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, the avatar of looksmaxxing added another blemish to his record, the creator legacy of MasterChef continued, and YouTube’s first video reached legal drinking age.
Creator commotion
Clavicular may be having a moment, but YouTube isn’t interested. Last year, YouTube banned the looksmaxxing star’s channels because he linked to websites that violated illegal or regulated goods or services policies. If you’ve been hit with the ban hammer, you can’t restart on new channels without being reinstated first, so YouTube has banned some other hubs affiliated with Clavicular.
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The vibe at Alex Cooper’s media company is just a little unwell. The Call Her Daddy host made a bold move when she launched a media company called The Unwell Network, but a string of executive departures and uneven content initiatives has made the road rocky for Cooper and her associates. And this is before Alix Earle drops her hotly anticipated response to Cooper’s public dig.
Dude Perfect has cultivated a new creator crew: its interns. The DP Interns, as the Dude Perfect junior employees are known, now have more than 200,000 followers on Instagram. As more creators turn their channels into full-fledged businesses, we expect to see more content from their employees, staffers, and other partners.
Pop culture minute
Move over, Nick DiGiovanni: iGumdrop crushed it on MasterChef. DiGiovanni broke out thanks to an appearance on the Gordon Ramsay-hosted cooking show, and iGumdrop is his heir apparent. The Twitch streamer impressed Ramsay with a wagyu steak satay that continued to turn FOX’s reality competition franchise into a creator showcase. Congrats, iGumdrop: You’re not an idiot sandwich today.
Roblox puts $50,000 up for grabs at latest “Creator Showdown” in Las Vegas. Stars like CaylusBlox are in the building and the most popular competitive games in the Roblox community are on display as the Creator Showdown speeds into Sin City for the second year in a row. Events like these will help Roblox develop its esports identity alongside its status as a sandbox engine.
The Honorable Gays are holding court in Tan France’s new web series. The former Queer Eye fashionista is ruling on Reddit arguments as the latest traditional celeb to wade into the YouTube waters. Reddit users love to ask the question “am I the asshole?” and France is providing the needed answers (which, in some cases, may in fact be “yes”).
Platform headlines
“Me at the zoo” has officially reached legal drinking age. It has been 21 years since YouTube Co-Founder Jawed Karim traveled to the elephant enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, where he recorded the clip that went on to become the first video on YouTube. A lot has changed since then, but I’m sure the elephants have not forgotten the role they played in internet history.
Kick has made it to 100 million users. On X, Stake Co-Founder Bijan Tehrani — a key backer for Kick — announced that the streaming platform has joined the nine-digit club. Tehrani is not resting on his laurels, though. Instead, he’s vowing to improve Kick. “We know our app sucks,” Tehrani wrote, “we’ve got it to a point where it’s almost crash free but the experience is weak.”
More features have come to beehiiv. Top newsletter platforms are engaged in an arms race to determine which one of them can best serve as an “everything platform” that serves creators’ diverse needs. As it enters that competition, beehiiv is making its partners a compelling offer by equipping them with webinar capabilities and customizable paywalls. That’s a lot of monetization.
The biz
iShowSpeed has been immortalized as a Funko Pop figurine. Fresh off his official WWE debut (which featured him laying the smackdown on Logan Paul), iShowSpeed has landed yet another partnership. This time, he is lending his likeness to a Funko Pop collectible that features his pro wrestling persona. This new item will be a great complement to all those Cristiano Ronaldo figurines Funko Pop has released.
Here are the winners of the Cannes Lions creator fund. Earlier this year, FiveTwoNine and Billion Dollar Boy teamed up with Patreon to continue an initiative that brings creators to the Cannes Lions festival and helps them network with marketing industry bigwigs. The lucky winners who will take advantage of that prize in 2026 have now been revealed, and they’ll be a formidable 20-person crew once they touch down in the south of France.
Can creators save David’s Bridal? The wedding retailer is looking to bounce back after declaring for bankruptcy, and it’s testing whether creator partnerships can help it return to relevancy. If David’s Bridal wants to engage in influencer marketing, it should start by teaming up with all those couple channels that have been popping off on YouTube Shorts.
The internet is a strange place
Mark Wahlberg is making creators work out with him at 4am. Druski and Brent Rivera are two of the digital luminaries who have taken on Wahlberg’s 4am Challenge. I would never enjoy waking up that early, but if you’re already on the creator grind, a quick workout with Mahky Mahk is a sensible addition to the calendar.
Up next on the internet: One man’s archive of 10,000 live concerts. A Chicago man named Aadam Jacobs has spent decades attending and recording shows at live music venues. Now he’s working with a team to upload that archive to the internet. The videos should be available just in time for Justin Bieber to watch them at his next show.
Sony developed an AI that crushes humans at ping pong. But can the robot defeat a fast-talking Jewish New Yorker with a rogueish streak?
