It's Sunday and here’s a handpicked selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry.
But first, teen creators are getting equity from a Gen A-focused brand. The kids are really into skincare these days, and Evereden is staking the creators who help it reach those young audiences.
CREATOR COMMOTION
NYU Game Center just got a new kind of scholarship.
Creators are launching apps, announcing scholarships, and hiring execs
The campus visit: 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.
The budgeting app: 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.
The YouTube series: Through her company 11:11 Media, Paris Hilton is doubling down on YouTube by launching 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 new hire: 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.
AD WORLD
Why doesn’t YouTube want Barb to measure it on TV? (Photo credit: Ekin Kizilkaya via Getty Images)
This week in the digital marketing biz…
The controversy: YouTube’s legal action against Barb has drawn industry condemnation. The U.K. TV-style measurement system earned a cease-and-desist from Google’s video hub 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,” said Lindsey Clay, the CEO of U.K. TV body Thinkbox.
The acquisition: Open World will scale up its creator campaigns by acquiring automated micro-influencer marketing platform 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.
The funding: 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.
INDUSTRY BUZZ
Fewer kids around the globe will see this logo (and more) on their devices.
The ban: 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.
The executive exit: 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 the exec described her decision to step away from one of the app’s top ecommerce roles.
The AI tool: Creatorland’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 its AI-powered Dealsync tool (made possible with W3.io’s cloud product). The first 500 users were able to ignore more than 500,000 junk messages, making it easier to locate legitimate emails.
The newsletters: 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.
WATCH THIS 👀
The Women’s Guild wants to play what the Women’s Guild wants to play.
Overcooked 2 was a curious choice for Twitch Rivals’ International Women’s Day event
The controversy: When Twitch Rivals announced the game that would be at the center of its March 8 International Women’s Day event, critics questioned whether a title set in kitchens is appropriate for a celebration of female liberation.
Twitch has since defended its pick by explaining that it asked its partners at the Women’s Guild which game to play, and Overcooked 2 won the vote.
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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.