of potential uses for its new property Moltbook. Perhaps it wants to build the conversational systems that lead to more chatbot referrals, or maybe it sees Moltbook as a powerful canvas for experimentation. If you ask me, Meta just wants to get all the AIs together for a big game of mafia.

The internet is a strange place

Tic-tac-toe is the hot new esport. An event at SXSW pits noughts-and-crosses tacticians against one another and ranks their results on a virtual leaderboard. If you’re wondering what kind of monster would bring a solved game into a competitive scene, well, the man behind the tic-tac-toe gauntlet is a self-declared supervillain, so there’s your answer.

Channel Surfer turns YouTube into the TV Guide channel. If your response to an infinite well of content is to complain that there’s nothing on, then Channel Surfer has an app for you. Users can browse through a selection of category-specific channels before giving up and deciding to watch their favorite YouTube video for the thousandth time.

Max Fosh used bald men’s heads to send a message as part of a proposal stunt. One of Fosh’s subscribers was looking for a unique way to ask his partner to marry him, and the merry prankster of YouTube delivered. He hired 20 bald men and had makeup artists paint letters on their heads. Then, when being watched from above, the men took off their hats to reveal a heartfelt message.