TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and Wikipedia is hitting pause on AI summaries after a straight-to-the-point response from editors: “Yuck.”

Today’s News

THE BIZ

YouTube creators reportedly added $55B to the U.S. GDP in 2024

The study: YouTube’s latest annual Impact Report—which details its contributions to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) and workforce—has arrived. Every year, Oxford Economics provides research on the platform’s total contributions to the U.S. economy based on estimates about the value of YouTube-adjacent work. YouTube then publishes those findings on its official blog—and this year, the provided topline numbers are particularly impressive.

YouTube’s creator community added $55 billion to the U.S. GDP during the 2024 calendar year, and that industry supported the equivalent of 490,000 full-time equivalent jobs. The professionals who make up that workforce include creators as well as their associates, such as editors, publicists, and managers. The report also considers the economic impact of platforms like Patreon, Linktree, and Spotter, which creators use to supplement their AdSense income.

The context: YouTube’s latest GDP and job totals both represent increases over previous Impact Reports. The platform’s U.S. GDP contribution was measured at $25 billion in 2021 and $35 billion in 2022, meaning that figure is steadily rising by about $10 billion per year.

Much of YouTube’s economic growth can be attributed to the continued diversification of the creator business across a variety of categories. In 2024, for example, the Impact Report noted YouTube’s growing influence in the world of education. That rise follows a concerted push the platform made into education earlier in the decade, as well as the launch of new tools for students last year.

The result: 90% of teachers who use YouTube said they’ve employed the platform’s content in their lessons, and 92% of YouTube viewers have watched videos to acquire knowledge or information.

For more details, check out the full Impact Report here.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Colin and Samir have 3 Rules for YouTube. Here’s how Spotter Studio helps them stick to the playbook:

Colin and Samir recently published “3 Rules for YouTube” as part of their YouTube Growth Playbook. Here’s how you can use Spotter Studio’s suite of ideation tools to pull off the YouTube duo’s tried-and-true strategy:

Rule 1: If They Don’t Click, They Don’t Watch
By generating data-driven titles and thumbnails, Spotter Studio makes it easy to build packages that draw clicks. 

Rule 2: Respect Their Time
With Spotter Studio’s Storybeats, you can brainstorm personalized elements like the hook, climax, and payoff. The result: your video ideas will be fully developed before you pick up a camera. 

Rule 3: Do You Want More Stuff Like This?
Spotter Studio’s Outlier tool lets you analyze 50M YouTube videos and track the performance of top uploads—both on your channel and on those you follow—to measure how new videos stack up.

Colin and Samir aren’t the only top creators using Spotter to stay ahead:

Spotter Studio is offering a limited-time promotion on top of its 14-day free trial—meaning you can get a FULL year of Spotter Studio for just $99. Ready to start following Colin and Samir’s playbook?

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• After two months, YouTubers are still benefiting from the Minecraft Movie boost. Just look at Glebo: the creator pulled in 1.2M monthly subscribers in May with his straightforward gameplay videos. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Amazon has reportedly nearly doubled the ad load shown to ad-supported Prime Video subscribers from three-and-a-half minutes per hour to a maximum of six. (Engadget)
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• Snap says its new Lens+ subscription tier combines “all of the value from our Snapchat+ subscription” with “access to hundreds of Lenses and AR experiences.” (Snap Newsroom)
  
  

• YouTube will soon offer a new subscription option to football fans: a month-to-month NFL Sunday Ticket plan. (PCWorld)

CREATOR COMMOTION

Lowe’s is the “exclusive building partner” for Beast Games 2

The program: Lowe’s is building up its presence in the creator economy. The home improvement company’s new Creator Program has already attracted more than 17,000 creators—including a few marquee names. MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) is the biggest, alongside DIY creators DadSocial and Chris Loves Julia.

The majority of Lowe’s influencers, however, are likely on the smaller side. Unlike Ulta Beauty and Starbucks (which recently launched creator initiatives of their own), the Lowe’s Creator Program isn’t very selective about membership and doesn’t require creators to produce a certain amount of content. It doesn’t guarantee they’ll get paid, either; instead, the program operates on a tier system. Creators of all tiers get the ability to make custom storefronts with recommended products, and receive a 20% cut of any sales generated from those custom affiliate links.

All member creators also get “product samples, training resources and a range of opportunities to help grow their businesses,” while those whose content performs best will receive “additional perks and incentives” like “project funding, long-term sponsorships and exclusive access to events like the annual Lowe’s Creator Summit” (per Lowe’s).

The partnership: Of course, MrBeast isn’t just any member of the Lowe’s Creator Program. The home improvement brand’s partnership with Donaldson is an expansive one: it’s become the “exclusive building partner” for his Amazon original, Beast Games, and will provide materials and labor to build “BeastCity,” a massive complex that will serve as both set and contestant housing for Season 2.

Lowe’s said “the building of BeastCity marks the first of many landmark projects between Lowe’s and MrBeast, with future content collaborations anticipated,” while its CMO Jen Wilson described MrBeast, DadSocial, and Chris Loves Julia as “exciting names in the world of influencers” who will now “be DIYing with Lowe’s across their social channels.”

BY THE NUMBERS

Will ad spend on creator platforms outstrip trad media in 2025?

The projection: Are the days of traditional media hubs numbered? According to WPP Media (a division of ad agency giant WPP), ad spend on content destinations like YouTube, TikTok, and LinkedIn could outpace spending on traditional media platforms in 2025.

The company projects that the “creator-driven platforms” favored by big-name influencers will haul in over $325 billion of combined ad spend during the 2025 calendar year. That sum would narrowly eclipse spending on TV, audio, print, and film (aka “professional content” hubs).

All of this is good news for influencers. WPP Media estimates that creators stand to rake in $185 billion of ad revenue in 2025. That figure could soar as high as $376 billion by 2030, with 60% of revenue coming in the form of brand deals and sponsorships.

The context: Numbers like those would have seemed far-fetched just a decade ago. Although platforms like YouTube were growing steadily in the 2010s, traditional sources like TV still gobbled up the majority of viewership and ad spend.

As attention shifted from TV to streaming, however, creator-driven platforms jumped on the chance to accommodate viewers’ changing preferences. YouTube’s presence on TV screens, for instance, has helped it become the single most-watched streaming platform; according to Nielsen, more than 10% of all TV usage goes to the Google-affiliated hub.

Ad spend is beginning to catch up to that attention shift.

In April of this year, the Interactive Advertising Bureau noted that digital media (which encompasses connected TV ads, social video, and online video) now captures nearly 60% of TV and video ad spend—roughly double what it claimed in 2020. WPP Media pointed to a similar growth trend, noting that creator-driven platforms accounted for just 30% of measured ad spend in 2019. Ad spend on TV and print media, meanwhile, continues to decline.

WATCH THIS 📺

After beating Malenia with her mind, this creator is eyeing Nintendo

The creator: Gamers have a knack for finding new and exciting ways to test their skills—and PerriKaryal is one of the most inventive of the bunch. (Just look at her recent 3D Twitch stream.)

The streamer has created a “mind control” system using an electroencephalogram, which she leverages to ‘think’ commands that coordinate to different inputs on a game controller. As PC Gamer writes, PerriKaryal has already used this system to beat notoriously difficult FromSoft bosses in PC games like Elden Ring. (You can watch one of her incredible takedowns here.)

The next challenge: More recently, the creator expanded to playing Nightreign on PlayStation—meaning she can now use any console. With the release of the Switch 2, Nintendo games are an obvious area of interest for PerriKaryal. But the creator isn’t so sure Nintendo will “let” her take that step. The games publisher is notoriously unfriendly to content creators, and especially hostile to anyone who tries to mod its games. It’s anyone’s guess whether Nintendo will see PerriKaryal’s system as a mod, but we, for one, would be excited to see her mind take on Mario Kart.

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