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, things are heating up at Yellowstone (and we’re not just talking about geothermal activity.) Thanks to creators of a fake Yellowstone account, several thirsty posts are bringing the national park some special attention on TikTok.

CREATOR COMMOTION

Creators are hitting the ballot, sparking discourse, and talking about brands

On the ballot: Michelle Khare’s Challenge Accepted, will be on the ballot in the outstanding hosted nonfiction series category at the next Primetime Emmy Awards. Getting on the ballot is one thing, but as Khare’s contemporaries know, earning a nom or a win is a whole different beast.

In the news: Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker was detained by border agents at O’Hare Airport (despite being a U.S. citizen enrolled in Global Entry) and was asked about topics like President Trump and Hamas. In Piker’s own words: “It wasn’t a very warm welcome.” Clearly, someone in the Trump administration is keeping an eye on the progressive side of Twitch.

At Social Media Week: Jordan Howlett says brands should let creators be themselves. Speaking at Social Media Week, the social star noted that the “hardest thing” about working with brands is when “there are a lot of rules and things you have to follow.” Translation: Brands that want to get a bump from creators can’t have it both ways.

🔆 PRESENTED BY SPOTTER 🔆

The secret to brainstorming viral ideas in seconds: Spotter Studio

The problem: Posting quickly and consistently is one of the key aspects of being a pro YouTuber. But maintaining that need for speed can be difficult when you’re feeling burned out.

The solution: Spotter Studio, a toolkit designed in partnership with top YouTubers, is confronting that issue head on with Brainstorm—a feature that combines real-time YouTube data insights, cutting-edge AI models, and personalized analysis of your channel to propose new video ideas. 

Creators like Dude Perfect, Kinigra Deon, Kent Heckel, and The Oddity are already seeing incredible results. Check out their stories here to find out how Deon scored a 35% revenue increase per video and why Heckel considers Spotter Studio his “brainstorm and video execution partner.” 

Or sign up for a free trial to test out Brainstorm for yourself.

Ready to come up with your next big idea?

PLATFORM HEADLINES

Screen-free proms, new platforms, and politics? Tech’s top dogs have been busy.

The prom: Pinterest sponsored the year’s first screen-free prom. At Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, the platform backed non-profit HalfTheStory‘s effort to get teens off their phones during prom. Thanks to the support of the digital pin board, seniors were able to focus on dancing rather than DMs.

The competition: ByteDance has a target for TikTok’s 2025 sales: Meta. The Beijing-based parent company wants its short-form video app to increase revenue by 20% year-over-year, which would bring its sales up to $186 billion. That pace would allow TikTok to keep up with Meta, which is projected to rake in $187 million during the 2025 calendar year. Maybe anything Zuck can do, Chew can do better.

The political swing: According to data from Ad Fontes Media and Pixability, left-leaning YouTube channels have seen a 25.6% viewership uptick since the first two months of the year. Over the same period, right-wing traffic is down 10.08%. Journalist Ezra Klein has been one of the biggest winners, more than doubling his viewership over three months, while The Heritage Foundation has moved in the opposite direction.

The OnlyFans successor: The founder of OnlyFans has launched a new platform. Subs.com has a subscription-based business model that looks a lot like its predecessor. The difference, it would seem, is that Tim Stokely‘s new venture is looking to avoid being pigeonholed as a home for adult content. Instead, it will host a diverse roster of creators.

AD WORLD

YouTube is driving viewer purchases. Can QVC and Twitch tap into the same energy?

Across the pond: For U.K. children, YouTube ads are major drivers of purchase intent. London-based agency Precise TV followed up its U.S. PARK report with an equivalent survey across the pond. 72% of the respondents—who ranged in age from two to 12—said they prefer YouTube over any other platform. 35% of surveyed parents said the last item they bought for their child was the result of a YouTube ad. The kids just keep on watching.

The streaming solution: Twitch is testing out one of YouTube’s tactics to solve a recurring problem. Viewers don’t like when interruptive ads break into the stream at inopportune moments, but they seem far more receptive to picture-in-picture ads that run in the corner of the screen without interrupting the broadcast.

The ecommerce promo: Home shopping channel QVC hosted a “Super Brand Day” complete with celebrity cameos and real-life experiences to help promote its new TikTok Shop hub. Welcome to consumer commerce in the age of short-form social media.

WATCH THIS 📺

Does Google’s supercomputer prove we’re living in a multiverse?

The multiverse theory: Google’s new quantum computer chip, Willow, has experts on the edge of their seats. The tech giant says Willow managed to perform “a standard benchmark computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s most powerful supercomputers 10 septillion years!”

So, how is that possible? Experts like Hartmut Neven—the founder of Google’s Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab—have a simple explanation for the computer’s speed: Willow could be operating in multiple universes at once.

In a 2024 Ted Talk (which you can check out here), Neven explained that “quantum computing is the first technology that takes the idea seriously that we live in a multiverse. It can be seen as farming out computations to parallel universes.” Maybe Marvel movies aren’t quite as fantastical as we thought.

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