A Texas politician’s sex scandal could pave the way for the first member of Congress who got his start on YouTube.

The creator in question is named Brandon Herrera, but his 4.1 million YouTube subscribers also know him as “The AKGuy.” As that sobriquet attests, Herrera is a firearms enthusiast who uses his channel to share gun demos and military history lessons. As of March 2026, he’s also the de facto Republican nominee in Texas’ 23rd Congressional district.

This isn’t the first time Herrera has tried to run for Congress. Two years ago, he tried to primary Congressman Tony Gonzales, but the incumbent prevailed. Politically speaking, it looked as if Herrera would go down in history as one of the upstarts who ushered in a sea change known as the “influencer election.”

One scandal later, the race looks completely different. Gonzales has given up his reelection bid after admitting to an inappropriate relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide. Herrera, who made a second bid to oust Gonzales, was the Congressman’s only Republican challenger. Therefore, he is not only the district’s default GOP nominee, but also its likely Congressional rep. TX-23 is a solidly red area where President Trump won 57% of the vote in 2024.

The Texas Democrats, however, believe they can beat Herrera. All of a sudden, a district that wasn’t considered a toss-up has become a political battleground.

Here’s one burning question: Will Herrera’s opponents try to use his YouTube channel against him? The creator has been described as a “neo-Nazi,” and there are enough telling statements in his videos to support that accusation. If Democrats want to win in a deep-red district, that line of attack may be their best bet.

Herrera, though, is ready to defend his work on YouTube. He has borrowed elements of the platform’s drama culture and applied them to his Congressional campaign. His recent attack on Gonzales, for example, is styled like a creator callout video.

“I have a career on the internet doing comedy,” Herrera told The New York Times. “If their strategy is going to be clutching their fake pearls, and they don’t know the difference between jokes and what I actually believe, then this is going to be a very annoying few months.”

This is the power creators can harness when they choose to get into politics. It is not so easy to attack someone who makes a living by dishing out and responding to criticism. And when someone’s online persona blurs the line between reality and comedy, they can use plausible deniability as a defense mechanism.

We’re seeing a similar situation play out in Illinois’ ninth Congressional district, where progressive creator Kat Abughazaleh is also trying to become the first YouTuber in Congress. Abughazaleh’s anti-Israel stance has made her the target of AIPAC-funded attack ads, but she has used her channel to reflect those broadsides. Other politicians, such as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten, have used social media to spin and counter accusations made against them.

So if the Dems try to go after Herrera’s YouTube channel, he’ll be ready. The makeup of TX-23 makes it likely that Herrera will be elected in November, but even if both he and Abughazaleh fail to win their races, it’s only a matter of time before a creator makes it into Congress. If it can happen in Cyprus, it can happen here.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

At the start of February, MrBeast was the #1 channel in the Global Sub Top 50 ranking. Since then, Alejo Igoa, Nick DiGiovanni, and KIMPRO have taken turns in this chart’s pole position, but March is starting exactly where February did: With one million weekly subscribers, MrBeast is back on top.

The runner-up position is where things start to get a little more interesting. A channel that was nearly out of the top 500 a week ago has surged forward to the #2 spot, and its ascendance says a lot about where YouTube Shorts content is in 2026.

No matter where in the world you are, it takes two to tango

If you pay close attention to these rankings, you’re probably used to hearing about Jasmin and James and Cadel and Mia. Those two channels — both of which pit partners against one another in simplistic challenges and viral dance competitions — have routinely ranked as the two most-watched channels in the world throughout much of 2026. Even their combined channel, titled Double Date, is a Chart Topper.

As the year rolls along, couples all over the world are realizing that they can dive into one of the most prosperous categories on YouTube Shorts. In the latest Global Sub Top 50 chart, a few of those couple-led hubs came out of nowhere to approach the top of the ranking.

The #2 channel in the chart is the perfect example. As I wrote in my introduction, Dani e Robbi had the 461st-most new subscribers during the final week of February. At the start of March, however, they added 920,000 weekly subscribers. Only MrBeast had better results during that timeframe.

As couple creators, Dani e Robbi understand their audience. The Italian duo makes liberal use of the auto-dubbing tools that are available on YouTube Shorts, and they focus on simplistic family subjects that can be translated across cultural lines. Sure, there are some challenges mixed in, but the top Dani e Robbi Shorts touch on topics like marriage and babies.

In case you couldn’t tell by the constant repetition of the word “baby,” this video is intended for kids. That’s the audience that powers couple channels right now, but how will those formidable duos evolve if YouTube’s youngest viewers get bored and start prioritizing other themes instead?

That’s where the “couple channel with a twist” category comes into play. Upstarts like Dani e Robbi can very suddenly crack the Top 50 rankings (and fall out as abruptly as they arrived), but the easiest way for a couple to achieve longevity is to tie their shared content into a second video category.

Just look at Celine Dept. For years, she’s been Belgium’s only consistent representative in the Global Sub Top 50, and her boyfriend Michiel Callebaut has been her reliable co-star. Their typical video sees them competing against one another in a soccer-themed challenge, and that broadens their audience. Some people show up because they want to see whether Celine or Michiel wins, while others show up because they like soccer. But most importantly, one way or another, viewers show up.

Data via Gospel Stats

Jasmin and James also exemplify this dichotomy. Theirs is a couple channel, but it’s also a dance hub. They got big in the first place with repeated iterations of the same German-language dance craze. And once they hit it big, their videos became more varied.

So if Dani e Robbi want to keep the #2 spot next week, they have their work cut out for them. It’s not enough to just say “baby baby baby” — repeated high finishes require a particular quirk or focus that makes millions of viewers stick around.

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 16
• United States: 7
• Brazil: 3
• Indonesia: 2
• Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Vietnam: 1

This week, 43 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it.   Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

You might have heard: KreekCraft started his own Roblox development studio.

He’d planned to keep that under wraps for a little while longer, but addressed it in a recent video after blowback against the studio’s first game, Sail a Brainrot. Unhappy commenters accused KreekCraft of selling out and trying to milk his audience with microtransactions.

His response was measured. This studio, he said, was founded and funded by him, and is meant to be “my vision, my execution” of Roblox games that will appeal to people in his 30-ish age group.

“Alongside the other game, and games, that we’re making, we decided to make a quick, fun little brainrot game,” he said in his video. “Why? Because making games, especially games on Roblox, is #1 difficult and #2 it costs a lot of money. And if [the brainrot game] does well, which we hope it will, this game will fund not only the other project we’re working on, but also future cool stuff.”

“Here’s the deal,” he added. “At the end of the day, I want to make a bunch of really cool Roblox games. And some of those Roblox games just won’t do well, because this is how Roblox works. If I’m going to spend money making those Roblox games, spend time making those Roblox games, we have to have money coming in from other places.”

He said he’s spent around $100,000 on the studio so far, a cost that covered the legalities of getting started, plus the initial wave of hiring developers, animators, and more to work on the studio’s actual core first project (a game inspired by the niche 2008 Xbox title Kingdom for Keflings, which likely means it’ll be a cozy fantasy town builder).

So, theoretically, what might KreekCraft’s ROI be if his game is a hit?

In the Roblox game development world, numbers are hard to come by. Not a lot of developers or studios disclose how much they spend to bring games to the platform, and revenue can be an even fraughter topic.

But some developers are willing to disclose figures. A few recently did just that to Bloomberg, including:

• Nate Colley, who developed Roblox game Fisch and says he now makes $400k/month from microtransactions + LEGO and Walmart licensing royalties
  • (For those curious, Fisch has 4.2 billion visits on Roblox and at press time has around ~36,000 concurrent players.)
• Evan Zirschky, who developed Blue Lock: Rivals, says he makes eight figures a year
  • 4.4 billion visits, ~19,000 concurrent players
• Jonathan Courtney, who creates virtual items for Roblox’s catalog (like skirts, tails, mustaches, and more, all equippable on player avatars), says he now makes $100,000/month

Bloomberg also pointed to a LinkedIn post from Roblox creator investor David Taylor, who said one of 2025’s top titles, Grow a Garden, made at least $148 million in profit in eight months. (We can’t independently verify this figure, but we also don’t doubt it’s possible, based on Grow a Garden‘s ~35 billion visits and ~26,000 concurrent players.)

Why is all this important? Because, as we’ve written for a few years now, Roblox has emerged as the king of the metaverse, peerless except for maybe VRChat, whose furry populace figured out how to do fully articulated sign language in virtual reality before Mark Zuckerberg’s multibillion-dollar team had managed to do legs.

VRChat’s got the vibes, but Roblox is going whole hog on monetization: It paid out $1.5 billion to developers in 2025, with the top 1,000 devs earning an average of $1.3 million each. The top 10 devs earned nearly $40 million average each. And all that money isn’t just fed into a hose and piped directly to creators; Roblox takes its cut too, so it’s inclined to keep supporting creators who rake in the big bucks.

This being said, like KreekCraft mentioned, not every Roblox game is guaranteed to be a success. It’s possible he won’t reach the sort of numbers Colley, Zirschky, and Courtney are making. It’s possible he won’t even get his $100k back. But he’s realistic about that, and we’re always keen to see passion projects from creators who are willing to spend their hard-earned YouTube dollars bringing their visions to life.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

We have a new #1 in the Global Top 50. Last week’s leader, Anaya Kandhal, dropped down to fourth while couple channels Jasmin and James and Cadel and Mia retained the #2 and #3 spots, respectively. All three of those hubs earned at least one billion views during the first week of March.

BabyBillion surged forward to fill the gap at the top of the chart. There was nothing “baby” about the billion the channel put up over seven days. With 1.57 billion weekly views, BabyBillion was close to two billion than it was to one billion. Such is the power of family programming on YouTube Shorts.

Where do rankings fall on the YouTube Shorts hierarchy? Let’s make a list.

As far as “engagement bait” tactics go, ranking random items is a tried-and-true favorite. BuzzFeed defined the listicle era by ranking every life experience under the sun, TierZoo turned tier lists into a viable streamer gimmick, and IMDb’s Top 250 movies list is a dependable source of cinema-related drama. Of course, we’re not immune to the ranking trend here at Tubefilter; you’re reading our take on it right now.

The appeal of the ranking isn’t hard to see. Engagement feeds recommend algorithms, thus boosting viewership and making a creator’s future success more likely.

In the short-form era, rankings have become even more potent. Now, you don’t even need to worry about the accuracy of your lists, and in fact, you may prefer for them to be controversial. These days, rage bait fuels many of the top YouTube Shorts channels, so even if your rankings send people running for the nearest comment section, you still end up winning.

That brings us to one of the first “rankings only” channels we’ve seen in the Global Top 50 chart this year. Polar Ranks is a channel with a YouTube Shorts library full of categorized lists. It presents one of our best opportunities to see how well video listicles (listeos?) perform in a vacuum.

Right now, they’re performing very well. Polar Ranks got 358.9 million weekly views to make its first appearance in the Global Top 50. It achieved that mark one week after its lifetime channel viewership surpassed one billion.

As you can see from the above video, there’s not necessarily a ton of rhyme or reason behind Polar Ranks’ choices. If it were up to me, I would switch most of these videos to different ranks, and I bet you would, too. That’s kinda the whole point.

Instead of providing objective analysis, Polar Ranks uses its sequencing to tell a story, with the most satisfying clip coming last. That’s how the ranking trend connects to the channels that sit at the top of our charts. Even if they don’t offer literal rankings, many of them save the best for last. By giving viewers a reason to hang on to the final moment, those channels increase watch time and engagement.

Jasmin and James use this strategy all the time. The couple duo will often let viewers know when costume changes are part of their Shorts. That way, they ensure as much sustained watch time as possible.

And yeah, that works pretty well for them. Since the start of 2026, Jasmin and James’ viewership volume has been absolutely massive, and they’ve even taken a few turns at the front of our Global Top 50 chart.

Data via Gospel Stats

So while Polar Ranks may be the only ranker in the Top 50, his titular trend is catching on with YouTube’s biggest engagement baiters. When you add in a “blind” component, the chance for rage bait soars even higher.

Let’s return to our original question: If I’m making a tier list of short-form trends, rankings might not make it to S-tier, but they tie into engagement inflation tactics, which would be S-tier. If you disagree, go ahead and argue with me in the comments. That’s what thought exercises like this one often lead to.

Channel Distribution

Here’s a breakdown of the Top 50 Most Viewed channels this week in terms of their countries of origin:

• India: 23
• United States: 5
• Indonesia: 4
• Taiwan: 3
• Canada, Spain, and Vietnam: 2
• Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, China, Germany, Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkiye: 1

This week, 43 channels in the Top 50 are primarily active on YouTube Shorts.

As always, keep up to speed with the latest Tubefilter Charts and all our news by subscribing to our newsletter. You’re going to love it.   Newsletter.Tubefilter.com.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

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, streamers teamed up to kick off a scholarship, trick shot stars made a big hire, and the wave of teen social media bans arrived in Southeast Asia.

Creator commotion

Valkyrae visited NYU with Squeex to announce a scholarship named for him. Students learned “why you should drop out” at an NYU Game Center guest lecture organized by Valkyrae and delivered by her fellow variety streamer. Squeex’s scholarship will include professional development funding, travel stipends, and more.

Caleb Hammer’s app hit 600,000 downloads in just 13 minutes. The budgeting guru launched DollarWise to help his fans make progress on their spending habits. The app’s first-day sales were big enough to cause a brief outage. “I didn’t expect that,” Hammer remarked.

Paris Hilton is launching a new YouTube series. Through her company 11:11 Media, Hilton is doubling down on YouTube with a documentary series that spotlights female entrepreneurs who are rebuilding their businesses in the wake of the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. Back to Business will premiere on March 9.

The biz

Indonesia is the latest country to announce social media restrictions for kids and teens. The world’s fourth-most populous nation will bar access to top platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Roblox as part of a sweeping federal action. Indonesian content shows up frequently in our rankings of YouTube’s most-watched channels, making this the most impactful social media ban among the laws that have been passed so far.

Creatorland and w3.io’s Dealsync filters out email spam — and finds more than 11,000 legitimate offers. Creatorland, a business social network that supports thousands of creators, reported on the early success of the AI-powered Dealsync tool, which it launched alongside w3.io. The first 500 users were able to ignore more than 500,000 junk messages, making it easier to locate legitimate emails.

Vanity Fair is launching its own slate of paywalled newsletters. A decade ago, legacy publications like Vanity Fair produced their own YouTube shows. Now, the Conde Nast brand is shifting some resources to newsletters by launching four new digital periodicals at the same time.

Movers and shakers

Dude Perfect has hired its first Chief Content Officer. The Frisco, Texas-based creator group has chosen Kevin Sabbe as the head of an expanding content empire. Sabbe, whose experience includes a stint at the bygone multi-channel network Maker Studios, will guide Dude Perfect as the trick shot crew expands its brand of Creator TV.

TikTok’s global head of business marketing and commercial partnerships is moving on. Nearly six years after she arrived at TikTok, Sofia Hernandez is ready for a “deliberate exhale.” That’s how Hernandez described her decision to step away from one of the app’s top ecommerce roles. I don’t blame her — there’s enough evidence to suggest that working at TikTok can be a stressful gig.

Billy Parks is leaving Slow Ventures. Parks spent nearly two years at Slow, where the former Fullscreen SVP was part of an effort to invest in creator businesses. Parks described his Slow gig as “a front‑row seat to how creators are reshaping media, consumer behavior, and company building itself.”

The ad world

YouTube’s legal action against Barb draws industry condemnation. A TV-style measurement system in the U.K. earned a cease-and-desist from YouTube due to alleged API misuse. “It does seem odd that YouTube has spent so much effort trying to convince advertisers that they are TV, and so gain the benefits of that reputation, but the moment there’s some TV-like scrutiny they go legal to avoid it,”  aid Lindsey Clay, the CEO of U.K. TV body Thinkbox.

Open World will scale up its creator campaigns by acquiring Drope.me. The strategic brand consultancy, which was founded two years ago by management firm Loaded, is going big. By integrating Drope.me into its campaigns, Open World will improve its ability to work with large groups of creators across multiple platforms.

Gen Z founder Cami Tellez is getting into the creator marketing game. After making a splash in the underwear world with her bygone brand Parade, Tellez has secured $4 million of funding for a creator marketing platform called Devotion. Alongside co-founder (and former TikTok exec) Jon Kroopf, Tellez plans to work with large brands on influencer-driven campaigns.

The internet is a strange place

Overcooked 2 was a curious choice for Twitch Rivals’ International Women’s Day event. Critics questioned whether a game set in kitchens is apppropriate for a celebration of female liberation. Twitch defended its pick by explaining that its asked its partners at the Women’s Guild which game to play, and Overcooked 2 won the vote.

Teenage creators are getting equity from a Gen Alpha-focused brand. Tbe kids are really into skincare these days, and Evereden is giving them what they want. Its youth-focused strategy has it staking the creators who help it reach its target audience.

West African farmers are marketing crops on TikTok. Thank goodness they’re not putting their produce on OnlyFans.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

DoorDash has a new advertising strategy: Go viral once a month.

That’s far easier said than done, but the food delivery company–which appears to be paying drivers less than ever and just rolled out delivery robots so it doesn’t have to pay humans at all–has hired a new Head of Social to make it happen.

That Head of Social is Zaria Parvez, who prior to this spent five years at Duolingo. She closed her time at the language-learning company in August 2025, after serving as its Global Senior Social Media Manager for two years. (It was a good time to get out of Duolingo: The app’s co-founder/CEO Luis von Ahn nuked its reputation in April 2025 by announcing Duolingo would become “AI-first” and would “stop using contractors to do work that AI can handle.” In the 11 months since that proclamation, Duolingo’s stock has tanked from $544/share to under $85/share.)

Since joining DoorDash, Parvez has been responsible for some talked-about moments. It got almost 11 million views by tapping Love Island and The Traitors cast member Rob Rausch to talk about avoiding “petty beef.” And speaking of beef, Parvez was also handling DoorDash’s X account when it posted a NSFW gif from Bad Bunny‘s Super Bowl halftime show, quipping, “imagine beefing with Bad Bunny and he’s over here just…tossing beef.” (That one got 3 million views.)

https://www.tiktok.com/@robert_kelley/video/7603815181315034381

She also brought in comedian Ziwe to host a Valentine’s Day “Bad Boyfriend Bootcamp.” That ad has racked up fewer than 3,000 views on YouTube, but did catch the attention of outlets like Marketing Brew.

Parvez told The Wall Street Journal that’s cool–views, sales, and other KPIs are a “push and pull,” and sell-through metrics aren’t really what DoorDash is focusing on right now.

“There’s moments where we want to prioritize share-of-voice and social and cultural relevancy and understand that going viral now might not necessarily mean that we’re going to immediately get sales right away,” she said. “The marketing leadership here is saying, ‘We’re not looking for you to move the needle yet. Maybe eventually, but right now, we’re just looking for breakthrough and cultural relevance.'”

Her “big goal” from that leadership was to go viral at least once every 30 days, and to tell higher-ups “the levers that you need to make that happen.”

One of those levers is sheer manpower. Parvez has a team of eight right now, and is hiring two more. “It’s a dream to have that much resource for social media,” she said.

She added that her own goal with joining DoorDash was to “flip” the brand’s usual model.

“Before, social was used a little bit more as a distribution channel, where we’re doing this really awesome creative work that’s probably a little bit more traditional advertising and let’s use social as a place to distribute what we’re already doing,” she explained. “I wanted to push the team on […] what if social wasn’t the distribution channel, and it was the insight base, the heart of the idea, and we use the other things that we were traditionally using as distribution channels.”

Basically, what if DoorDash draws its campaigns from and on social, with social stars, instead of using social to amplify the sort of actor-fronted ads it’d make for TV?

We get it. Parvez’s viral moments so far have been content first and marketing second, getting people hooked on an actually engaging video before they even realize it’s a DoorDash ad. That’s the strategy a lot of brands want to master these days as they try to entice finicky Gen Z consumers.

As for whether Parvez’s “flip” will eventually pay off in sales, that remains to be seen.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Back when X was still known as Twitter, long, rambling threads were often met with ridicule. In 2026, however, X is realizing that those serialized posts can function as a revenue stream, so it’s giving its creator community an additional way to unlock monetization. Exclusive Threads, as the new product is known, lets users put portions of their tweetstorms behind paywalls.

X is positioning Exclusive Threads as part of what it calls “Creator Subscriptions 2.0”. The revamped version of the program launched in 2023 is intended to provide “powerful new tools to grow your subscribers and earn more,” according to a tweet from the X Creators account.

Creator Subscriptions 2.0 is here: powerful new tools to grow your subscribers and earn more.

Introducing Exclusive Threads — lock any post in a thread for subscribers only. Tease in the parent, monetize the rest. Subscribe buttons are now embedded directly in the conversation. pic.twitter.com/j8Bg3bMDiW

— Creators (@XCreators) March 5, 2026

Since X’s sale to Elon Musk and subsequent name change, the platform has struggled to provide consistent monetization opportunities for creators. Advertiser revolts prompted former X CEO Linda Yaccarino to employ strongarm tactics against brands, and creator titans like MrBeast have not been impressed with X’s financial ecosystem.

Transparency efforts and shifting political winds have helped X improve its revenue streams, but at the same time, creators are finding new ways to make money. Direct connections to fans are so hot right now, and text-heavy platforms like Substack and Patreon are using paywalls to monetize those interactions.

X’s threads are ripe for that sort of enhancement. On the platform that once limited posts to 140 characters, users are now composing sprawling essays that are sometimes split across multiple posts. This piece about MrBeast’s advertising practices clocks in at nearly 5,000 words, and that doesn’t include all the charts. Previously, creators had to make all that work available for free — now, they can more effectively generate earnings.

The bottom line is that threaded content is currently trendy. That format is powering the microdrama craze and making the entire social web look like Reddit. So maybe we have Reesa Teesa to thank for X’s Exclusive Threads, but whoever’s responsible, it’s the creators who stand to benefit the most.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

Netflix has its own YouTube channel. In fact, it has many YouTube channels, but if we just look at its main English-language channel, it has 32 million subscribers and drives around ~150 million views per month by posting trailers, behind-the-scenes clips, and sneak peeks at its paywalled programming.

Its goal? Simple: To convert YouTube viewers into Netflix subscribers.

But the podcasters Netflix is scooping up for exclusive deals aren’t allowed to follow this playbook.

According to Ashley Carman’s latest Soundbite newsletter on Bloomberg, Netflix’s recent exclusive podcast deals with Barstool Sports and The Ringer contain a clause that limits the number of show clips creators can post on YouTube and other outside platforms.

Clipping, as you probably know, has become a major driver of creator growth. When I ran our Streamers on the Rise column, nearly every streamer I spoke to said that posting bite-size snippets of their streams on TikTok or YouTube Shorts led directly to growth in their Twitch audience. That’s true for long-form creators across all mediums–including podcasts.

People familiar with the Netflix deals didn’t tell Carman how many clips podcasters are limited to posting, but she said most folks she interviewed “seemed relatively unperturbed” by the clause.

“The reality is that most podcasters don’t have the manpower to publish tons of clips from each episode,” she said.

Clipping, though, is becoming a big enough business that there are professional, for-hire clippers the same way there are professional, for-hire YouTube editors. MrBeast even launched Vyro, a marketplace that pays viewers to clip creators’ content for them. This increasing importance and business-side development means these days, podcasters can have the manpower–either by hiring in-house or by tapping their viewer network–to generate more clips and bring in more viewers.

But the ones who’ve signed with Netflix can’t explore that.

Are we surprised that Netflix is constraining its podcast partners this way? Yes and no.

• No, because Netflix has a long and somewhat bitter history with YouTube, and sees the platform as its top competitor.
• Yes, because obviously Netflix is employing the YouTube clip method for its own content–and that seems to be paying off, since Netflix is, you know, still doing it.

Carman dug into the YouTube numbers for Netflix-signed shows like Spittin’ Chiclets and 3 & Out With John Middlekauff, and found they’ve experienced a significant dropoff in new subscribers since moving all of their new full-length episodes to Netflix. That’s to be expected; why would new people subscribe if there’s no new content?

She did find that 3 & Out With John Middlekauff, which got just 200 new YouTube subscribers in February, posted a three-minute clip urging people to find full-length episodes on Netflix, and responses from viewers weren’t overwhelmingly positive.

“I’d be watching this entire video right now but don’t feel like going to Netflix,” one commenter said. Another chimed, “Nobody uses Netflix for this type of content.”

That’s not true, at least according to Netflix. What we’d like to see here are some hard numbers about podcast performance, and how creators’ earnings compare on Netflix versus YouTube. We wouldn’t mind seeing the conversion rate from YouTube clips to Netflix viewers, either.

These are all probably pie-in-the-sky asks, and certainly data that Netflix will never release, making it difficult to tell whether podcasters are truly getting a good deal by giving up YouTube traffic.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

As the creator economy becomes a “must buy,” major brands are taking their first steps into the industry. As those sponsors hunt for the creator partners that best suit their needs, they are looking for guidance, and Spotter is leading them through the wilderness.

For the second year in a row, the company that brands itself as a driver of “premium creator entertainment” held a Spotter Showcase in New York City. The theme of the event was clear from the start. By assembling a speaker lineup filled with top creators and knowledgeable executives, Spotter sought to introduce and sell the concept of “Creator TV.”

For many advertisers, the prevailing attitude is that the creator economy is a numbers game. That’s why influencer marketing budgets and the volume of YouTube integrations are increasing year-over-year.

The Creator TV framing turns that idea on its head. Spotter’s argument is that the biggest creators on platforms like YouTube can cut through the clutter with high-quality, long-form content and tight bonds with fans. Those stars operate like traditional studios and put out programming that rivals the buzziest releases on TV and streaming.

Here’s how Spotter breaks down the data: The top five video platforms generate 200 trillion annual views, but only 242,000 creators (less than 1% of the total community) make long-form content that runs for at least 60 seconds and pulls in at least 100,000 views. When you look at “TV-length” episodic programming — i.e. the traditional 22-minute format — the number of applicable creators shrinks to 7,000, but that small group earned 148 billion views in the U.S. in 2025.

“While billions of videos are uploaded each year, only a fraction truly command attention,” reads a Spotter press release. “Creator TV is that fraction: a concentrated layer of culture built to support meaningful, large-scale brand investment, and focused enough to cut through everything else.”

To explain how those long-form high-achievers do so well, Spotter let the creators speak for themselves. Airrack, Dude Perfect, Jordan Matter, and Kinigra Deon were four of the long-form innovators who were highlighted at the Spotter Showcase. “If we build something we believe in, [fans] will believe in it too because they’ve been along for that journey,” Matter said.

Some brands have already started mining value from that potent mix of attention, influence, and creativity. Adobe, a Spotter partner, has more than doubled its investment in the creator economy over the past two years. If the other brands and agencies that showed up at the Spotter Showcase want to be the next ones to buy in, the presenters told them where to look.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

From fusilli Jerry to disco demolition, pro sports teams are willing to try any promotional gimmick that can put a few more butts in the seats. On March 1, the Chicago Bulls held an event that was unprecedented in the NBA. Simply put, it was Jesser Night at the United Center, and the biggest basketball creator on social media did not disappoint.

Jesser’s silly video ideas and smart, analytical strategies have helped him accrue millions of new subscribers per month while also pushing his lifetime viewership above 10 billion on his main YouTube channel. Fresh off his appearance at the 2026 NBA All-Star Weekend, he traveled to Chicago to put on a full slate of events before, during, and after the Bulls’ game against the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Jesser x Bulls Kid Nation Game, as the promotion was officially called, began with a basketball clinic for 50 local kids. Jesser then provided more entertainment with on-court and sideline segments, including a shooting contest. Scoreboard integrations and additional signage projected the Jesser brand throughout the United Center. Then, after the game ended in a blowout Bulls victory, Jesser and the NBA began posting clips from the event on social media.

Creators have become hot commodities in the sports world, with many leagues and franchises seeing those digital voices as conduits to the next generation of fans. Though Jesser is a Los Angeles native, the Bulls couldn’t resist the opportunity to bring him out to the Second City.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

2025 was YouTube Gaming‘s biggest year yet, according to data from Stream Hatchet.

When we talk about gaming and livestreaming, the conversation still inevitably turns to Twitch, which holds the lion’s share of both broadcast and viewing hours for live gaming creators. Multiple creators have talked about how YouTube doesn’t seem to put as much stock into developing features for live content as it does for long-form and Shorts–but, that being said, gaming is one of the its most robust genres, and we’ve been hearing creators across platforms say how livestreams are a key element of their content plans for 2026 and beyond.

Stream Hatchet is a data analytics firm owned by GameSquare, the company that also owns FaZe Esports and just acquired BENlabs’ TubeBuddy. Its latest report combed through YouTube Gaming’s last 12 months and declared 2025 “one of the platform’s most significant growth years to date.”

YouTube Gaming reached a total of 8.8 billion hours watched in 2025, which was a 12% year over year jump from 2024. That figure makes it accountable for 25% of gaming livestream hours on the internet–meaning that for every four hours of gaming streams consumed, at least one hour is on YouTube.

Stream Hatchet found that the highest amount of viewership is coming from Japan: 451 million hours. That makes sense, as Japanese streamers tend to go with YouTube over Twitch, and bring their audiences with them. Worth noting: There’s also high viewership from Korea (130M hours) which, again, makes sense, because Twitch cut services there in 2023, blocking all Korean streamers from having a presence on its platform.

The second-highest amount of viewership comes, predictably, from the U.S. Stateside viewers racked up 307 million hours of watch time across the year. India came in third, with 194 million hours.

More viewer demos: Stream Hatchet found that 82% of YouTube Gaming viewers are male, and the largest contingent, 36%, are ages 25-29.

As for what all these viewers are watching, Roblox brought the most watch hours (425 million), followed by League of Legends (421M), Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (412M), Counter-Strike (342M), Grand Theft Auto V (261M), Valorant (221M), Minecraft (279M), Battlegrounds Mobile India (209M), and Fortnite (170M).

Those titles probably won’t surprise you; Roblox and Minecraft are major staples of YouTube content, and mobile game viewership is huge in Asia and India.

While this growth is impressive–and corroborates what Streams Charts reported about 2025, namely that YouTube Gaming is growing (and Twitch is falling)–what we’re paying the most attention to is the ripple effects.

As gaming streamers go live and get more viewership on YouTube, they’re also posting more Shorts and snagging sponsorships for their streams.

Stream Hatchet found that in 2025, YouTube saw three consecutive quarters of growth in the amount of gaming-related Shorts posted, peaking at 6.15 million videos in August. Q4 2025 also brought the highest amount of viewership for sponsored gaming streams (4.5 million hours) since 2020, when digital content was universally bolstered by COVID lockdowns.

“The continued acceleration of YouTube Gaming underscores a fundamental shift in how global audiences consume content and how brands engage with next-generation fans,” Justin Kenna, GameSquare’s CEO, said in a statement. “With 8.8 billion hours watched in 2025 and a meaningful resurgence in sponsored streams, we are seeing a clear validation of creator-led, digital-native media.”

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.

The Sims 4 has been out since 2014, but Electronic Arts (EA) just figured out a new way to breathe life into its decade-old game. A new Maker Program, which is attached to a public Marketplace, will empower The Sims 4 players who want to build and share custom in-game experiences.

A blog post published by EA explains how the new program will work. So-called Makers can apply for a revenue-sharing agreement that compensates them when other players access their custom items. Those sales occur through the Sims 4 Marketplace, where players can peruse and purchase a wide selection of “Maker Packs.” Moola is the name of the in-game currency facilitating those transactions.

“Creative freedom, accessibility, and trust have always been central to The Sims,” reads the post. “By giving Makers an official place to share their work, and giving you an easy way to discover and support it, the Marketplace stays true to the values that have shaped The Sims for decades.”

The new program is EA’s answer to Roblox, the virtual sandbox that pays out billions each year to a lively community of on-platform creators. Custom Roblox experiences have become such hot commodities that AAA video game developers are eager to get in on the fun. For example, Rockstar is positioning the long-awaited Grand Theft Auto VI as a Roblox competitor.

For EA, The Sims is the most sensible choice for a Roblox rival. The two franchises have a lot in common: They’re both open-ended, creative titles that are full of colorful accessories and other cosmetics. There’s also a generational component in play here: Gen Alpha loves Roblox while Minecraft got big as Gen Z’s domain. The Sims, however, has long been a Millennial touchstone.

Thanks to the College Football franchise, EA already knows how impactful creator content can be. Can it longtime gamers into Makers?

Well, maybe not. The Maker Program is a good idea on paper, but its execution leaves much to be desired. EA is taking 70% of revenue from Marketplace transactions, which is a far worse deal compared to similar creator programs. The Sims star Simandy has already exited the Marketplace after accusing EA of pushing its Makers too hard.

When you factor in the ongoing creator exodus that stems from EA’s sale to Saudi buyers, the Maker Program really starts to look like an uphill battle. But hey, this is EA we’re talking about. If you expected the authors of the most-downvoted Reddit comment of all time to have unproblematic creator relations, then you’re looking at the wrong company.

Visit Tubefilter for more great stories.