It’s Monday and if you feel like someone (or something) is watching you, it’s probably Mountain Dew—as long as you’re a Twitch creator, that is.

POWER PLAYS

A federal judge just put the brakes on Montana’s statewide TikTok ban

Montana’s proposed ban against TikTok has hit a major stumbling block. Late last week, U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy ruled that the proposed law should be blocked on the grounds that it “oversteps state power.” The judge argued that Montana’s ban was a thinly veiled attempt to target “China’s ostensible role in TikTok”—not an earnest attempt to protect its residents. A preliminary injunction put that decree into action on November 30.

Montana isn’t giving up just yet—but the odds aren’t in its favor.

Although a spokesperson for Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (who authored the proposed ban) emphasized the “preliminary” nature of Molloy’s ruling, the judge himself noted that TikTok’s “better arguments” indicate “a likelihood to succeed” in future proceedings.

The platform isn’t leaving anything to chance. TikTok challenged Montana’s proposed ban almost immediately after Governor Greg Gianforte approved it in May, and has since funded separate lawsuits filed by some of its Montana-based creators. Now—just over six months later—those efforts seem to be paying off.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• YouTuber GothamChess (aka Levy Rozman) has made Forbes‘ 2023 30 Under 30 list just one month after the release of his New York Times bestselling debut. (Tubefilter)
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• DIY creator Moriah Elizabeth has teamed up with Bonkers Toys to bring a line of “mystery” plushies to Walmart. (Tubefilter)
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• Meta has responded to growing concerns about child exploitation on its platforms by “using machine learning to detect connections” between search terms related to CSAM. (The Verge)
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• TikTok says it will devote roughly $13 billion to the expansion of data security measures in Europe as part of “Project Clover.” (TechCrunch)

DATA • MILLIONAIRES 📈

This filmmaker has been behind the camera since he was nine years old

Jaden Williams’ passion for video content goes all the way back to elementary school. The creator “fell in love with filmmaking at a very young age”—in part due to his mother’s own passion for movies—and spent the better part of his adolescence at film club meetings and movie festivals.

By the time high school rolled around, Williams had become enmeshed in the world of visual effects. That passion led him to another, all-consuming “obsession”: software engineering.

It wasn’t until his second year of college as an engineering major that Williams decided to dive back into the kind of filmmaking he’d loved as a kid. Making a TikTok account was a practical decision; if the whole content creation thing didn’t work out, Williams figured he could always leverage his online following as a marketing tool for his software projects.

Williams did end up accumulating a massive online following—but that success didn’t translate into a simple marketing opportunity. Instead, the TikToker graduated college with a life-changing choice to make: continue with engineering or take an enormous leap of faith.

Just over a year later, Williams is a full-time creator with 2.3 million TikTok followers and nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers. His videos encompass everything from comedy skits to horror short films—but he hasn’t turned his back on engineering, either. Keep reading here to learn more about Williams’ multifaceted approach to content creation.

KEEP AN EYE OUT

How do Gen Z and Millennial viewers feel about #FinTok?

Back in 2022, a study from Vericast found that a similar number of Gen Z respondents reported accessing TikTok vs. YouTube when searching for financial guidance. Since then, TikTok’s financial community has been all over the news: #FinTok stars have accumulated millions of followers, appeared in mainstream publications, and even met with President Biden.

With all that cultural sway, you’d think #FinTok would be at the front of every Gen Z (and Millennial) mind.

Instead, viewers between the ages of 18 and 42 seem to be looking somewhere else for banking advice: YouTube.

According to a new report from Insider Intelligence (aka eMarketer), YouTube is the only platform that provides banking information to more than 60% of both Gen Z and Millennial viewers. That study surveyed a total of 1,488 U.S.-based banking consumers in order “to understand how consumers open new bank accounts or buy bank products/services.”

Here’s how the numbers shook out:

• 65.6% of Gen Z and 63.9% of Millennials turn to YouTube for banking info.
  
  

• The same percentage of Millennials—63.9%—also reported consulting Facebook for financial advice (as opposed to 40.6% of Gen Z).
  
  

• #FinTok’s figures were markedly lower: overall, 43.8% of Gen Z and 24.1% of Millennials say they tune into TikTok for banking guidance.

The result: YouTube seems to have pulled ahead when it comes to spreading financial know-how—but with digital banking expanding to include 40.4 million Gen Z customers next year, there’s still plenty of viewership to go around.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

This week on the podcast…

The turkey coma has worn off and that means it’s time to get back to business. Check out the latest episode of Creator Upload to learn all about Amouranth’s new venture, the rise of long-form content, and JerryRigEverything’s multimillion-dollar suit against CASETiFY.

It’s all 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.