TOGETHER WITH

It’s Sunday and here’s a handpicked selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry.

But first, meet Minecraft’s very own Hannah Montana. Mike Tomlin spent 19 seasons as the Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach. During his downtime, however, he had another goalpost to reach: building one of Minecraft’s most detailed cities.

CREATOR COMMOTION

The creator investor: MrBeast’s Shark Tank spot is now yours for the watching. Jimmy Donaldson joined the long-running pitch show as a guest investor on Season 18’s premiere episode. The installment aired Sept. 30 and went live on Hulu the next day—but for those of you not handing Disney your money, the oft-updated Shark Tank YouTube channel has you covered. A select pitch from the Beastified tank is up here.

The triumph: How would you celebrate beating one of the world’s best chess players? Bulgarian Twitch streamer Witty Alien got one over on grandmaster Magnus Carlsen and celebrated by stripping his pants off on stream. Believe it or not, this isn’t Carlsen’s first incident with pants; in 2024, he withdrew from another global championship after being penalized for wearing jeans.

The memoir: Chris Olsen wants his memoir to help people feel “less alone.” The TikToker said writing his new book, I Think My Therapist Hates Me, “felt like I was just kind of like stabbing myself over and over again.” But for him, the pain was worth it. “It’s a lot about young people who have maybe struggled with their own substance abuse issues or they’ve been in families where addiction was a big issue and getting through, that they felt very alone,” he told Variety.

The game campaign: New Yorkers heading through Times Square this week might see a 20-foot-tall anime girl. Tokyo-based VTuber agency hololive is running a massive ad campaign in major cities around the world to push hololive Dreams, its first video game. The rhythm title promises 150+ original songs with appearances by more than 50 hololive VTubers—but so far, player feedback is mixed.

MIPCOM Cannes is bringing the global entertainment industry to the French Riviera—and putting the creator economy at the center of it all.

From October 12–15, the world’s #1 media marketplace will unite 10,600+ industry experts with decision-makers from Amazon MGM Studios, Banijay, BBC Studios, Disney, FOX Entertainment, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros. Discovery, and other global brands. 

Meet the speakers leading MIPCOM’s most anticipated creator economy sessions:

Reserve your ticket now:

PLATFORM HEADLINES

The shoutout: Horror hits Obsession and Backrooms got talk-up from Pedro Pina, YouTube’s Vice President for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. “You see, from a cinema standpoint, a huge impact,” he said at an event in Madrid. “[T]hey were tremendously successful this year and I would expect to see more and more of these examples in the Emmys and Oscars in the next years.”

The update: Instagram is doing a pay-to-play version of Twitch’s front page. It’s rolling out Boosts, which promote a creator’s broadcast while they’re live. Boosted streams show up in the main Instagram feed along with Stories and Reels, (ideally) giving creators a better chance of finding more viewers as they’re streaming.

The crackdown: YouTube says it’s now deprioritizing channels “identified as primarily aggregating or re-uploading other creators’ videos without significant changes” in the Shorts algorithm. We’ll have to see how this policy plays out when live, but from the description, it seems the burgeoning clipping industry (where some creators pay millions to mobilize armies of accounts that clip and repost content from their streams and long-form videos) will take a big hit.

The job listings: Minecraft developer Mojang is hiring for the creator economy. Fresh job listings call out UGC leaders Roblox and Fortnite as direct competitors, and Mojang is clearly hoping to keep up in the creator space. It’s opened roles for a Director of Creator Programs and Ecosystem Marketing, Principal and Senior Program Managers in its partner developer relations team, and a Senior Director of Creator Monetization.

EXITS & ENTRANCES

The 18th hole: Good Good Head of Content Logan Spence and Head of Events Hung Tran are both exiting the creator golf company. Their departures follow CEO Matt Kendrick and President Joe Flannery’s own exits after Good Good’s disastrous Callaway driver ad. The ad stripped Good Good of major partnerships with the PGA Tour, the Golf Channel, and Callaway itself, and Good Good is now on the long, slow climb to get back in everyone’s good graces.

The streaming shakeup: Paramount’s streaming chief is out ahead of its Warner Bros. merger. Cindy Holland, who joined Paramount as streaming chief in 2025, is leaving the company, while Casey Bloys, Chairman and CEO of HBO and HBO Max Content, has been tapped to run all streaming efforts for the combined conglomerate.

The hires: Motion Society is bringing on a former Spotify, Meta, and Fullscreen exec. Chanel Simmons joins the creator content distribution company as its Managing Director, U.S., where she’ll work on a proprietary system that audience-tests content for best cut-through. Motion Society says it sends out 30,000 videos across platforms each month for creators like Jesser, Stephen Sharer, and Lizzy Capri.

WATCH THIS 👀

The robo raccoon: Animatronic enthusiasts-slash-YouTubers Wicked Makers have opened the cage door for CH1PP13, a built-from-scratch robotic raccoon that will roam Pittsburgh haunted house Hundred Acres Manor.

As shown in a recent video, the duo custom-made CH1PP13 and outfitted him with a few spooky special effects for any guests brave enough to interact with him.

Want to introduce your brand to Tubefilter’s audience? Sponsor the newsletter.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here​.

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