TOGETHER WITH

It’s Friday and your favorite ‘90s rom-com might not be as true-to-life as you once thought—because despite Mark Zuckerberg’s high fashion makeover, the Pew Research Center found that 67% of Americans still aren’t feeling the love for him.

Today’s News

THUMBS UP 👍

A MrBeast Short just became YouTube’s most-liked video with 54 million thumbs-up

The viral hit: MrBeast already claims the most-subscribed channel on YouTube—one that regularly finishes first in our weekly ranking of most-watched hubs. Now, the Beast Games host has added another feather to his cap: YouTube’s most-liked video.

A YouTube Shorts clip uploaded to MrBeast’s main channel more than two years ago officially earned that title in January 2025 after totaling 54 million likes. Given MrBeast’s social media star power, the video’s superlative status is no real surprise—but there is an ironic twist to the situation. The YouTube powerhouse (aka Jimmy Donaldson) isn’t even the primary star of the video. Instead, his viral hit follows an American student who travels to Paris to fulfill Donaldson’s desire for a French baguette.

The stats: At 1.4 billion views, the baguette Short is also MrBeast’s most-watched video. That in-and-of-itself doesn’t set a record, but the clip’s 54 million likes are enough to surpass the total claimed by YouTube’s previous most-liked video, “Despacito” (which has 8.6 billion views). And fans are still tuning in at a rapid pace: according to ViewStats, Donaldson’s bread-themed video is still averaging roughly 75,000 views per hour.

The context: MrBeast’s unprecedented success is part of a wider trend that has seen multiple creators (such as magician Justin Flom) achieve record viewership by tapping into viral Shorts genres and formats. The baguette video ups the ante by cutting across multiple categories that perform well on Shorts, including food, travel, challenges—and MrBeast content.

At this point, Donaldson’s larger-than-life persona is practically a short-form staple all on its own. After all, the Feastables co-founder isn’t just a Shorts creator; he’s also one of the format’s most-memed and referenced subjects.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Twitch’s Fortnite island—aka The Glitch—will play host to this year’s Battle of the Brands, a DoorDash-sponsored tournament that will see streamers compete to win $20,000 in gift cards for their fans. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• X owner Elon Musk says he’s working to “fix” the platform’s Community Notes moderation system, which he claims is “increasingly being gamed by governments & legacy media.” (Elon Musk via X)
  
  

• Meanwhile, Meta announced yesterday that users can now sign up to contribute to its own Community Notes system on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. (Meta Transparency Center)
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• YouTube is reportedly on the verge of introducing a “premium lite” subscription option for users in the U.S., Australia, Germany, and Thailand. (Bloomberg)

HITTING THE LIMIT

Twitch is limiting streamers to 100 hours of Highlights. They’re not happy.

The update: Twitch wants to cut down on the amount of money it spends letting creators store stuff on its platform. Its strategy: auto-deleting Highlights once a streamer has reached 100 hours of storage time.

Twitch’s Highlights feature allows creators to scrub through a VOD and compile their best moments into one reel. Unlike Clips (aka the video format Twitch uses to populate its TikTok-esque Discovery feed), those reels can be made up of nonconsecutive footage and permanently show chat activity. They also remain on Twitch’s platform after the source VOD has been deleted—making Highlights an especially valuable tool for speedrunners (per The Verge).

Because so many speedrunning records are set live, Highlights has effectively made Twitch a library for the community’s top moments, capturing the second they were set as well as reactions from creators and viewers.

The response: Starting April 19, however, much of that library could begin to disappear. While Twitch noted that the new storage limit “impacts less than 0.5 percent of active channels…and accounts for less than 0.1 percent of hours watched,” anyone who does use Highlights consistently will need to keep their total recording time below 100 hours. If they go over, Twitch will auto-delete Highlights until the channel is back under 100 hours.

Speedrunners have already begun raising alarms about the potential impact of that change, with streamer MissingMeshTV noting that a single game playthrough can easily add up to 200 hours of footage. Another creator, FKAsocks, pointed to the ramifications for the speedrunning community’s archival history:

INSPIRE EXPIRES

Financial advice on TikTok is a volatile market

The survey: A recent survey shows that most Gen Z and Millennials have consulted social media for financial advice at one point or another—and some won’t be doing it ever again.

Those insights comes from a study conducted by Qualtrics, which surveyed 1,510 respondents over the age of 18 on behalf of Intuit Credit Karma. Though less than half of Americans seek financial advice through social media, 77% of Gen Z and 61% of Millennials are searching online to make sense of their dollars. YouTube remains the #1 destination for users seeking financial advice, with 71% of Gen Z respondents turning to the Alphabet-owned hub. Instagram (50%) and TikTok (49%) are the next-most frequented destinations.

The drawbacks: #FinTok might not be the top source for financial creator content, but it nevertheless represents a rising group of creators who have gained favor with Gen Z and Millennials by providing common sense advice for free. Unfortunately, poor financial tips and scams are all too common on TikTok—so much so that the platform has urged users to #BeCyberSmart when consuming #FinTok content.

Intuit Credit Karma’s survey shows that some viewers are fed up with that unreliability. 39% of Gen Z and 33% of Millennials reported that bad outcomes convinced them to swear off social media financial advice for good. In many cases, that decision was motivated by an IRS audit; a whopping 37% of Gen Z and 25% of Millennials said they have gotten into some form of trouble after taking advice from a financial creator.

With drawbacks like those, it’s no wonder most surveyed adults told Qualtrics that financial social content isn’t their most trusted source for money help. Instead, family and friends are who they prefer to turn to for reliable financial advice and support."

WATCH THIS 📺

Duolingo says its mascot made one final choice before death: “Spanish or Vanish”

The death of Duo: Duolingo’s increasingly unhinged approach to social media marketing has earned the language learning company plenty of attention over the last few years. Its latest campaign, however, goes beyond its usual twerk-y take on internet trends and TikTok memes.

In a TikTok posted February 11, Duolingo announced that its feathery mascot, Duo, had officially kicked the bucket. Not long after, the company doubled down by posting a video showing all of its branded character down for the count (think crossed-out eyes and lolling tongues).

The statement: Just over a week later, Duolingo Co-founder and CEO Luis von Ahn (aka Duo’s self-proclaimed “daddy”) released a statement on YouTube to confirm that “Duo was hit by a Cybertruck” and “every character at Duolingo is dead.” An ASMR video released Wednesday might signal the brand’s next approach to social media marketing—and honestly, we’re not sure how to feel.

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