It's Thursday and seven years after the death of Stan Lee, ElevenLabs is teaming up with Stan Lee Universe to add the Marvel co-creator’s voice and likeness to its AI platform.

STAR POWER

The pivot: After hosting his final episode of CBS’ long-running Late Show, Stephen Colbert is switching gears. The star has set up his own channels on YouTube and TikTok under the simple handle @colbert—and both hubs have already attracted hundreds of thousands of fans. Over just a few days, Colbert has collected nearly 200,000 subscribers on YouTube and around 140,000 followers on TikTok.

Those fans are waiting in suspense to see what happens next. Colbert’s TikTok account is still completely bare, while his YouTube hub features just one hour-long video of his appearance on public access TV in Monroe, Michigan.

The context: That lo-fi program is a far cry from the splashy CBS fare that made The Late Show into a YouTube favorite more than a decade ago. Back then, late-night TV was thriving online, driven by a meta that valued long-form programming over quick-hitting Shorts. Colbert and CBS struck YouTube gold during that era.

These days, however, short-form feeds draw more viewership than long-form channels—and Colbert is well-positioned to take advantage of that shift. Comedy works better than most other categories on Shorts, and the former late-night star is a micro-humor pioneer.

The pithiness of the Colbert Report segment “The Word” harnessed the then-new idea of meme culture, and Only In Monroe suggests that Colbert is eager to return to that approach. His public access show has a distinct “Better Know A District” feel. With more videos like that, Colbert is primed to prove CBS wrong regarding its claims about declining Late Show viewership.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

CREATOR COMMOTION

The web series: YouTube has teamed up with Little Dot Studios to launch The Brand Deal Desk, a web series that demystifies the ins and outs of creator-brand partnerships.

Across five weekly episodes, the show’s creator hosts will discuss their own sponsorships, interview industry experts, and guide neophytes through a creator economy that has evolved into a $37 billion annual business.

The hosts: The YouTube stars sitting behind The Brand Deal Desk include Erin White (a businesswoman who shares stories from her creator journey), solo entrepreneur Grace Andrews (who offers dispatches from the life of a solo entrepreneur, and British comedian-slash-prankster Max Fosh.

In the inaugural episode of their new series, the trio defined a few industry terms, highlighted some of YouTube’s on-platform marketing products, and spoke with knowledgeable insiders like Sidemen manager Jordan Schwarzenberger.

The references to YouTube products help explain The Brand Deal Desk‘s raison d’etre. The platform’s brand deal playbook has changed a lot over the past decade, and creators now have a valuable resource that can help them keep up with the changes. To stay on top of new episodes of The Brand Deal Desk, viewers can subscribe to the YouTube Creators channel.

FIGHTING BACK

The docuseries: After the earliest versions of DALL-E and ChatGPT sparked a gen AI gold rush, experts warned that rapidly evolving technology could be used to target and exploit people—especially women. Fast forward to 2026, and explicit deepfakes are now more prevalent than ever before.

Paris Hilton is fighting back against that epidemic. Her production company, 11:11 Media, joined forces with Laurie Segall to make Searching for Mr. Deepfakes, a vertical docuseries that chronicles the tech journalist’s investigation into one of the web’s largest deepfake pornography hovels.

The investigation: Segall has been reporting on the intersection of humanity and technology for 15 years and is the CEO of creator-led media/entertainment network Mostly Human Media. In Searching for Mr. Deepfakes, Segall works to take down a website that, at its height, got 17 million monthly views by catering to people who made money by generating nonconsensual deepfakes.

Segall partnered with fellow investigators and white-hat hackers to track down the site’s owner. Her series—which also spotlights survivors and advocates like Hilton, who was involved in promoting The DEFIANCE Act—dropped yesterday on Hilton’s TikTok account in 16 short-form parts. The first episode has since racked up over 2 million views.

Thanks to Segall’s investigation, the Mr. Deepfakes site was shut down in May 2025. But the threat of sexually explicit deepfakes continues, and so does Segall’s work.

The journalist previously reported on nonconsensual pornography, where people’s explicit photos are posted online against their will, and often without their knowledge. Now, “in this AI-driven era,” she says, “to become a victim, you don’t have to take a nude picture. You just have to exist.”

The executive appearance: MrBeast is eight million subscribers away from his next big channel milestone. That might seem like a huge barrier for the average creator, but given that MrBeast is nearing the 500 million mark, eight million is practically a drop in the bucket.

The man known as Jimmy Donaldson is so close to hitting his goal, in fact, that YouTube CEO Neal Mohan made a personal appearance on his channel to urge viewers to “smash that subscribe button.” (If only so we can all find out what a 500M Play Button looks like.)

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