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, creators are engaging in peer counseling, collective bargaining, and petty rivalries.
Creator commotion
Dealing with burnout? The doctor (a.k.a. Hannah Witton) is in. After stepping away from her popular YouTube channel, Witton is helping other creators deal with burnout and other long-term issues. “The clinic is open,” she told Business Insider. “You can come to me when you’re having your existential crisis.”
Anthony Fantano took a trip to the Amazon picket line. YouTube’s most prominent pop music critic supported striking Amazon Teamsters workers in Connecticut. “Amazon workers deserve full-time pay, benefits, and everything that normal union employees deserve — and more,” Fantano said. “Plus more! Plus extra!”
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Forget T-Series — Squid Game is MrBeast’s new rival. The second season of the Netflix hit and Jimmy Donaldson’s Amazon original Beast Games are on similar release schedules. MrBeast wants his extreme competition to be the one that gets shine, even if he may bring back his real-life Squid Game gauntlet to celebrate the show’s second season.
Politics as usual
Meta put the kibosh on the Kids Online Safety Act. Intense pressure from Mark Zuckerberg‘s lobbyists has undermined support for the KOSA, a broad proposal that would enact new regulations on social media platforms. From Zuck to Shou Zi Chew, it seems like every Big Tech leader is cozying up to GOP brass these days.
YouTube traffic plummets in Russia amid throttling campaign. Russian YouTube traffic has dropped by 80% as the platform is “de-facto blocked” in the land of Putin. As long as Google wants to keep controlling the influence of Russian state media, it’s hard to see what the tech giant could do to resolve the situation.
Can Kara Swisher buy The Washington Post from Jeff Bezos? The esteemed tech journalist thinks WaPo is too big of a headache for its current owner, and she is confident that she can assemble a team of investors to acquire the media outlet. But for that plan to work, Bezos would have to agree to sell, and that’s easier said than done.
Platform headlines
Netflix scored a touchdown with Christmas Day NFL coverage. More than 24 million viewers tuned in as Netflix successfully hosted a pair of NFL matchups without encountering too many technical glitches. The peak viewership came during the halftime performance of the Ravens/Texans game. Thanks Bey!
The music industry is bracing for a U.S. TikTok ban, too. No one has a clear idea of the forces that will drive music discovery if the TikTok ban goes into effect next month. Creators and brands are preparing for that possibility, too — is Congress ready to deal with the potential fallout?
Mark Cuban tried to invest in TikTok back in the Musical.ly days. Cubes claimed that he wanted a piece of the TikTok precursor but was spurned. His stake in social media companies like Fireside will have to suffice.
The biz
Hailey Welch’s response to Hawk Tuah crypto drama failed to appease fans who lost money. The biggest breakout viral star of 2024 says she’s “fully cooperating” with the investigation into the pump-and-dump scheme tied to the $HAWK cryptocurrency. The victims of that fraud are not forgiving Welch yet, and even dril chimed in.
Thanks to TikTok, indie perfumers are the next big thing in fragrances. A world that was once stuffy and exclusive has been opened up as TikTok blows up barriers in the perfume world. Going to an elite fragrance school is nice, but breaking into the industry without such a heavy investment is even nicer.
A scammer is hurting creators’ bottom lines by pretending to be a Nintendo lawyer. Abuse of YouTube’s copyright claims system is back in the public eye after a fake lawyer issued takedown notices under the guise of a Nintendo attorney. Would this scheme have worked as well if Nintendo didn’t have such an ignominious track record when it comes to creator relations?
The internet is a strange place
A game that lets players launch their own social media platforms is all the rage on Kickstarter. As if social media doesn’t take up enough of our time already, now it’s invading game night with One Billion Users, a competition to see who can build the biggest network. I’d prefer a game that gives me peace from algorithms, but One Billion Users blew past its Kickstarter goal, so the public clearly has other thoughts.
The haters make weird family channels famous. Snark subreddits that dunk on specific cringy family channels are getting thousands of subscribers. Though it’s easy to scold parents who profit from their children on social media, these forums also enrich the channels they make fun of. Talk about a double-edged sword.
You get a knife, and you get a knife, everyone gets a knife! Speaking of edged weapons, the Kiwami Japan channel is making knives out of tofu, milk, and other atypical materials. A milk knife sounds like an ideal weapon for a swashbuckling briga-dairy.
