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Today’s News

TIKTOK TALK

TikTok may be big in Asia, but its U.S. user base is a goldmine

The report: Back when politicians were still debating whether or not to enforce the Biden admin’s “divest-or-ban” law, we argued that the U.S. needs TikTok more than TikTok needs the U.S. After all, when you look at parent company ByteDance’s earnings outside of America, its U.S. TikTok Shop sales don’t seem so impressive.

A recent eMarketer report tells a different story. In a new study, the data firm claims that U.S. users generate 41% of TikTok’s ad revenue, even though they only account for 10% of the app’s overall user base.

eMarketer backed up its research by citing another recent dataset from Edison Research, which found that 83% of U.S. TikTok users have taken a relevant action after viewing an ad on the platform. For 43% of those respondents, that action was a purchase.

The context: The takeaway of all this is simple. Markets like China may account for the lion’s share of ByteDance’s outsized valuation, but the purchasing power of U.S. users—and the sophistication of ad offerings available there—are too big for TikTok to ignore.

Advertisers would be wise to keep that in mind this holiday season. With help from stars like Kim Kardashian, TikTok had its biggest Black Friday weekend ever, hauling in $500 million of sales in the U.S. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, the numbers are even more striking: by taking in $19 billion in quarterly sales, TikTok Shop turned itself into almost as big of a U.S. ecommerce hub as eBay.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Jasmin and James—a YouTube couple channel known for its affiliation with Cadel and Mia—surged up to first place in our Global Top 50 Most-Viewed ranking after collecting 1.63 million weekly views. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Google has announced the introduction of a shoppable discovery feed to Doppl, “an experimental AI app from Google Labs that helps you explore your style and see how new outfits might look on you.” (Google)
  
  

• The European Commission has issued a statement acknowledging Meta’s decision to offer EU users “an alternative choice of Facebook and Instagram services that would show them less personalised ads.” (European Commission)
  
  

• Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav has reportedly reassured employees that HBO Max will remain up and running in the wake of an acquisition by Netflix. (TechRadar)

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top Branded Videos of the Week: Creators rep their own brands

Gospel Stats’ latest ranking of most-viewed branded YouTube videos is all about self-promotion, with entrepreneurial creators repping their own companies. And with view counts like MrBeast’s and Mark Rober’s, is it any surprise this week’s chart-toppers can afford to sponsor their own videos?

🥇 #1. MrBeast 2 x Feastables: Tasting Expensive Chocolates From Around The World (31.3M views)
Much of MrBeast‘s early Feastables branding pitted his snack brand against the established king of cheap chocolate, Hershey’s. Now, Feastables is posing itself as an alternative to the expensive stuff, too.

In a video on MrBeast’s secondary channel, longtime friends Nolan and Karl sampled boxes of truffles worth up to $600. The duo deemed the priciest chocolate “the best one so far”—before pointing out that “it’s still nowhere close to being as affordable as Feastables.” In other words, the 90-second video was just one big ad for Feastables’ Amazon Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. 

🥈 #2. Mark Rober, Cristiano x Crunchlabs: Ronaldo vs My Unbeatable Goalie Robot (24.2M views)
Rober’s latest science experiment borrowed some major star power from a global soccer icon: Cristiano Ronaldo. In a video sponsored by Rober’s own STEM subscription company, Crunchlabs, the YouTuber challenged Ronaldo to test out his new goalie robot. We’ll let you see the final result for yourself.

🥉 #3. Cozy K x Best Buy: Cozy Gaming Holiday Wishlist #BestBuyPartner (10.8M views)
While MrBeast and Rober are big enough stars to sponsor themselves, we’re seeing a growing number of smaller creators seek out (and successfully secure!) partnerships with massive brands. This week’s example is a 33-second video from Cozy K, who has 322,000 subscribers and snagged a deal from Best Buy. Like most sponsored Shorts, the creator’s viral video (which urges people to buy cozy gaming tech from Best Buy) is entirely about her brand partner.

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

You can also download Gospel’s YouTube 2025 Sponsorship Landscape report here.

BY THE NUMBERS

Boring Stuff wants creators to know: Taxes don’t have to suck

The bookkeeping biz: Taxes are an unpleasant experience for everyone—but for creators, a structural lack of understanding in the financial services sphere makes things even more complicated. Bookkeeping is a constant source of frustration for already-overburdened creators, and we’ve reported before how they’re potentially missing out on millions of dollars in write-offs because many (if not most) traditional CPAs don’t understand what they do.

That’s a problem Boring Stuff is out to solve. Stealth-launched in January 2025 by creator/industry vet Jon Youshaei, Amanda Marcovitch (named one of Business Insider‘s Top Rising Stars in Talent Management), former Yes Theory and Airrack COO/CFO Varun Bhuchar, and The Good Internet founder/CEO Zack Hornavar, the company aims to handle “all the paperwork creators hate.”

Over the last year, Boring Stuff took charge of taxes, bookkeeping, operations, and back-office needs for creators like Airrack, The Try Guys, and Yes Theory. Now, the company is going wider.

The offerings: According to Boring Stuff CEO Bhuchar, the company is offering a “white-glove, high-touch approach to each and every creator who signs up for our service.” Current services include bookkeeping with monthly financial reports, payroll and contractor management, ops and HR systems for scaling teams, and tax prep, filing, and compliance.

Boring Stuff doesn’t publicly disclose its pricing, but says it operates on a retainer system that “scales based on your unique needs” instead of using a revenue-share model.

As tax laws continue to lag, services like these can help guide emerging and established creators alike in preventing financial losses and ops issues—so they can keep more of their hard-earned money in their own pockets.

WATCH THIS 👀

Latin America is now the epicenter of YouTube’s reaction genre

The reactors: The rise of reaction videos started as a mostly U.S.-based phenomenon, with 2010s YouTube stars like Jinx and The Fine Bros paving the way for what has become a largely Shorts-centric genre.

Fast forward to 2025, and Latin America has become the nexus of YouTube’s reaction genre. The first Global Sub Top 50 chart of December is a clear illustration of that shift, with multiple Latin American reaction creators cracking the ranking after hauling in tens of thousands of new subscribers per day.

The biggest uptick in the Top 50 belonged to Alex Coimbra, a Brazil-based creator who added 398,000 new subs in a single week thanks to viral reaction videos like this one.

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