TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and X owner Elon Musk has seemingly put an end to his feud with streamer Asmongold by admitting that he has “100%” paid pros to level up his accounts in video games—just not while actively streaming.

DEAL OR NO DEAL?

Trump thinks he can broker a deal to keep TikTok running

The lead-up: Donald Trump has signed an executive order to give TikTok’s Bejing-based parent company, Bytedance, time to negotiate a permanent deal—75 days, to be exact.

That order comes only a few days after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law that forces either a ban or divestiture of TikTok. At that point, the app’s fate seemed to be sealed: TikTok went dark for U.S. users the next day on January 18, giving rival platforms an opportunity to divvy up the spoils.

Unfortunately for competitors like Snapchat and Instagram, that downtime turned out to be short-lived. TikTok welcomed its U.S. community back onto the app on January 19, citing Trump’s executive order as the reason for the turnaround. That 75-day reprieve doesn’t actually overturn the divest-or-ban law, but it does give TikTok some breathing room. Trump has ordered the attorney general to avoid enforcing a ban while his administration negotiates with Bytedance.

The proposal: So, what kind of negotiations does the newly-inaugurated president have in mind? At a recent press conference, Trump revealed that he’s seeking a deal that would split ownership of the app 50-50 between “the United States” and China. If ByteDance were to turn down that offer, he added, it would be seen as “somewhat of a hostile act.”

Previously, Chinese officials had previously indicated that they would oppose any efforts to divest TikTok in response to the new U.S. law. Now, it’s less clear whether that opposition will materialize. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew followed up his Mar-a-Lago meeting with Trump by attending his inauguration, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has since suggested that it will put power back in ByteDance’s hands.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Brands are poised to spend $39B on influencer marketing in 2025. This new guide will help your campaigns stand out:

Influencer marketing has never been bigger than it is right now. With a roster of 900+ creators across all verticals, Viral Nation knows the ins and outs of that growing industry—which is why they’ve released a free guide to help brands leverage this year’s biggest trends.

Here are 3 insights straight from The State of Influencer Marketing 2025 (download the full report here):

1. It’s time to tap into TikTok’s musical zeitgeist.
When brands feature songs recommended by TikTok creators in their videos, 68% of users say they remember the brand better and 62% say they’re curious to learn about the brand:

2. Creator-made content is succeeding off social media.
Think Kai Cenat and McDonald’s: in 2025, influencer-created content will power campaigns that span both digital and traditional advertising—from Instagram Stories to Netflix ads to billboards—allowing brands to repurpose high-performing content. 

3. AI can uncover the ideal influencer partners for your brand.
Tools like Viral Nation SecureTM detect subtle brand affinities—such as spotting a can of Olipop in a creator’s background—to help brands forge relationships with influencers who authentically love their products.

Access Viral Nation’s full influencer marketing guide to discover more insights:

Download the free guide →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• During the week of January 19, 37 of the 50 most-viewed YouTube channels in the world operated primarily on Shorts. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Meta has launched a “breakthrough bonus program” that offers up to $5,000 to creators with “an existing presence on a third party social app” that can be linked during the application process. (Engadget)
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• Netflix prices are on the rise again. The streaming service’s latest hike will bring the cost of its ad-supported plan from $6.99 to $7.99/month, while the standard ad-free tier will go from $15.49 to $17.99/month. (The Verge)
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• Instagram users noticed on Thursday that the Meta-owned app had hidden search results related to a variety of political tags, including “#democrat,” “#jan6th,” and “#republicans.” (Engadget)

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top Branded Videos of the Week: A Joe Rogan threepeat

It’s not too uncommon for Gospel Stats’ Weekly Brand Reports to feature a double-header, with one creator getting two sponsored videos in our top 5. But Joe Rogan has set a new record: the podcaster is responsible for the #1, #2, #4, and #8 most-watched sponsored videos on all of YouTube this week—a big win for repeat sponsors like DraftKings and Athletic Greens. Here’s how he did it:

🥇 #1. PowerfulJRE x Athletic Greens, DraftKings: Joe Rogan Experience #2254 - Mel Gibson (8.6M views)
Rogan has once again proven the effectiveness of a lethal online combo: conspiracy theories and celebrity cameos. For better or worse, 8.6 million viewers tuned into the podcaster’s interview with actor Mel Gibson, who claimed to know several friends who cured late-stage cancer by taking ivermectin and fenbendazole. Luckily for sponsors Athletic Greens and DraftKings, accuracy isn’t a requirement for attracting eyeballs on the interweb.

🥈 #2. PowerfulJRE x Athletic Greens: Joe Rogan Experience #2255 - Mark Zuckerberg (8.1M views)
Rogan’s celebs-and-controversy technique carried through to his next Athletic Greens-sponsored interview, which featured Mark Zuckerberg. While the Meta CEO avoided hyping up disproven COVID vaccine alternatives like ivermectin, he did argue that governments shouldn’t pressure social media platforms to take responsibility for cracking down on vaccine misinformation

🔎 #4. PowerfulJRE x ExpressVPN, DraftKings: Joe Rogan Experience #2252 - Wesley Huff (5.3M views)
Rogan’s third viral interview of the week narrowly missed a spot in Gospel’s top three ranking. Instead, his chat with the Central Canada Director for religious organization Apologetics Canada—aka Wesley Huff—came in at #4. That faith-based convo paid off for DraftKings, which once again benefited from the attention of millions of consumers (alongside fellow sponsor ExpressVPN).

Check out the full branded ranking here or head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

THE BIZ

Instagram is wooing TikTok’s creator population with a CapCut competitor

The context: While platforms like Snapchat and Triller seek to woo TikTok users with promises of FYP-style video feeds, Instagram is taking a different approach. The Meta-owned platform has zeroed in on TikTok’s battle-worn creator community by announcing its own alternative to CapCut.

The Bytedance-owned editing app currently lays claim to over 200 million users—including millions of content creators who use it to post on rivals like YouTube Shorts, X, Snapchat, and, yes, Instagram Reels. It’s become the industry standard editing app, and while YouTube et al. have their own in-app editing tools, they aren’t as robust as CapCut’s.

That became a problem over the weekend, when TikTok and CapCut both went dark for U.S. users in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s January 17 decision to uphold the “ban-or-divest” law. While the former app reappeared hours later thanks to Donald Trump’s subsequent executive order, CapCut wasn’t back online for U.S. users until January 21—a long hiatus that gave creators a taste of what it would be like should the platform go offline permanently.

The product: Now, Instagram is catering to those creators by offering up its own CapCut rival: Edits. In a recent video, Instagram head Adam Mosseri described the upcoming app as a “full suite of creative tools” with a “dedicated tab for inspiration,” a “much higher-quality camera,” “all the editing tools you’d expect, the ability to share drafts with friends and other creators,” and “powerful insights” for creators who post to Instagram.

Edits will also include green screen capabilities—a hallmark of CapCut. In response to comments that Edits is little more than a copycat, however, Mosseri shot back that the app is “not just video editing” and “more for creators than casual video makers.” Users will have a chance to find out themselves when Edits makes it debut on March 13.

WATCH THIS 📺

TikTok stars used the ban as an opportunity to reveal their deepest secrets. So…now what?

The trend: Last week, creators across TikTok distracted themselves from the reality of an approaching ban by spilling their juiciest secrets in videos soundtracked by a clip from Family Guy. After all, the app would be gone in a few days…right?

The aftermath: Well, not exactly. As we know now, TikTok is still hanging on by the skin of its teeth—meaning creators have at least seventy-ish more days to reckon with the results of their last confessions. Luckily for those secret-spillers, most of the revelations attributed to the trend weren’t exactly unexpected. (Chris Olsen, for instance, doesn’t actually sneak full coffee cups through airport security to surprise his celebrity pals.) But others—including cheating scandals and admissions of faked videos—didn’t sit well with fans. Moral of the story: what goes online, stays online.

Creator economy marketing starts here. Get in touch to advertise with Tubefilter.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.