TOGETHER WITH

It's Tuesday, and the first of Netflix’s themed amusement centers is set to open November 12 in Philadelphia. Who’s hungry for some Squid Game-inspired snacks?

Today’s News

PLATFORM HEADLINES

YouTube got caught tweaking Shorts with “machine learning”

The controversy: The potential impacts of AI have weighed heavily on creators in recent months—so when some YouTubers noticed unauthorized changes to their videos, it wasn’t long before questions came flooding in.

As far back as June 2025, viewers began spotting telling details in Shorts—such as smoothed-out faces—that prompted questions over whether YouTube was applying AI to published videos.

Those queries hit a fever pitch in August, when music creator Rhett Shull shared a video discussing retouched Shorts on his own channel, and that of fellow creators like Rick Beato, Vlogbrothers, and Rhett & Link. One of Shull’s main concerns: that seeing Shorts with tell-tale signs of AI would damage viewers’ trust in creators.

The response: In response to Shull’s video, YouTube reps emphasized that it’s normal for the platform to rescale videos after they’ve been uploaded, and characterized the contentious edits as routine enhancements.

On X, creator liaison Rene Ritchie described the changes as an experiment powered by “traditional machine learning technology” that aims to “unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos” while serving YouTube’s mission to “provide the best video quality and experience possible.” In a statement provided to The Atlantic, YouTube spokeswoman Allison Toh stressed that “these enhancements are not done with generative AI.”

Those responses make it clear that YouTube is drawing a line between what it calls “traditional machine learning technology” and what we know as generative AI.  Ultimately, however, that semantic argument is beside the point if YouTube’s enhancements look like AI to viewers. Because as Shull noted, “the trust of my audience is the most important thing that I have as a YouTube creator.”

🌟 SPONSORED 🌟

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Because VidSummit is the only event where the top 1% of creators share their secrets.

This year’s event is no exception. Reserve your spot to mingle with industry leaders at an invite-only kickoff party, learn the secrets to maximizing viewership, and delve into the trends that will define digital media.

Tickets to VidSummit have sold out every year for the past half-decade. Hit the link below to snag yours before space runs out:

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• MrBeast continues to trade the #1 slot in the Global Sub Top 50 with an Argentine protege. This week, Alejo Igoa reclaimed the top spot by adding 2.1 million new YouTube subscribers. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Instagram’s latest Reels engagement metric is “retention,” an “interactive chart that shows the percentage of views from people who continued to watch your reel at each moment.” (Social Media Today)
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• YouTube TV subscribers could potentially lose access to certain Fox channels due to a stand-off in negotiations over streaming rights. (The Verge)
  
  

• The Trump admin seems to have reversed its decision not to offer TikTok additional extensions, with the president confirming the government’s willingness to keep negotiations open until “things work out.” (Fortune)

GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top Branded Videos: MrBeast, minidramas, and GTA 5

MrBeast is once again at #1 in Gospel Stats’ weekly ranking of most-viewed branded YouTube videos. Sponsored videos on the creator’s primary channel almost always lead the rankings by a wide margin, and this week is no exception: at the end of the day, the beast man’s #1 clip came in over 74 million views ahead of the second-place winner.

🥇 #1. MrBeast x Moose Toys: Survive 100 Days In Prison, Win $500,000 (87.5M views)
There’s nothing too unexpected about the content or sponsor of MrBeast’s latest chart-topper. The 40-minute video revolves around a tried-and-true format (a cash-fueled challenge) and is backed by Moose Toys (aka the company that produces MrBeast’s Swarms figurines).

🥈 #2. Alan’s Universe x Laneige: Famous Popstar Goes Undercover presented by @LANEIGE_US #BeautyAndTheBeatSeries #laneigeus [EP 1] (13.4M views)
YouTube is right at the center of the minidrama craze, giving Alan Chikin Chow’s new Shorts series, Beauty and the Beat, an invested viewership. The plot: an overwhelmed popstar remakes herself as a high schooler (with the help of Laneige cosmetics), only to remember that being a teenager isn’t always fun. Chow’s series snagged spots at both #2 and #3 on Gospel Stats’ latest branded chart, illustrating the format’s rising popularity.

🎰 #97. Any Austin x Rocket Money: Do GTA 5’s Street Signs Comply With California Law? (774.4K views)
Any Austin has already answered every off-the-wall video game question from “what is the restaurant industry like in Skyrim?” to “are the woodworkers in Legend of Zelda‘s Hyrule good at their jobs?” For his latest deep-dive, the creator partnered with sponsor Rocket Money to examine the legality of Grand Theft Auto 5’s street signs.

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

GAME ON

This Roblox creator feud set a 47M-player record

The context: Roblox might be facing some hefty criticisms right now, but its creator community is still thriving. Two devs in particular—Jandel (who made Grow a Garden) and SpyderSammy (who created Steal a Brainrot)—drove the embattled platform to new heights earlier this month.

For context, Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot are two of Roblox’s most popular games. The first is a farm sim, while the latter is a creature hoarding-and-stealing game. Both titles tend to average around ~1 million concurrent players on any given day, but sometimes Jandel and SpyderSammy arrange special events to drive up those stats. During these so-called “Admin Abuse” periods, players can log in to get limited-edition drops from the game’s administrators.

Both Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot run Admin Abuse events on weekends, and have historically spiked their numbers to ~15 million concurrent players each.

The battle: This past weekend, however, the games’ devs went all out to raise money for Mark Rober and MrBeast’s #TeamWater fundraiser. Their strategy: hosting an August 23 “Admin War” during which their respective Admin Abuse events would occur simultaneously. The stakes:

SpyderSammy accepted Jandel’s challenge, and when Saturday came, fans poured in. By the end of the day, Grow a Garden had reached 21.1 million concurrent players and Steal a Brainrot had scored 20 million. That means both games have now beat Fortnite‘s 2020 concurrent player record of 15.3 million. The war also pushed Roblox-as-a-platform to its highest concurrent player count yet: 47.4 million. That total puts it ahead of Steam‘s record 40.2 million.

The result: Roblox is officially the world’s highest-concurrent-player game platform, and Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot are among the world’s highest-concurrent-player games.

WATCH THIS

Craftsmen channels are creeping into the culinary world

The content combo: Thanks to the power of Shorts, “craftsmen” channels featuring skilled tradesmen and eclectic machines almost always claim a place in our global ranking of the fifty most-viewed YouTube channels.

This week, one commonality linked those chart-topping hubs: food. Culinary content, like machinery, is a popular topic on Shorts, with chefs like Nick DiGiovanni becoming regulars in our global rankings. And that makes sense given the universality of the genre (after all, everyone has to eat).

The Shorts hub: One channel in particular has successfully exploited the link between “crafts” videos and culinary content in recent days. Daily Crafts (which repurposes East Asian videos for Arabic-language markets) is climbing the charts thanks to food-focused farming clips like this one. With 530.9 million weekly views, the short-form hub rose from #78 to #33 in our latest Top 50 ranking—a 51% week-over-week jump.

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