It’s Tuesday, and Druski isn’t just set to become the first creator to host Saturday Night Live—he’s also signing on for a multiyear deal with Netflix.

STUDY SAYS

The study: Do educational videos with moving backgrounds actually keep kids locked in? To find out, researchers at the Indian School of Business and Santa Clara University tracked eye movements on educational videos with moving backgrounds and found that those videos both command attention and deflect it onto the noisy backgrounds.

The study analyzed over 32,000 videos tagged “made for kids,” ran a randomized experiment that added background motion, and tracked the eye movements of 53 children aged six to ten.

Despite the popularity of fast-moving, split-screen content, the researchers found that videos with “high motion” had only 2% higher view rates compared to more inert content—and viewers weren’t necessarily keeping their attention on the educational parts of those videos. Instead, researchers noted that subjects’ eyes would follow the moving backgrounds rather than the didactic foregrounds.

The context: While a wide range of videos were included in the study, educational clips with unrelated background motion have become particularly widespread on social media thanks to so-called “PDF-to-brainrot” generators. Several apps have also committed to the “TikTokification” of contemporary education. Revyze and ScrollEd, for example, aim to keep kids focused by presenting them with kinetic learning environments.

And despite the study’s findings, Madhu Viswanathan, an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Indian School of Business, doesn’t think educators should give up on the attention-grabbing nature of moving backgrounds.

“Motion is a powerful design lever, but it must be used intentionally,” Viswanathan said. “Rather than maximizing continuous stimulation throughout a video, creators should use targeted motion to facilitate attention recovery during moments where attention drift is most expected.”

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Heavy-hitting sponsors are at the top of Gospel Stats’ latest ranking of most-viewed branded YouTube videos, with Call of Duty and even YouTube itself backing viral hits from creators like MrBeast.

🥇 #1. MrBeast Gaming x Call of Duty: If You Escape, You Win $1,000,000 (56.8M views)
Jimmy Donaldson’s new collab with CoD hypes up the latest installment of Modern Warfare. To promote the game’s “DMZ mode”—which pits players against each other and their environment—MrBeast’s video drops 10 teams into a real-life army camp. The last team keeps the cash prize.

MrBeast and CoD also produced a Short together this week; that one came in at #9 on our list, with over 12 million views.

🥈 #2. Sofi Manassyan x YouTube: I can’t stop listening to the song 😭 @YouTube #YouTubePartner #sofimanassyan (26.3M views)
In this Short, Sofi Manassyan—aka the creator behind Tubi whodunnit series Who Did It?—dramatically describes the hardships of being a LISA fan and directs viewers to go watch more LISA content on YouTube (which also happens to be the sponsor of the video).

Historically, YouTube has rarely sponsored creators. In the past couple years, however, it’s brought groups of creators to major events, teamed up with Mark Rober, and signed a multiyear partnership with MrBeast. YouTube has also been pushing its Music service—which, for the record, is a good way to listen to LISA’s music.

🎰 #5,029. Brandon Chou x Away: autumn in los angeles | unique coffee recipes, lake arrowhead day trip (43.5K views)
Brandon Chou’s week-in-the-life vlog transports viewers to Lake Arrowhead. The video is sponsored by luggage company Away, which is fitting since Chou’s entire vlog encourages viewers to pack up and travel somewhere beautiful.

Head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

THE BIZ

The question: With the creator economy generating over $250 billion annually, more and more creators are hitting a point where they want to turn their content into careers. A talent manager is one of the key people who can help make that happen. So…when should creators sign?

According to Chloe Morris, Head of Creator Relations at Viral Nation Talent, “it’s one of those things where metrics aren’t the only thing that comes into play. It’s really the creator identifying when they need support.”

Morris—who has more than a decade of experience in our space—adds that she encourages “a lot of creators to have at least one [solo] brand deal under their belts before seeking representation.”

The point of this is to give creators the opportunity to “know what they enjoyed about the process, and where they feel they need help.” Once that first brand deal is done, Morris generally considers the creator to be in the second stage of their journey, where they’re “moving to the next level of monetization, which is working with brands…doing things like integrations, sponsorships, becoming a brand ambassador.”

Agents can be critical in managing increased brand communiques and making sure contracts are in everyone’s favor. This second stage of monetization sets creators up for the third stage, which is “releasing something around your own IP, whether it’s a book or a tangible product or a podcast.”

The takeaway: All this being said, Morris notes that creators should always be in control of how much management they want to receive. Where one creator might be looking for limited help with email handling and contract negotiations, another might want more intense production help or full-fledged career coaches.

Viral Nation offers all these levels of support—but though Morris of course wants creators to come on board there, she says they should always feel comfortable investigating their options.

FYI: Viral Nation is a Tubefilter partner.

WATCH THIS 👀

The political moment: Move over, Joe Rogan, because Steven Bartlett is climbing YouTube’s subscriber charts. Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast is surging forward as its host embraces the current political moment.

With U.S. Election Day just around the corner, Bartlett welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Diary of a CEO. The resulting conversation—which lasted nearly two hours—shows just how far creator pundits have come. Ten years ago, Bartlett was a little-known social media marketer; now, he’s talking with the world’s most powerful people and pulling ahead of traditional news outlets in the Global Sub Top 50.

Boosted by the Zelenskyy episode, the Diary of a CEO YouTube channel added 400,000 weekly subscribers to reach 35th place in our global subscriber rankings—and that momentum is still going. Just days before voters are set to hit the polls, Bartlett sat down with Texas senatorial hopeful James Talarico.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.