It’s Monday and today’s eclipse isn’t the only astronomical event of the week. Snapchat’s friendship-measuring “solar system” feature is reportedly being taken off default following allegations that it causes anxiety.

BONUS POINTS

Instagram’s latest creator bonus program goes beyond video

The bonus: Instagram is giving (some) creators a boost in revenue. A spokesperson confirmed to Mashable that the platform is testing an invite-only spring bonus, “which rewards creators for sharing their reels, carousels and single image posts.”

• According to Business Insider, that seasonal bonus is capped at $30,000 per creator for 30 days of engagement and doesn’t count sponsored content, collabs with other creators, or posts with watermarks from third-party platforms towards payouts. Two eligible creators told BI they’re currently seeing RPMs of between 14 and 16 cents.

The context: It’s been jut over a year since Instagram shut down its year-round Reels Play bonus program, a decision Meta attributed to other monetization products “scaling more quickly and proving more sustainable over the long term.”

• Since then, the platform has tested out a few temporary monetization programs, including a “holiday bonus” in Q4 2023 and a “New Year’s bonus” in the first part of 2024. The key difference between those and Meta’s latest experiment: as BI points out, the spring bonus doesn’t just focus on video makers—it also caters to creators of photo content.

Why it matters: Instagram creators (and especially image-focused creators) probably shouldn’t pin their hopes on the return of a year-round monetization program—but it does sound like the platform plans to expand its bonus system.

• Last October, Instagram head Adam Mosseri told creators that the platform “couldn’t afford to run [the Reels Play bonus program] in the U.S.” Seasonal bonuses seem to be a different story: while the spring bonus is currently only available to creators in the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, Instagram confirmed that it hopes to bring bonuses “to more creators in the future.”

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Among March’s Top 100 most-viewed YouTube channels, a hub focused on Jesus-themed “this vs. that” challenges experienced a bizarre, Easter-fueled rise to 96th place. (Tubefilter)
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• A recent motion filed by Meta revealed that Instagram collected $32.4 billion in ad revenue in 2021—$3.6 billion more than YouTube’s ‘21 total. (The Verge)
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• According to a report from The New York Times, OpenAI “transcribed more than one million hours of YouTube videos” in order to train its GPT-4 AI model. (The New York Times)
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• Meta announced over the weekend that it will begin adding “Made with AI” labels to deepfaked content in May. (TechCrunch)

DATA • MILLIONAIRES 📈

This TikToker has always loved animals. Now, he talks about them for a living.

Meet the Millionaire: When Mamadou Ndiaye was three years old, he started making “little animal books.” He’d draw his favorite wildlife, staple the pages together, and present the finished product to his mother.

• Twenty three years later, Ndiaye creates content about animals full-time—including a recently-published book called 100 Animals That Can F*cking End You.

How it started: That “full-circle moment” is the result of four years of consistent growth on TikTok, an app Ndiaye initially downloaded “as a joke.” When he first made an account in 2020, he never actually intended to post anything.

• Then COVID hit. Ndiaye was stuck at home and “didn’t really have anything better to do,” so he posted a few videos about random subjects—including animals.
  
  

• To Ndiaye’s surprise, his very first animal-centric video blew up. So, he says, he “did the typical TikTok thing” and decided to continue teaching viewers fascinating animal facts “until it flopped.”

How it’s going: Fast forward to 2024 and Ndiaye’s wildlife content still shows no sign of flopping. He’s now a full-time creator with over 16 million followers on TikTok and 3.3 million subscribers on YouTube (where he goes by Casual Geographic), and hopes he’s “becoming the type of person I would have wanted to have access to as a kid.”

What’s next: One day, Ndiaye plans to educate audiences in an IRL environment like an animal sanctuary. Until then, however, the creator is focused on growing across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and aims to “move on to Facebook and use that as a springboard for other opportunities.”

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

Reaching the summit: Creator Upload co-hosts Lauren Schnipper and Josh Cohen kicked off April by recapping The Information's 2024 Creator Economy Summit. Also on the discussion board: the introduction of paywalled Shorts and Epic Games’ $320 million payout to Fortnite devs.

• Check out the full episode (and all past installments of Creator Upload) right here on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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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.