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, generous creators are getting the recognition they deserve, a sloshed web series returns to its roots, and the hot new podcaster is a nonagenarian podcaster.

Creator commotion

Tiltify is feting generosity with its Creator Impact Honors. Many creators who fundraise for charitable causes use Tiltify to organize their campaigns. Now, Tiltify is giving back: It has established a jury (with MatPat as one of the members) to hand out honors across six different impact categories. Tiltify itself will provide data to the jury but will not participate in the deliberations itself.

So long to a good dog named Tucker Budzyn. There are a lot of adorable Golden Retrievers who star in short-form videos across the social web, but out of all those pups, Tucker may have been the most precious. Sadly, the internet-famous pooch passed away earlier this week due to complications stemming from a lymphoma diagnosis.

Pop culture minute

Raise a glass (or ten) to the return of Drunk History. One of the first web series to transition to TV was Drunk History, in which Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner get their comedy friends rip-roaringly drunk before asking them to retell a famous historical event. Drunk History made it to TV via Comedy Central, but as it makes its glorious return, its new three-episode run will be distributed through the Comedy Central YouTube channel.

Speaking of triumphant returns, Pen15 is a hit on TikTok. Gen Z has discovered Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle‘s pitch-perfect satire of Millennial-coded tween angst. It’s been years since Pen15‘s two-season Hulu run ended, but thanks to TikTok tags like “Anna sadcore,” Erskine and Konkle’s brand of comedy is reaching a new generation of frazzled youngsters.

Will the YouTube-to-Hollywood horror pipeline ever slow down? I’ve lost count of the number of creator-led horror features that have been greenlit since Backrooms and Obsession became box office gold. The latest YouTube star fitting that description is Spencer Lackey. After getting millions of social media followers through his horror shots, Lackey is linking up with Neon and Blumhouse to bring a project called Lust to life.

Jake and Logan Paul are coming to ESPN — as executive producers. The brothers’ influencer boxing matches haven’t yet aired on the Worldwide Leader in Sports, but thanks to Jake and Logan’s Most Valuable Promotions and Wheelhouse, the Pauls will get to play executive roles in an upcoming ESPN series. Their untitled reality competition project will take place in the world of combat sports.

The biz

Trick or treat! Feastables is running a campaign for Halloween (because of course it is). The snack brand affiliated with MrBeast wants its confections to be prized additions to candy bags this Halloween season. To that end, Feastables has launched a Ryan Trahan-esque publicity stunt: It is looking for the most Halloween-obsessed locale in the United States.

bbnos$ delivered a rap performance in Roblox. Now he’s a character in Subway Surfers. The Canadian artist, who often collaborates with star creators, likes to stay ahead of digital trends. His inclusion as an avatar in Subway Surfers will put him in a game that often appears as background entertainment in unrelated short-form videos.

Bonkers Toys has another creator-inspired addition to retail shelves: The “rizz face.” After inking product deals with kid-friendly IP like Dhar Mann Studios and Skibidi Toilet. Now, it has linked up with another Gen Alpha touchstone: The Rizzler, who will be coming to physical storefronts in the fall of 2027.

D’Aydrian Harding is telling kids to “stay sober” at Spencer’s. Yet another mall retailer is bringing creator-designed merch to its shelves. Harding’s teetotaling catchphrase looks good on a hoodie and harkens back to the days of Danny Duncan’s “Virginity Rocks” merch.

Politics as usual

Donald Trump has opinions about the U.K. plan to favor public broadcasters on YouTube. Authorities in the U.K. want broadcasters like the BBC to enjoy similar advantages on digital to the ones that reward them on TV screens. The POTUS sees that effort as a form of “extraterritorial censorship,” and in this particular case, YouTube seems to agree with the President’s take.

U.S. conservatives believe that TikTok is censoring their videos. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A right-wing political bloc is accusing a major social media platform of operating with a liberal bias. Disputes like this one explain why the GOP is so eager to knock down Section 230 and eliminate the protections it provides.

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez wants to know why Congress is so obsessed with Hasan Piker. The progressive political streamer lives rent-free in the heads of elected officials, many of whom have never interacted with him directly. AOC, however, has collabed with Piker in the past, and she thinks her colleagues are wasting their breath when they condemn the streamer and his unabashed takes.

The internet is a strange place

Is Uncle Junior the oldest celebrity host in the podcast game? Actor Dominic Chianese is best known for portraying Tony’s uncle on The Sopranos. Now, at age 95, he’s trying a new gig: podcasting. Alongside his son Dominic Jr., Chianese is launching Dominic & Junior, a show filled with nostalgic reminiscences. Perhaps the elder Chianese will belt out “Core ‘Ngrato” for old time’s sake.

If you talk about hot dogs on social media, Dolories the Weenie Warlock will come for you. Today told the story of a TikTok commentor who has a keen eye when it comes to hot dog bun brands. The Dolores lore (Do-lore-s?) goes deeper than you’d think, so check it out the next time you’re chowing down on a glizzy.

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The global explosion of the streaming community has minted star creators in territories as far-flung as France, South Korea, and Latin America. But how much overlap is there between those regions? That’s the question Streams Charts sought to answer with its latest data drop.

The analytics dashboard operates a tool called Audience Geo & Demographics, which breaks down watch time across Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Kick. Streams Charts breaks down that traffic across national borders to determine the percentage of viewers hailing from each country.

After crunching the numbers its Audience Geo tool spit out over 30 days, Streams Charts determined demographic oddities that apply to each of the major video game streaming services. Twitch, for example, has a higher percentage of U.S.-based users compared to its contemporaries. 28% of the Twitch audience comes from U.S. devices, compared to 15% on Kick and 14% on YouTube Gaming.

Speaking of YouTube Gaming, the Google-affiliated streaming hub dominates a different continent: Asia. Restrictions in countries like South Korea and India have drawn more viewers to YouTube at the expense of rivals like Twitch and TikTok. Viewers from regions like South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia now make up a significant portion of YouTube’s total audience. In the gaming world, that data point is particularly pronounced. More than 60% of the YouTube Gaming audience comes from the Asia-Pacific region, according to Streams Charts.

YouTube’s access to massive populations in Asia helps explain how the platform has generated viewership and sales figures that have outpaced the competition. But that’s not the entire story, because Kick has an international user base, too. The Stake.com-affiliated hub is big not just in Asia, but all over the world. 21 different countries account for at least 1% of the Kick audience, compared to 17 on Twitch and 16 on YouTube Gaming. Streams Charts attributes more than half of Kick’s traffic to Latin America, the Middle East, and North Africa — regions where games like Roblox are big.

There’s one demographic data point that doesn’t change much as you move between Twitch, Kick, and YouTube Gaming: gender. On all three of those platforms, approximately four out of every five users are male.

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Last month, Meta announced a $17 billion settlement, bringing its legal battle against dozens of state attorneys general to an end. By paying up and agreeing to implement new safety features across its platforms, Meta hoped to inspire a movement in Big Tech. The plan was to get companies like YouTube and TikTok to play along by compelling them to develop similar features for their users.

At least one of those platforms, however, has its own ideas. Meta tried to run TikTok ads promoting its settlement, but those ads were denied by TikTok earlier this week, according to Axios.

The incoming trust and safety features on platforms like Facebook and Instagram include stricter time limits for underage users, silenced notifications during school hours, and a “night mode” that limits access during predawn hours. When Meta agreed to its settlement, it described those updates as a new “industry standard” for social media.

Meta will pay an additional $5 billion if other Big Tech firms adopt that industry standard, and the Menlo Park-based giant is pushing hard for that outcome. After announcing its settlement, Meta enacted a strategy described as “reparational jiujitsu.” If it’s going to have to pay up — and it will — then it wants its competitors to face the same penalties.

Beyond a general statement aimed at its Big Tech colleagues, Meta also plugged its industry standard through social media ads that ran on rival platforms. That’s where TikTok intervened. The app described Meta’s ads as “political content,” and its guidelines do not permit paid political ads. TikTok stated that “the nature of political ads is not something we believe fits the TikTok experience.”

Per Axios, Meta said that “it’s disappointing” that YouTube and TikTok have “chosen not to engage.” Given those companies’ previous policies, it’s not surprising that they have resisted Meta’s push. In their own ways, YouTube and TikTok have fought back against attempts to place severe limitations on their respective platforms. Meta shouldn’t expect them to start playing nice now.

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Roblox is giving game developers more ways to make and distribute games–and faster access to the money they earn along the way.

At the latest annual Developers Conference, Roblox said that in the past 12 months, game developers and UGC item creators have collectively earned $1.7 billion.

It also boasted engagement stats for the players driving that revenue: In Q2 2026 alone, players from 180 countries spent a total of 29 billion hours playing games on its platform.

Roblox, as you may know, marks its 20th anniversary this year–and it says the announcements made at RDC are part of “usher[ing] in the next chapter of growth for creators.”

Chief among these announcements are big updates for game distribution. Right now, if someone wants to play a Roblox game, they have to download the Roblox app. It’s the gateway to every UGC title (through the game launcher) and item (through the Marketplace).

But that’s changing.

Roblox plans to introduce “Roblox Everywhere,” a system that will let developers turn their games into standalone apps on PCs, mobile devices, and gaming consoles.

These games will still be built on Roblox’s development engine, and Roblox will provide underlying technical infrastructure and services to apps–meaning devs won’t have to deal with things like app design or paying for server space to host operations. From the sound of it, devs will do almost nothing different from what they do now; they’ll just get the benefit of their games appearing as distinct branded apps across devices.

Roblox also plans to introduce an offline gaming mode as well as “Play on the Web,” which will let users play titles directly within Google Chrome “with no app or install required,” it said in a press release.

“A shared link, anywhere on the web, becomes a direct path from discovery to play,” it added.

All these new distribution methods will (hopefully) contribute to developers’ earnings. And Roblox has a major update there–an update it says are “the next evolution in creator earnings” on its platform.

This “next evolution” is Roblox Wallet, a creator earnings account Roblox said “lets creators earn directly in real currency, get paid automatically each business day, and move funds to other Roblox accounts or an external account, with richer earnings analytics in Creator Hub.”

Wallet accounts are provided by Airwallex US, LLC, a San Francisco-based fintech company that says it provides “AI-native financial infrastructure and software” for businesses around the world.

In conjunction with Wallet, Roblox is adding Roblox Card, a debit card connected to Wallet accounts that lets creators “spend their available balance anywhere the card is connected.” So creators (or, at least, eligible creators 18 and older) won’t even have to transfer their Robux payouts to their own bank accounts. Roblox will keep them firmly on-platform.

It’s not clear yet if Roblox Wallets and/or Cards will come with any fees. (Roblox will of course take its standard cut of creators’ earnings before any revenue hits their Wallet accounts.)

Roblox says Wallet and Card will open up to U.S.-based creators later this year, and will begin expanding globally in 2027.

Other quality-of-life tweaks for devs:

• Beefed-up support for 2D games, with Roblox implementing “a new orthographic camera, animated image containers, and direct sprite-sheet import.” (Sprite sheets are single image files of game assets like characters and objects.)
• New UI features, including blur, text shadows, and improved gradients to “enhance the look and feel for games,” and a new notification system will “support turn-based, asynchronous multiplayer games,” per Roblox.

Game discovery is getting work, too.

Roblox has pushed out its TikTok-esque short-form video feed, Moments, to all U.S.-based users, and said that soon, “videos from a game’s Experience Details Page will begin appearing in Moments, players will be able to tap any avatar to buy the items shown, and Build games will be playable in the tab.”

The platform is also rejigging its discovery ranking system to recommend games across age groups. The system “now optimizes for both younger players, who tend to engage best with shorter-form games, and older players, who are drawn to deeper games they return to over time,” it explained.

A future update may add a metric for what Roblox calls “direct growth,” aka how many brand-new players a game brings to the Roblox platform.

Amidst all this talk about developers’ value making Roblox what it is today, Roblox used RDC to talk up Build, its LLM chatbot that takes users’ text prompts and extrudes basic games.

“Roblox has built what is effectively a cloud operating system for gaming and is now building an AI creation layer on top of it: not a single tool or model, but a system built for the complexity of games,” the platform said.

It debuted Build in alpha this summer, open only to residents of New Zealand. In the months since, thousands of people have used it to ‘create’ 9,000 games, Roblox said.

71% of those people, it added, had never before used Roblox Studio to develop a game. That tracks, considering game development is a years-honed creative and technical skill–exactly the sort of pursuit some people would love to shortcut with a 20-word text prompt.

Build will next expand to alpha users in Singapore and Serbia.

“Roblox is also adding new tools to give creators more control, including a new asset library, desktop access, and iterative control. Today, creators can quickly review analytics and add monetization, and soon they’ll also be able to launch ads for their games from their phones,” the platform said.

The next addition to Build will arrive later this year. Called “Scene Generator,” it “will bring prompt-to-scene functionality to both Build and Studio, with greater creator control available in Studio,” Roblox said. “Creators supply a text prompt and a reference image, and Scene Generator returns a fully functional layout they can then refine in Studio.”

Roblox is in a difficult place right now, facing numerous lawsuits from regulators and parents, but you wouldn’t know that from its tone at RDC. These announcements make it clear Roblox envisions a future where it has successfully weathered child safety concerns and is a–or even the–top development and distribution platform for indie gamemakers around the world.

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A new brand touches the beacon.

That’s right: IKEA is officially in Skyrim.

Or, well, not quite officially. IKEA didn’t partner directly with Skyrim developer Bethesda; instead it teamed up with a well-known modder studio.

See, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came out way back in 2011, and though it still receives occasional updates, Bethesda has made a business model of providing a somewhat baked game and expecting community modders to finish it off. Post-release, modders expand a game’s world (and often cater to players’ requests) by designing downloadable additions like extra gameplay mechanics, environment tweaks, cosmetic packs, weapons, and even original, full-fledged characters, companions, and quests.

This approach was perhaps most apparent in Bethesda’s 2023 flop Starfield, which at launch featured a world that was vast, empty, clearly unfinished, and apparently designed to be crutched by modders’ labor (a labor that comes at no cost to the studio, unlike pesky salaries for staff developers who need to, you know, eat).

Despite drawing player ire with this practice, Bethesda and its iconic titles like Fallout and Skyrim have attracted an enormous community of passionate modders, including small but mighty team Kinggath Creations.

And Kinggath is the creative force behind IKEA’s foothold in Tamriel.

As of this week, any hard-journeying Skyrim player can rid themself of the eternal pain that is being overencumbered. IKEA’s modpack includes Kallax Storageborn, a companion that can be summoned to your side and can contain all your items, from legendary swords to potions to a few hundred (OK, a few thousand) wheels of cheese.

What does Kallax Storageborn look like, you might ask. Surely he must be ripped, if he is to carry all my things across field and mountain. Surely he must be a gentleman of fine buff form.

Sorry, lads. He is shelves.

Kinggath took a model of IKEA’s white, eight-cubby Kallax bookshelf and simply stuck it in the game.

Don’t despair, though. While he isn’t a super hot dude visually–unless you have very unique taste–Mr. Storageborn is voiced by What We Do in the Shadows fan favorite Matt Berry, so his company is at least dulcet. (Berry also voices Mr. Handy units in Amazon‘s Fallout TV show, meaning he’s already in the Bethesda loop.)

On top of being insta-summonable (with custom Dragon Shout AYE-KEY-YAH) and solving one of gaming’s most annoying problems by limitlessly holding all your stuff, Mr. Storageborn is complemented by two new IKEA-themed dungeons, an IKEA boss fight, an Allen key-shaped weapon for players to use, a Meatball Helmet for them to wear, and meatball consumables for them to stuff in their gob–all made by Kinggath Creations.

“When you inevitably become encumbered, you shall be sent to a long abandoned Dwemer emporium,” the mod’s description reads. “There, you will embark on a quest to unravel the origins of a mysterious master. As you progress the Dragonborn will be pitted against Tamriel’s ultimate adversary–clutter.”

Once you conquer the dastardly clutter boss, Mr. Storageborn will join your party permanently: “With unfathomable storage capacity, the ability to collect loot, tidy up your homestead and be summoned with a new Thu’um, even when not a companion, Kallax will change your clutter management forever.”

“At IKEA, we believe in creating a better everyday life for the many people–and why shouldn’t that include their digital lives?” Kemi Anthony, IKEA’s Marketing Communication Manager for the U.K. & Ireland, said in a statement. “Skyrim possesses one of the largest modding communities in gaming, and we saw a space where our expertise in functional storage could make a real difference in this fantasy world.”

She added, “Matt Berry’s distinctive, legendary voice brings theatrics, booming authority and charm to the new Creation. In bringing Kallax to life we hope to not only make a meaningful difference for Skyrim players but doing so with a touch of added IKEA playfulness to delight gamers who’ve long been bogged down by too much stuff.”

Players can acquire Mr. Storageborn and IKEA’s other accoutrements for free in the Creations menu within Skyrim.

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Viral Nation is not about the vibes.

In an era where seemingly every company is adding generative AI to their business models, Viral Nation says it’s doing the same thing it’s been doing for years: using machine learning to put data into practice.

Earlier this year, we wrote about SocialAI, which CCO Nicholas Spiro described as a “decision-led intelligence module” that assists Viral Nation across various arms of its business.

Now, Viral Nation co-founder and co-CEO, Mathew Micheli, wants to peel back even more layers and give people a look at the engine that is SocialAI.

He says that off the bat, he wants to be clear: SocialAI isn’t for sale.

“It’s not a SaaS product,” Micheli says. “It’s not something you can buy. You can’t log in and this entire thing is just available at someone’s fingertips. It’s the operating infrastructure of Viral Nation.”

SocialAI is embedded in Viral Nation’s creator/social intelligence teams, its brand safety system Viral Nation Secure, its creative studio, of course its technology teams, and “ultimately lives in our product stream too,” Micheli says.”Our products that our teams use all have these SocialAI-enabled functions directly within them.”

Those functions, and the data that spills through them, are part of what makes Viral Nation so valuable, he says–to both creators and brands.

For those unfamiliar, Viral Nation is one of the largest talent agencies in the digital content space. But it does much more than represent creators. As Spiro puts it, Viral Nation is a neverending “flywheel” of talent, marketing, creative studio, and technology divisions that constantly feed one another to help clients reach their desired audiences.

And if Viral Nation is a flywheel, SocialAI is the kinetic energy powering it. When Viral Nation makes a decision–for example, deciding which creator to recommend for a brand partnership, developing the creative direction for a brand’s campaign, or looking at how viewers reacted to a piece of content–it uses data from SocialAI. Every choice, Micheli says, is backed by hard evidence. He feels this sets Viral Nation apart from the rest of our industry.

“In the absence of really good data, it’s always been vibes,” he says. “For brands and agencies without this kind of data, if they’re decision-making on a creator, it’s historically been, ‘Oh, they look like they fit.’ But that’s not an intelligent enough assumption.”

He adds that SocialAI “fundamentally is going to change things in creator marketing, because it forces brands and agencies to get smarter with their decision-making.”

This doesn’t mean Viral Nation goes human hands-off with SocialAI’s output, though. “Listen, there’s always going to be something inherent about how people can spot an influencer who’s going to be a great fit,” Micheli clarifies. “That’s not going to change, because at the end of the day, data is not perfect.”

That’s why Viral Nation’s thesis with SocialAI is that “data needs to help turbocharge and enable human decision-making,” he says. “Instead of someone having to look through 1,000 creators to make a decision, now it’s cut by 10x or 20x.”

Using SocialAI’s data to cut down on human busywork means “people making more sophisticated decisions, versus it being the Wild West of just, ‘Hey, this creator has 50,000 followers and they look like a mom,'” he says.

Much of SocialAI’s input happens at the start of campaigns, but Micheli emphasizes that SocialAI keeps benefiting partners after campaigns end, helping inform future partnerships and creative.

“What’s the audience talking about in relation to this campaign? How are they interacting? Is it positive, negative? We gain a ton of tremendous insights for our clients about how people are actually talking about that brand,” he says. “We all know the comments are where the meat of every campaign lies. We get insights back to our clients about what the audience is actually saying, and report on where the opportunities exist. ‘This is how many people express purchase intent,’ ‘This is how many people are your potential customers.'”

“This is very much best-in-class humans powered by best-in-class technology,” Micheli explains. “We enable some of the best subject matter experts in the world, which we have here at Viral Nation, with this rich data, and we let decisions cascade and be made across the entirety of our business because of it.”

All of this, Micheli says, “is why you choose Viral Nation.”

While SocialAI was in place before the AI boom, Viral Nation says it’s used recent gen AI advancements to scale the system dramatically over the last 18 months.

“Ever since we started putting the entirety of the infrastructure in motion, our efficacy on choosing creators is at the highest it’s ever been,” Micheli says. “When we’re recommending a creator, it’s become a science. Our hit rate for approvals is at the highest it’s ever been as a business, because these data decisions are irrefutable now. It factors into all these equations–the qualitative and the quantitative–and it’s allowed our brands to have an elevated, seamless experience.”

Micheli says that ultimately, SocialAI and the boost it’s given Viral Nation have set his team up for “the biggest year we’ve ever had.”

Viral Nation is a Tubefilter partner.

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Australia’s latest proposed social media legislation takes aim at recommendation algorithms. If passed, it will give users the freedom to choose whether they want to continue using platforms’ standard recommendation-driven/discover feeds, or switch to a reverse-chronological feed that will only show them posts from people they follow.

Doesn’t sound too shabby, right?

Well, there’s one important thing Australian legislators failed to consider: Instagram would be very, very sad if its users had a choice.

Following news of Australia’s plans, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told journalists that only a “very vocal minority” of people want social media to go back to reverse-chronological feeds.

He said if users switched to that kind of feed, they would be “overwhelmed” with content from brands, because “it turns out your friends post a lot less than creators, who post a lot less than brands and companies.”

Now, Mosseri didn’t directly say his comments were a response to Australia’s proposed legislation, but if he were to discuss that legislation, he’d need to remember that it doesn’t just stipulate a reverse-chronological feed. It stipulates a reverse-chronological feed where users only see posts from people/accounts they follow–so users who don’t want to see brand content simply do not have to follow brand accounts.

Of course, he could also be referring to ads interwoven between posts, which is another matter.

Mosseri went on to say that non-recommendation feeds cause people to “become a bit less interested in the experience and they use it a lot less, which then means there’s less reach to go around and people start to get more and more mad about the fact that their reach is going down because the overall pie gets smaller.”

And less engagement and less reach means less revenue for Meta-owned Instagram. Can’t have that.

Mosseri said he thinks this all boils down to “interesting tension between what an individual might want and what happens when you actually explode that to the entire community.”

To mollify those pesky individuals, Instagram has added basic features like letting users opt out of seeing specific topics in their recommended. But for future algorithm improvements, Instagram is–like several other platforms–planning to shunt responsibility off on users to curate their feeds by talking to a LLM chatbot, The Guardian reports.

Are Mosseri’s comments likely to sway Australian lawmakers? No.

“This is sensible, pragmatic, practical reform,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said about the proposed algorithm legislation. “It gives ​users choice and it will hold the big tech companies responsible for inaction if they don’t ​follow our laws.”

A similar law already exists in the European Union: In 2024, it implemented the Digital Services Act, which also requires platforms to let users switch to a non-recommended feed. As Reuters notes, the Act’s rollout was notoriously difficult, and regulators complained that platforms weren’t making it easy enough for users to opt out.

We’re guessing things won’t be too different if Australia brings this law into being. For big tech-owned platforms, recommendations are the lifeblood pumping more and more content into users’ eyeballs. Recommendation feeds drive traffic, engagement, time, shareholder value.

The effects these feeds might have on users? Not platforms’ problem.

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In 2025, Roblox paid out more than $1.5 billion to creators of games and UGC items on its platform.

And Night wants a slice of that pie.

Night, the Dallas-based talent management company that reps creators like Kai Cenat, Sam & Colby, Safiya Nygaard, Hasan Piker, and Unspeakable, has launched its own Roblox studio.

Called KUZU, the studio plans to roll out over a dozen titles in the next 18 months. Its debut game, KILLSTREAK!, is already available, and offers a Fortnite-esque drop-and-loot battle royale where an ever-closing zone and rival players are constant threats that must be weighed against limited resources.

KILLSTREAK! is emblematic of KUZU’s development plans. The studio says it’s targeting gamers who want the accessibility of playing on Roblox, combined with the sort of tough mechanics and sophisticated gameplay loops you find in AAA and non-Roblox indie titles. (That’s in line with Roblox’s own desire to host more “novel games” on its platform.)

These development plans weren’t put in place by Night alone. JOGO, the Fortnite and Roblox UGC studio founded in 2023 by longtime content creators Typical Gamer (aka Andre Rebelo) and MustardPlays (aka Chad Mustard), joined Night as an investor and strategic partner for KUZU.

JOGO provides cash and counsel, while the KUZU team–led by veteran game dev James Purell–is responsible for building, operating, and monetizing titles.

Mustard tells Tubefilter that JOGO is taking a board seat in KUZU using the operating experience it’s gleaned running its own projects to advise Night.

“That means helping pressure-test concepts, mechanics, staffing and production so the team can move faster and make better decisions without having to learn every lesson the hard way,” he explains.

Nick Brotman, SVP at Night and board member at JOGO, nods to Roblox’s 2025 payout, saying a figure that size “tells you this is no longer an experimental economy, it’s a real market with real businesses being built inside it.”

He also nods to the $70 million funding round Night closed in February. “Night raised capital to build companies embedded in internet culture, and Roblox is exactly where we want to be,” he says. “There’s a lot of money to be made here.”

CEO Purell, who joined KUZU in January 2026, says he approached Night after seeing the company invest in the Roblox space.

“[I] asked for introductions, and once we met, the thesis lined up quickly,” he says. “I’d already worked with much of the team across branded and original games, so we weren’t assembling strangers. We were formalizing a group that already knew how to build together.”

KILLSTREAK! has reached ~25 million visits to date, with 93,000 favorites and around 500 concurrent players at press time.

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Rhett and Link have had a lot of airtime to fill over the 14-year run of their show Good Mythical Morning, and the humble taste test has emerged as one of the duo’s most reliable segments. On YouTube, viewers can watch dozens of “food feuds,” in which Rhett and Link compare fast food items from different chains and locations.

One of those compare-and-contrast segments has now spawned a multi-pronged promotional campaign. Burger King has enlisted Rhett and Link to highlight the role of its new “Your Way Champions” — and the fidelity of its “Whopper Guarantee.”

Rhett and Link are longtime Burger King partners. They previously linked up with the chain to promote its Fiery Menu across a series of spots. But the North Carolina-bred twosome wasn’t aligned with Burger King in an official capacity when they hosted a Good Mythical Morning taste test featuring the Whopper. The idea behind the segment was simple: If Burger King is guaranteeing that its burgers come out the same every time, then Whopper purchases from two different locations should deliver equal quality, right?

Burger King execs noticed that Good Mythical Morning installment and spun it into the jumping-off point for an official collaboration. Alongside Google and Unreasonable Studios, Burger King is rolling out a 360 activation that turns Rhett and Link into chain-appointed testers. The Good Mythical Morning hosts won’t just certify the Whopper Guarantee; they’ll also meet Your Way Champions to ensure that Burger King’s customer satisfaction leaders are doing their jobs.

By harnessing Google’s ad solutions, Burger King will broadcast three Rhett and Link-led spots across YouTube and connected TVs. The brand is also taking advantage of a two-week Channel Takeover on the main Good Mythical Morning hub, so Mythical Beasts can expect to see more Whopper ads while taking in their daily dose of Rhett and Link.

The centerpiece of the campaign is an integration in a Good Mythical Morning episode. Rhett and Link put the chain’s claims to the test, and they got some burgers out of the deal, too.

“This partnership is a great example of what happens when a brand leans into an authentic creator relationship,” said Jacob Moncrief, the President of Rhett and Link’s media company Mythical, in a statement. “Burger King recognized a conversation that was already happening on Good Mythical Morning, and together we turned it into a campaign that felt native to our audience while leveraging the scale of Google’s Creator Ads and YouTube ecosystem.”

Rhett and Link fans have already commended Burger King for taking advantage of the sponsorship opportunities presented by the Food Feuds segment. Thanks to the duo’s examination of Burger King’s signature burger, eaters will learn that the Whopper Guarantee is no whopper of a lie.

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The Internet Movie Database is as old as the World Wide Web itself, and as it enters its 36th year of activity, it is getting an important update. For the first time, the website known as IMDb is adding labels that identify various types of digital creators.

“Digital creator” will become the newest professional category on IMDb, which also classifies more than 40 other types of creative workers. Once a profile is tagged as a digital creator, it can add a subcategory, further specifying that particular creator’s line of work. Available subcategories include streamer, vlogger, video essaying, video creator, gaming creator, and influencer.

Though proper labeling on artistic credits may appear to be a cosmetic concern, it can have a significant impact on dealmaking efforts. For example, data from the creator database Famous Birthdays has been used to inform brand partnerships between sponsors and up-and-coming creators.

For years, creators have sought proper accreditation for the work they do on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. Some industry bodies, like the Creators Guild of America, have established services that formally list the projects creators have worked on. IMDb’s decision to take that step adds more legitimacy to the burgeoning creator economy.

IMDb will formally introduce its digital creator category during an event at the Toronto International Film Festival. Attendees will be able to celebrate creators while learning about the work IMDb has done alongside Canadian guilds.

The digital creator label is rolling about across IMDb and its premium counterpart, IMDbPro. “IMDbPro empowers entertainment professionals with tools that help them get discovered, build their reputation, and advance their careers,” said IMDb CEO Nikki Santoro in a statement. “Digital creators and their representatives need that same infrastructure, and producers, casting directors, studio executives and brand partners need a reliable way to find them. We’re excited to add a category that bridges that gap and gives creators a discoverable industry profile.”

Thanks to the update, existing IMDb profiles for creators like MrBeast will become more accurate. And IMDb’s work won’t stop there: The database plans to launch additional professional categories in the future.

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In an era defined by siloed feeds and hyperspecific recommendations, numerous commentators have argued that the mainstream is a thing of the past. Cultural touchstones like the song of the summer are stuck in the previous decade, and the monoculture that once united society appears to be fading.

If you’re worried that common ground has disappeared beneath your feet, YouTube is here to offer some reassurance. The platform’s latest Culture and Trends Report is an examination of the mainstream as it exists today. After gathering data in tandem with NRG, YouTube came to a defiant yet expected conclusion: The mainstream is still alive, and it flows through YouTube.

The report doesn’t deny that culture is more fractured than it’s ever been. YouTube and NRG found that 67% of 14-to-44-year-olds are watching more channels “no one else they personally know is watching” compared to five years ago. And compared to 2017, the general awareness of top theatrical releases is down nearly 10%.

That dropping awareness, however, also heightens the factors that inform the new mainstream. The percentage of “Big Fans” of those theatrical releases is up 4% since 2017, and cultural conversations are verging into superfan territory. YouTube report cites cultural mainstays like Roblox and anime, which have harnessed the passion of niche fans to evolve into mainstream phenomena.

YouTube facilitates the discussions that catalyze those cultural evolutions. For example, the Backrooms franchise began on Kane Parsons’ YouTube channel, where fans unpacked deep lore and rich context to build a passionate community. Now, Backrooms is a hit in movie theaters, and that wouldn’t have happened without YouTube’s influence.

“Digital platforms fundamentally transform how audiences experience what they encounter,” reads the report. “Digital culture is inherently participatory, and properties that actively embrace these dynamics can accelerate into the mainstream from unexpected places.”

As that particular cultural roadmap becomes more common, YouTube’s impact becomes more pronounced. NRG found that 65% of 14-to-44-year-olds agree with the idea “that something feels more real or legitimate when [it shows up] on YouTube.”

YouTube can’t bring back the old monoculture all by itself, but it has enough scale to create an updated form of culture. There are now channels with more than 500 million subscribers, and that’s enough people in one place to build a new mainstream all on their own.

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Countless thinkpieces have been published on the homebody tendencies of Gen Z, but Snapchat believes that its principal cohort still wants to go out, so it’s helping them fill up their calendars. The app has announced Snapchat Plans, an in-app suite of features that helps turn social rumblings into actual hangouts.

Put simply, Snapchat Plans is the titular app’s answer to services like Eventbrite and Partyful. It functions as a digital invite, an attendance tracker, and a planning hub, all rolled into one toolkit.

Snapchat users can invite up to 200 friends to join their Plans, and a rundown of past, current, and upcoming Plans will get dedicated real estate on each user’s profile. Invites can be customized using Bitmojis, and eventually, Snapchat will let users initiate Plans without leaving chat windows.

“Like conversations on Snapchat, Snapchat Plans are private and invite-only, giving friends a familiar and trusted place to coordinate the moments that matter most,” reads a Snapchat blog post. “No more missed get-togethers because of buried messages, lost details, or forgetting to create an invitation.”

Snapchat, like many of its competitors, is leaning into the in-app touchpoints that bring its community together. Insta is doubling down on DMs, YouTube is helping its creators ink brand deals, and TikTok is leaning into lucrative formats like TikTok LIVE and TikTok Shop.

If Snapchat is going to play to its strengths, then it will prioritize its group chats, and that’s exactly what Plans does. Snapchat notes that 35% of U.S. users between the ages of 13 and 24 already use group chats to make plans and organize events. That behavior is inspiring an official function that reinforces a common use of the app.

So if you’re trying to make Plans next weekend, feel free to make them through Snapchat. We could all stand to touch grass from time to time — Snapchat is making sure that actually happens.

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