TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and Threads has turned a meme into an official feature. From now on, when a user is frustrated enough to dedicate a post to “Dear Algo,” the algorithm will actually readjust their feed in real-time.

GAME ON

The big event: For creators who make basketball-themed videos, NBA All-Star Weekend is arguably the most important milestone on the calendar. This year, Variety reports that the NBA has assembled a “small army of top creators” to join the event, which will bring basketball’s brightest stars to the L.A. Convention Center and the Intuit Dome (aka the home of the Los Angeles Clippers).

In total, over 200 creators are slated to participate in activations that will take place from February 13-15. A Creator Cup at the L.A. Convention Center will feature ballers like Cam Wilder and Kris London, and the All-Star Celebrity Game will include sports creator Jenna Bandy, Instagram-famous coach Lethal Shooter, and Dude Perfect Co-Founder Cody Jones.

On Saturday night, creators like Bree Green will be granted behind-the-scenes access at the Intuit Dome before hoops YouTuber Jesser pulls off the biggest stunt of all: he’ll stay overnight in the iconic arena and record his experience for fans.

The context: There’s a reason NBA All-Star Weekend has evolved into such a creator extravaganza. Many marketers now see the creator economy as a “must buy,” platforms like YouTube are increasing their investments in pro sports, and basketball has become a hot topic in our Tubefilter YouTube subscriber charts. In the most recent edition of the Global Sub Top 50 ranking, Jesser ranked 42nd after adding 300,000 new subscribers in a single week.

With basketball content increasingly generating those kinds of viewership numbers, there’s no going back. NBA All-Star Weekend is on track to become as much of a creator stomping ground as the Super Bowl.

Do you remember why you picked up a camera in the first place? It probably wasn't to stare at spreadsheets, fight with copyright claims, or stress over thumbnail CTRs at 2 AM. 

For many creators, somewhere along the way, the "business" of creating content began to suffocate the "joy" of creating.

Made exists to give that joy back to you.

Made’s creator platform is built around a personalized workforce specifically designed to strip away the drudgery that drains your creative battery, leaving you with only the parts of the job you actually love.

Think of it as reclaiming your headspace, while…

💡 Milo absorbs the anxiety of strategy and packaging, so you can focus purely on the art of the idea. 

✂️ Remi eliminates the tedious hours of cutting and formatting, ensuring the editing process never kills your enthusiasm. 

💬 Zara filters the noise to turn community management back into meaningful connection.

📃 And Lila quietly handles the complex distribution rights so you never have to think about them.

When you aren't fighting the process, you remember how much you love the craft.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

TIKTOK TALK

The Local Feed: Legislators who pushed for a U.S. TikTok deal often cited a desire to control the user data of American citizens. Now, that data is stored on U.S. servers—and TikTok USDS Joint Venture (USDSJV) is ready to harness it by launching a feature that will tap into precise user data to provide scrollers with hometown content.

According to a USDSJV blog post, the platform’s new Local Feed “features local content related to travel, events, restaurants, and shopping, as well as posts from small businesses and local creators.”

Before the signing of a U.S. TikTok deal, this level of localization would have gone against the app’s terms of service—but new ownership means new rules.

While the O.G. version of TikTok only tracked users’ approximate locations, U.S. users who consented to the new app’s terms agreed to share their precise locations (although precise location sharing is toggled off by default, completely optional, and only available for users over the age of 18).

Users who do choose to turn on the Local Feed will be able to see posts by nearby creators and brands.

The motivation: Some small business owners, like janzincripe of Chillz Delight, are already celebrating the new feature—and that enthusiasm is good PR for TikTok.

By theoretically bringing more traffic to small businesses, the Local Feed could help inoculate the platform against regulatory threats by highlighting its importance to the American economy. TikTok has already argued that a ban would cause small businesses to suffer.

INDUSTRY BUZZ

The whitepaper: With such a wide variety of content on YouTube, what kinds of videos are drawing the most attention?

That's the question digital video production, distribution, and monetization company Little Dot Studios examines in its new whitepaper, Understanding the New Era of YouTube Viewing in 2026.

Using data from 800+ managed YouTube channels, 930 million subscribers, and 11.2 billion monthly views, Little Dot analyzed multiple years of viewing habits across formats, from Shorts to long-form to ultra-long-form (aka videos over 120 minutes).

Its core finding is that people are drawn to real human storytelling, and tend to join passionate fandoms. That behavior doesn’t change based on video format.

The stats: Little Dot shows that, from 2023-2024, ultra-long-form videos “didn’t just accumulate more watch time…they also often earned more views and higher RPM (revenue per thousand views).” On average, a 120-minute video earned 100x more revenue than a 20-minute video.

From May to November 2024, the ultra-long format was collectively bringing in nearly 30 million monthly views—but from December 2024 to May 2025, the average length of YouTube's most popular videos dropped 21%, from ~35 minutes to ~28 minutes.

That decrease, Little Dot says, “represents a seismic shift in audience behaviour,” which was further compounded by a January 25. 2025 algorithm update that "had a near instant impact on ‘ultra-long-form’ video viewing, dropping by more than 90% from its 2024 average in just three months."

The takeaway: By 2025, however, average views per video had evened out across short-form, long-form, and ultra-long-form—meaning viewers are now watching about the same amount of content in all three formats. Little Dot says this shows "that fandom is not format-fixed; it is dynamic.”

The company's ultimate recommendation? Little Dot Director of Data, Tech & Product Graham Swallow tells Tubefilter that creators "should always be looking at both their own content and other content to identify what their audience is engaging with."

WATCH THIS 👀

The Olympic hype: Viewers are all over this year’s Winter Olympics. According to data cited by Axios, the Opening Ceremony alone attracted 21.4 million viewers across NBC and Peacock—up 34% from the 2024 Winter Olympics’ Opening Ceremony in Beijing.

The Associated Press noted that NBC’s “Primetime in Milan” show “averaged 42 million viewers, the network’s largest Winter Olympics audience since Day 2 of the 2014 Sochi Games.”

Short-form highlights and creator-led coverage are making waves online, too. Clips posted to NBC’s various YouTube hubs have brought in millions of views, while creators and celebs like Ashley Yi and Megan Thee Stallion are bound to pique Gen Z’s interest in the games.

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