It’s Friday and if your family spent the holidays glued to Netflix shows like Hot Frosty, you’re not alone. According to Nielsen, the streamer accounted for 8.5% of all December 2024 TV traffic—the highest monthly share it’s ever received.

Today’s News

REELING IT IN

Creators are getting thousands of new followers by posting Trial Reels. Was that Instagram’s plan all along?

The hack: Launched six weeks ago, Trial Reels lets Instagram creators share videos among non-followers before deciding whether to upload to their actual followers. The original idea seemed to be that creators would use Trial Reels as A/B tests to optimize thumbnails and titles—a strategy favored by top stars like MrBeast—or as a way to pilot completely new content forms without the risk of alienating their current follower base.

Instead, many creators are using the tool as a hack to gain followers.

By making commercials for non-followers and sending out old popular videos as Trial Reels, creators are attracting fresh traffic from those newly introduced to their accounts. Instagrammer @chelsea_explains cited that strategy in this Reel as one of the main factors behind her two-month rise from 0 to 450,000 followers. (That was two weeks ago, too. She’s at over 650K followers now.)

The key factors: According to creator @ccc.growth, the videos that perform best when repurposed as Trial Reels are those with the highest view counts, engagement rates, and follower conversion. Adam Mosseri partially corroborated the importance of those factors in a post that cited watch time, likes, and sends as key metrics valued by the app’s ranking.

The goal: Although Instagram may not have intended Trial Reels to be used this way, it seems the platform wouldn’t be overly concerned about the growth hack creators are employing. After all, more creators building larger audiences—and more users finding content they like—will lead to increases in views, content creation, and overall watchtime. And hasn’t that been the ultimate goal all along?

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Daniel Howell’s livestream reached fans in 100 countries. Here’s how Kiswe made it happen:

In 2022, creator Daniel Howell embarked on a massive, cross-continental tour. That show (aka “We’re All Doomed!”) toured the UK, EU, US, Australia, and New Zealand—but Howell knew he still hadn’t reached most of his global audience. 

So, he planned a livestreamed event around the recording of one of his final performances. And to make it happen, he turned to Kiswe: an award-winning tech company that helps creators maximize revenue through ticketed livestreams, gated on-demand viewing, and more. 

Here’s how Kiswe brought Howell’s vision to life:

1. Their team built a branded, direct-to-consumer platform
   
   

2. Processed ticket and merch sales from anywhere in the world
   
   

3. Seamlessly stitched in a live pre-show and a post-show Q&A
   
   

4. Integrated merch sales into ticket bundles and in-event purchasing
   

5. Delivered a post-show analysis with engagement data, demographic information, and first-party emails

The results: Howell’s event attracted viewers from 100+ countries, giving his team detailed geographic data to help route his next tour. And thanks to Kiswe’s seamless merch integration, almost 25% of the show’s revenue came from merch sales.

Access the full case study below to learn more about Howell’s Kiswe-powered show:

Download the case study →

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Newsletter distributor Substack has announced a Creator Accelerator Fund that sets aside $20 million for creators who promise to relocate their “paid-subscription audience.” (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Bytedance board member Bill Ford told attendees at the World Economic Forum that the TikTok parent company plans to discuss a “a number of alternatives” with Donald Trump in order to avoid a potential sale. (Ars Technica) 
  
  

• CNN is reportedly in the process of laying off roughly 6% of its staff as it gears up to launch a new streaming service. (Engadget)
  
  

• Netflix scored more Oscar nominations in 2025 than any other distributor, including thirteen for the musical Emilia Pérez. (Engadget)

ISLAND LIFE

Creator-made Fortnite islands brought devs $352 million in 2024

The report: Last year, Roblox revealed that it paid out a whopping $741 million to creators who made games and cosmetic items on its platform in 2023.

Now, Fortnite publisher Epic Games is highlighting its own creator contributions through the release of its first-ever Fortnite Ecosystem Year in Review. According to that report, Epic paid out $352 million to roughly 70,000 creators in 2024—up from the 24,000 creators it paid in 2023. Those devs made a total of 198,000 “islands” within the game, many of which contain fully customized settings, minigames, plotlines, and more.

The stats: In total, Epic said players spent 5.23 billion hours engaging with third-party games in 2024—“a number that represents 36.5% of total Fortnite playtime.” On average, 60,000 creator-made islands were played each day, and 70% of all Fortnite players played both creator- and Epic-made games throughout the year. They also played an increasing variety of games, with more than 30% of time spent on creator-made islands with genres that fall outside the typical Fortnite-esque combat, including RPGs like Lumberjack Heroes, party games, and horror sims.

The payoff: All that playtime paid off in a big way. In 2024, 37 creators earned over $1 million by developing custom islands, 14 earned over $3 million, and 7 earned over $10 million. A larger segment of devs brought in between five- and six-digit figures, with 1,728 creators making at least $10K, 418 crossing the $100K threshold, and 154 earning at least $300K.

Those numbers don’t yet match Roblox’s figures, but Epic is just warming up. In 2025, the publisher will move set dressing suite Scene Graph into beta, introduce the ability to create custom items, and launch “additional tools to help you build deeper, more complex games.”

TIKTOKIFICATION

Tumblr is shooting its shot at being the next TikTok

The context: If a social media platform runs into bad luck, you can bet Tumblr will be there to make the most of it. When X introduced its new verification system under Elon Musk, for instance, Tumblr trolled it by selling its own users “important blue checkmarks” that “may turn into a bunch of crabs at any time.” Now—alongside every other social media platform—it’s taking a stab at replacing TikTok.

That move might seem odd given that Tumblr is one of the few platforms that hasn’t yet debuted its own TikTok clone. The platform’s lack of a vertical video feed, however, didn’t stop a surge of new users from flooding in on January 19 following TikTok’s short-lived shutdown.

The surge: Tumblr told TechCrunch that it saw a 35% spike in iOS app installations and a 70% increase in people joining its forum-style Communities. Several Communities that rose to prominence were specifically about TikTok, including ones where creators encouraged one another to post the videos they’d made for TikTok. In response, Tumblr is taking Tumblr TV—an experimental GIF discovery feature from 2015 that was later updated to support video—and rolling it out to all users.

The future: Tumblr’s recent influx of users signals a demand for that product—but that doesn’t mean it’s actually ready for a wide rollout. While Tumblr TV includes both GIF and video content, its GIFs are sized-up and grainy and many videos are cropped awkwardly because they were never intended for vertical viewing. That doesn’t bode well for Tumblr’s future as a TikTok replacement—but if a ban does come to fruition, we’re guessing at least a few “TikTok refugees” will find a place to express their woes among the platform’s Communities.

WATCH THIS 📺

If you missed “some big news,” this TikTok wiz has it covered

The creator: If you’ve been tracking the news cycle on TikTok lately, then you’ve probably come across at least one Aaron Parnas video. The social media journalist has amassed millions of fans by posting political updates throughout the day, sometimes right up until his head hits the pillow.

Parnas’ signature opening—”we have some big news right now”—has become so emblematic of the recent news cycle that one fan even created a sound mashing together some of his most dramatic intros. Check it out here.

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