TOGETHER WITH

It’s Wednesday and a new AI pet collar hopes to steal some hype from those TikTok-famous talking buttons. After all, who doesn’t want to chat up an artificial version of their furry best friend?

NEW AND IMPROVED

YouTube wants to give you badges to reward you for doing stuff on YouTube

The rewards: Last month, YouTube announced Hype, a sitewide, community-driven leaderboard featuring creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers. Now, the platform is introducing another gamified feature: Badges.

According to YouTube, Badges are rewards that users can earn and display across the platform by doing things like “being one of the first set of paid members of a creator’s channel,” “correctly completing quizzes,” “being a top listener of their favorite artist,” or “having a creator heart your comment.”

If executed properly, Badges will be a fun perk for viewers (especially those who want to collect ‘em all). But they could also add to the discoverability and growth of creators and new YouTube features. Users checking out one another’s Badges might see a cool one and decide to check out the channel or YouTube product that awarded it.

(Context clue: YouTube’s new Badges will roll out to all users in the coming weeks—but another kind of badge has already been around for a while. The difference: YouTube’s preexisting badges are strictly for Channel Memberships and only show up on that creator’s channel and live chat.)

Also on the update list: Users can expect to see more than Badges roll out over the next few weeks. After first being introduced to Premium subscribers earlier this year, YouTube released its Sleep Timer to all users yesterday. The feature allows viewers to shut off video playback after a certain period of time.

In addition to that product, an update to Playlists now allows users to upload their own thumbnails for entire playlists and contribute to collaborative playlists alongside their friends. Another feature slated to arrive later this year will give a creator’s viewers the ability to vote for their favorite uploads and compile those videos in a dedicated playlist.

Finally, YouTube says it’s updated its TV app with “subtle enhancements”—including a new UI for Shorts and channel pages—to give it “a more cinematic feel, so you can settle in and get lost in the action.” Find out more here.

🔆 SPONSORED 🔆

Milestone Moments: Viral bakeries, Brooklyn pop-ups, and a Montana Boyz reality show

It’s time for another round of Milestone Moments. As the creator economy falls into autumn, we’re highlighting stars who are turning the industry on its head—with a little help from the world’s #1 creator talent agency. 

Here’s a snapshot of Viral Nation’s latest creator milestones: 

🎬 Nastya Takes Over Hollywood: Nastya is making her animated debut! Viral Nation has expanded its partnership with Wind Sun Sky to create two new series for Like Nastya: one live-action show and one animated adventure.

🤠 Next Season on The Boyz: Grab your cowboy hat and hit the couch—because the Montana Boyz are headed to TV. The rugged brothers have announced an upcoming reality show produced by Vice Studios.

🎂 Cake Controversy: A bakery hullabaloo has generated major PR for Gregory Mason. The creator appeared in both People Magazine and Today after recounting the viral story of “an 8-inch cake laced with crushed unicorn 6-year-old dreams.” 

Whether you’re building a following or diving into new platforms, Viral Nation has everything you need to hit your next big milestone.

Seize the moment with Viral Nation → 

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• Kajabi has paid out over $8 billion to creators. Now, its new brand revamp tells them: “Don’t work for an algorithm. Work for you.” (Tubefilter)
  
  

• Eight YouTube channels collected at least 500 million views this week. Can you guess which video hubs topped the list? (Tubefilter)
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• Instagram has announced the introduction of customizable “profile cards” designed to help users “make new friends.” (Engadget)
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• The 2024 edition of Jacksepticeye’s annual Thankmas charity event will raise funds for the Crisis Text Line and Samaritans. (VentureBeat)

DATA • GOSPEL STATS 📈

Top 3 Branded Videos of the Week: True crime and a two-time chart-topper

Gospel Stats’ latest ranking of top branded videos highlights two of YouTube’s favorite content categories: true crime and edutainment. Thanks to MrBeast’s absence, both finalists in the Top 3 scored below 10 million views per video (and we do mean ‘both,’ because Veritasium claimed the #2 and #3 spots). Those sums might be lower than what we’ve seen in previous weeks, but we’re guessing the videos’ sponsors aren’t complaining about seven-figure view counts.

🥇 Midwest Crime x Morgan & Morgan: The Moment She Realized She Killed Two People (9M views)
Midwest Crime is dedicated to “unmasking the hidden crimes of the Midwest,” and its latest upload does exactly that. A video documenting a fatal car accident might be a little grisly for some brands to get one board with, but true crime sponsorships are nothing new for personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, which backed almost 20 videos this week.

🥈 Veritasium x Saily: I used to hate QR codes. But they’re actually genius (5.9M views)
Veritasium swept both the #2 and #3 rankings in this week’s report by releasing two on-brand educational videos. The first was backed by Saily, an eSIM company that sponsored just one other video this week: a deep dive into AI from Incognito Mode (#46).

🥉 Veritasium x Incogni: Seeing Inside A Thermite Reaction (5.1M views)
The second branded vid from Veritasium swapped QR codes for thermite reactions. Data broker removal service Incogni threw its financial weight behind that experiment, which is the first in a series where Veritasium dives into the power of thermite.

Check out our full Top 5 overview here or head over to Gospel Stats for more YouTube sponsorship insights.

ALL GOOD THINGS

After chronicling 193 countries, Geography Now just wrapped up in Zimbabwe

The grand finale: Paul Barbato’s ten-year Geography Now series has officially come to a close. After setting out to cover all 193 countries in the United Nations, the YouTuber concluded his alphabetical journey with an October 15 installment set in Zimbabwe.

Since 2014, Barbato has profiled countries one video at a time, offering historical trivia, travel tips, and cultural context. The creator’s final analysis—filmed on location in Zimbabwe—included input from local subscribers (a signature aspect of Geography Now) and other educational creators. Barbato also invited 18 fans to tag along.

With the upload of Barbato’s Zimbabwe video, Geography Now ends its ten-year run (and enters its next phase of development) with 3.3 million subscribers and more than 465 million lifetime views.

Up next: Zimbabwe may have been the last stop for Geography Now, but Barbato isn’t done traveling the world—or sharing his love for geography on YouTube. The creator says his next project “involves a lot less ‘talking about countries of the world in a studio’ and a lot more ‘going out and actually seeing, smelling, tasting, touching and hearing’ places all around the world.”

The context: Geography content has undergone a seismic shift during the decade Barbato spent producing his viral series. What began as a niche category has evolved into a sprawling community filled with GeoGuessr pros and map lovers. Now, that growing audience can look forward to a new era of content from a veteran creator.

WATCH THIS 📺

How short can a tall tale be? Just ask Tyler Vitelli:

The creator: Long-form stars like Tana Mongeau may have popularized “storytime” videos on YouTube, but Tyler Vitelli is proving that Shorts can be an equally effective medium for spinning yarns. Since 2023, the young creator has drawn nearly 576 million views by condensing dramatic narratives into sixty-second monologues.

The video: Vitelli’s most popular Short—a harrowing tale of veganism-gone-wrong—has attracted 17 million views all on its own. Check out the whole cheesy tragedy here.

Creator economy marketing starts here. Get in touch to advertise with Tubefilter.

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen. Drew Baldwin helped edit, too. It's a team effort.