TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and Max is bringing some much-needed accessibility to its platform. Starting March 31, viewers will be able to stream The Last of Us in American Sign Language—a first for HBO original content.

Today’s News

MONEY MOVES

More than half of brands will pay YouTubers to market their products this year

The stats: The creator industry is a $250 billion ecosystem—and in 2025, it’s expected to rake in over $10 billion in influencer marketing spend. That number is higher than expected: initially, eMarketer says it didn’t anticipate influencer marketing spend to hit $10 billion until next year.

But instead of the original growth forecast of 16% in 2024, the marketing research company says “spend rose by 23.7%” last year as brands “fully committed” to influencer marketing. They’re now projected to splash out $1.37 billion more on influencer marketing in 2025—pushing this year’s anticipated total to around $10.52 billion.

The platforms: In 2025, eMarketer estimates that brands will spend $3.45 billion on YouTube alone, with more than half of U.S. marketers paying for influencer advertising on the platform. That’s a major milestone for the industry and a first for YouTube.

Instagram is projected to come in second place with $3.17 billion in influencer marketing spend, and TikTok in third with $1.19 billion—a far cry from YouTube’s $3.45 billion. eMarketer partially attributes that gap to the continued uncertainty around TikTok’s future. The platform’s battle against a U.S. ban has now stretched over three presidencies, and the fate of its stateside operations is still unclear despite apparent inroads with the Trump administration.

That uncertainty is affecting brands, eMarketer said, and making them leery of working with TikTok-based creators. But that’s not the only reason YouTube is on top:

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• An experimental test feature is giving some YouTube users the ability to create uninterrupted viewing experiences by hiding End Screens. (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Poking fun at Mark Zuckerberg is a big business. Bluesky COO Rose Wang revealed Tuesday that the platform earned more money in one day of selling facetious T-shirts than in two years of selling custom domains. (TechCrunch)
  
  

• A recent report from the Financial Times says X’s valuation has returned to $44 billion, the same number Elon Musk purchased it for in 2022. (Financial Times)
  
  

• 47 Ronin director Carl Erik Rinsch has been indicted for allegedly stealing $11 million from Netflix and spending the money on Dogecoin and luxury cars. (Gizmodo)

BILLION DOLLAR BOOST

India’s government is making a $1 billion investment in its local creator economy

The context: Since YouTube’s arrival in India over 15 years ago, the South Asian nation has become a cradle of creator culture. Online video has penetrated Indian society at all levels, with rural villages becoming creator hotspots and Prime Minister Narendra Modi attracting millions of views through his personal channel.

Indian channels always claim the most chart positions in our weekly rankings of the 50 most-watched YouTube channels—a triumph tied closely to South Asian creators’ mastery of Shorts. At a YouTube Brandcast event held last year in Delhi, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan noted that Indian creators have notched more than one trillion lifetime views on Shorts alone.

Now, as India continues to outpace all other countries in terms of YouTube traffic, its government is committing $1 billion to help local video producers reach fans around the world.

The announcement: Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the $1 billion investment (which equates to ~83.6 billion Indian rupees) during a press briefing at the 2025 WAVES summit in Mumbai. That money will support the advancement of India’s blossoming creator economy, which has spawned a sprawling industry full of professionals who operate on platforms like YouTube. (TikTok has been banned in India since June 2020.)

According to Entrepreneur, the Indian creator economy currently supports four million influencers and is expected to reach a valuation of 33.7 billion rupees (~$391 million) by 2026. With the government’s support, those numbers are likely to continue climbing at a rapid rate.

DIGITAL DIAGNOSES

How accurate is ADHD information on TikTok?

The research: TikTok-based self-diagnoses of ADHD spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading experts to dive into the consequences of the trend. The results have been troubling: a 2024 analysis, for instance, found that 92% of videos tagged #ADHDTest contained misleading information.

Now, new data is casting additional doubts on the accuracy of ADHD information dispensed through social media. A research team led by Vasileia Karasavva of the University of British Columbia conducted a pair of studies to evaluate the truthfulness of content found through #ADHDTikTok and related hashtags. The first of those inquiries produced damning results: mental health professionals reported that fewer than 50% of TikToker claims about ADHD symptoms aligned with the criteria found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

The second study collected input from TikTok viewers, and produced a similarly concerning outcome. The participants who watched the most #ADHDTikTok were more likely to recommend the five most accurate videos in the study—but they were also more likely to recommend the five most inaccurate clips.

The reasoning: According to Karasavva’s research team, a few factors could be contributing to the level of inaccuracy on ADHD TikTok. On the one hand, a lack of access to academic research may lead creators to prioritize personal narratives. On the other, creators who rely on frequent uploads to make money may not have the time to conduct in-depth research. As the study points out, creating “easily digestible, short, and snappy videos created to grab users’ attention quickly” may also “make it challenging to prioritize nuance.”

And then there’s the so-called “echo chamber effect,” which encourages confirmation bias among viewers. Despite TikTok's efforts to combat misinformation, that phenomenon could be exacerbated by the platform’s algorithm, which Karasavva’s team notes “leverages engagement cues…to ensure the videos served to the user cater to their taste”.

WATCH THIS 🎙️

Netflix just announced its first MMO game

The game reveal: Netflix has something big in store for gamers. At this week’s Game Developers Conference, the streamer announced the upcoming arrival of its first MMO title. (For any non-gamers in the audience, MMO or MMOG stands for “massively multiplayer online game.”)

According to The Verge, Spirit Crossing was developed by one of Netflix’s in-game studios, Spry Fox, and is marketed as a “cozy MMO” built to “foster friendship, kindness, and community” in a calm village setting.

Check out the announcement trailer for the game here.

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