It’s Friday and consumers have gleefully joined in on Jay Graber’s roast of Mark Zuckerberg. The Bluesky CEO’s cheeky SXSW attire—a shirt that played on one of Zuck’s less humble moments—sold out just days after she was first seen wearing it.

Today’s News

SHORTS STORY

Logged-in viewership on Shorts is up 25% year-over-year. YouTube wants brands to take advantage.

The report: YouTube believes Shorts still has untapped potential—and it has the data to prove it. The platform recently partnered with eMarketer to publish a report that characterizes Shorts as a ubiquitous hub of Gen Z consumption.

The market research company’s findings revealed that 96% of Gen Z survey respondents watch both long-form and short-form videos on YouTube, while daily Shorts viewership among logged-in users is up 25% year-over-year.

The marketing ecosystem: Given that level of consumption, the report suggests that brands engaging with Shorts can achieve scale and yield positive results by partnering directly with creators. eMarketer’s report claims that influencers are the most common source of product recommendations on social media, driving nearly half of all social purchases. (In comparison, media companies and publishers account for just 10% of the pie.)

As advertisers adapt to that evolving digital ecosystem, they’re looking to invest larger portions of their budgets in influencer marketing, too. Consumer goods giant Unilever, for example, recently announced plans to up its investments in social media from 30% to 50% of its total marketing spend.

YouTube wants Shorts to be part of that movement. The platform’s initial promotion of the multiformat approach occurred before ads arrived on Shorts. Now that brands can spend their money on the vertical video format, they’re experimenting with campaigns that specifically target users on Shorts—an approach eMarketer VP and Principal Analyst Jasmine Enberg deemed promising:

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• According to The Information, several people familiar with the matter say that Oracle is now a “leading contender” in the government’s search for a cloud provider to manage TikTok’s U.S. operations. (The Information)
  
  

• A recent study found that AI-driven search engines answered “more than 60 percent” of news-related questions with incorrect information. (Ars Technica)
  
  

• NBC parent company Comcast has sealed a deal with the International Olympics Committee that will give it the rights to air the Olympics on NBC platforms like Peacock through 2036. (The Verge)
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• Rumman Chowdhury—the former director of Twitter’s machine ethics team—expressed concerns over Elon Musk’s government influence at SXSW, noting that the X owner “breeds chaotic environments.” (TechCrunch)

FEELING CHEEKY

As creators disrupt the skincare business, MoistCr1TiKaL’s cheeky soap brand is cleaning up

The potential app: Over the last few years, more and more creators have sought to disrupt the skincare industry. That effort has given rise to companies like Jake Paul’s W and AMP’s TONE, which are breaking into big box retailers.

Charlie White—aka MoistCr1TiKaL—has long been skeptical about those kinds of creator products. In recent months, however, the YouTuber has worked with business partners to build his own skincare offering: a soap line called Cheeky. As White explained in an introductory video, a focus on quality ingredients separates Cheeky from creator products that feel like naked cash-ins. In fact, the brand wasn’t originally intended for a wide release at all. It wasn’t until positive reviews flooded in from friends and family that White decided to make it publicly available.

The context: Cheeky CEO Shane Rostad told Tubefilter that the brand is now exclusively distributed through its official website, where offerings include a $52 “starter pack” of six different scents and a soap saver tray. Though the exec declined to share specific sales figures, he said there are “20,000 people showering with Cheeky soap now” and the brand is “actively working on some new hygiene products as well as a whole lot more fun fragrances.”

Creator partnerships are also in the works, and distribution deals with retailers could expand Cheeky’s availability in 2026. According to Rostad, the brand has one particularly “lofty” goal in mind for that expansion:

TV LAND

Can old TV shows find a Netflix Effect on YouTube?

The context: For years, TV networks and streamers have used YouTube as a secondary distribution window for previous episodes of returning shows. At the start of new seasons, it’s not unusual to see full-length pilot episodes show up on network-affiliated YouTube channels. (The most recent example being the arrival of the entire first season of Andor ahead of the Disney+ saga’s impending return.)

The logic behind that marketing approach is simple: if viewers can watch part of a hit show for free, they’re more likely to give it a try—and hopefully buy a cable or streaming subscription to keep watching. 

The evolution: At the start of 2025, the full-episode YouTube dump began to evolve. One catalyst for change was Warner Bros., which quietly began uploading over 40 features to YouTube. Those free-to-watch movies range from indie darlings to comedy slop, but they all have at least one thing in common: they’re due to be rediscovered by the younger generations that make up the bulk of the YouTube audience.

Enter Joey. A few months after outlets noticed Warner’s YouTube dump, the official Friends YouTube channel began hosting full episodes of the ill-fated spinoff starring Matt LeBlanc’s Joey Tribbiani character. Upon its initial release in 2004, Joey flopped and was canceled after just two seasons. Now, Tribbiani’s adventures in L.A. are getting a second look, with the pilot drawing over 200,000 YouTube views in just two days.

It’s not just Joey, either: the Y2K revival that began in the fashion world has now expanded into television, with early 2000s favorites like Malcolm in the Middle earning modern-day reprises.

Though YouTube is a prominent distribution point for those throwbacks, Netflix’s What We Watched reports have also shown that the most popular TV reruns earn more viewership than many of the streamer’s original programs. Joey’s predecessor Friends is a primary example. The show originally aired from 1994 to 2004, and was picked up by Netflix for syndication from 2015 to 2020. This newfound accessibility helped the program gain a significant following among younger viewers who missed its initial run and also contributed to its continued merchandising success and reunion special.

Will airing reruns on YouTube elicit a similar effect? Distributors with old IPs on their hands seem poised to find out and ask old TV shows they own the question, 'How you doin'?"

WATCH THIS 🎙️

Creators hit the course this week for the second annual PGA Creator Classic

The Creator Classic: This year’s PGA Creator Classic is off to a swinging start. Fans who tuned into this week’s livestream on the PGA TOUR YouTube channel saw ten golf creators go head-to-head on the course, including Bryan Bros, Fat Perez (of Bob Does Sports), Gabby Golf Girl, and Roger Steele.

It was Grant Horvat who ultimately claimed victory—but the Creator Classic isn’t done just yet. This year’s YouTube-sponsored series also includes two upcoming events: a May 7 showdown at Philly Cricket and an August 20 competition at East Lake.

Fans looking to catch up on the competitive drama before May’s game can check out the stream of this week’s Creator Classic here.

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