AI Steals Christmas

HEADLINE: AI Steals Christmas

Written in the blood of out-of-work creators

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Hi, I’m Jim Louderback and this is my weekly creator economy newsletter.  If you’ve received it, then you are either subscribed or someone forwarded it to you.

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This Week: The great AI Art Debate, Minecraft IRL, weird Dupe culture, the adpocalypse that wasn’t and more dumb lawsuits.  Plus read to the end to discover how an ARG reignited a fandom IRL. 

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AI WON’T MAKE ART

Lots of media folks buzzing about Ben Affleck’s opinion on AI and how it will never make movies, never make art.  He’s right today.   But we’re getting closer.  A new Korean drama debuting on December 4th used AI for a broad array of tasks and it’s getting a lot of attention.  There’s certainly AI craft inside, but arguably some art too. Either way, there’s a point in time where AI will create award winning films.  The only question is how long between now and then.  Check out The Last Screenwriter, where AI wrote the script and real actors and directors made the movie.  Is that art?  Probably not, but it’s the worst that AI will ever be.  Of course, AI doesn’t have a lock on bad art either.

• Related: Someone needs to tell Affleck about fan fiction.
• Related:  Coca-Cola made three holiday ads with AI. They were not joyfully received. Shelly Palmer said they suck.  Some even saw it as sinister, made from the blood of out-of-work artists.  For the record, I liked them a lot.
• Related:  Congrats to former Fullscreen founder  George Strompolos,  Jamie Byrne and  Dave Clark on the launch of their new studio focused on genAI artists and producers.   I wouldn’t bet against them, no matter what Affleck says.

I CAN SWING MY SWORD

I’m excited to see Minecraft go IRL at theme parks, hotels and other attractions opening soon in the US and the UK.  But something big was missing in the announcement.  Where are the creators?  The classic “take IP and make it interactive” might work with Jumanji or Peppa Pig, but Minecraft and creators are inextricably bound together.  Unasked for suggestion to Merlin Entertainments:  Line up monthly residences with top Minecraft creators.  Because without Dream, TommyInnit, LDShadowLady, Stampy or many of the others, it’ll be just another “one and done” attraction.  True success in the creator age – and with creator-centric IP – requires creators too. 

• Related: Tommy Innit blacklisted by Minecraft movie producers.

   

DUPE CULTURE HAS RAMIFICATIONS BEYOND BEAUTY

Fake Rolexes and Prada bags are copyright infringements.  But according to WWD when an off-brand clones a top-tier beauty product it’s good for everyone ($).  The rise of dupe culture affects L’oreal, Rare Beauty and Charlotte Tilbury, but has become engrained into the fabric of beauty brands.  But what’s arguably good for creators has terrible repercussions when extended beyond beauty. Temu, Shein and other mass knock-off stores have embraced dupe culture and hurting creators and small businesses. For example, Blogilates founder Cassie Ho has been waging an on-going battle against Shein for duplicating her products, packaging and branding.  Beauty aside, I would rather we protect all IP – and reward the best products – rather than celebrating cheap knock-offs.  Even further, legitimizing dupes in one space can lead to blatant rip-offs in other markets.  One last uninformed thought: If beauty products can duplicated so easily, what does that say about the entire market?  

 

ADPOCALYPSE NOW?  

Some streamers are claiming that Twitch is suffering through an adpolalpyse with ad revenue dropping precipitously over the last few months. TheStockGuy says he’s down 95%, others are claiming drops of 80% or more.  Is it a right-wing backlash?  A left-wing backlash?  More fallout from Twitch’s Israel stance?  Ludwig posted an analysis and got excoriated, while PriateSoftware says it’s just a few loud voices stirring the pot.  My take?  Sure, everyone loves a good Twitch-spat, but the sudden absence of political ads – and advertisers adapting to the new normal – are likely to blame.  I expect a broader ad slow-down to spread across the creator economy as advertisers recalibrate after the US election. Advertisers tend to pull back – or go conservative – during tumultuous times. But a quarterly dip does not mean the end of up-and-to-the-right.  

   

DUMB LAWSUITS

There’s more Twitch news.  Twitch got added to X’s stupid lawsuit claiming GARM forced advertisers to abandon the platform after it went sideways.  Hard to imagine the courts will force brands to buy ads on unsafe platforms riven with misogyny and hate – even with Musk’s position in the upcoming US administration.  I’m sure Kick, though, is monitoring this one closely.

• Related But Still Dumb: Texas Attorney General opens its own investigation as well.

   

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QUIBIS

      

YOUTUBE

• YouTube announces new ad formats for Shorts and an overhauled way to track and manage creator partnerships.  Some users are not happy, but if it increases creator payouts I’m a fan.
• Toon-Tips: 12 tips for animators on how to share art on YouTube
• TV Time: Here’s what’s new for YouTube on TV.

  

META

• Give It Away Now: Interesting, if somewhat breathless look at how Meta’s open sourcing of Llama was a turning point for the company and its CEO.
• Blue Battle: Meta up to its usual tricks with Threads vs Bluesky, copying features and adding new ones to better compete.  New capabilities include AI summaries and better search.
• Thank You Meta!  I hate voice messages.  I hate them more on Whatsapp.  Finally, we’re getting locally generated transcripts!  I can’t wait.
• Mr. Clean: Instagram working on a “Do Over” feature, where you can zero out the algorithm and start fresh.
• Safety Report: Meta explains how their multi-layer protection guidelines protect teens.  Nice to see, but without true age verification it’s fundamentally flawed.
• Now You Tell Us:  Instagram explains the difference between Block, Mute, Restrict and Report.

TIKTOK

• Shop’n’Stream: Welcome to the TikTok Mall.
• Your AI Pal: Douyin testing creator look-alike AI Avatars.  Could the US be next?
• Quibi Fever Dreams: TikTok considering mini-dramas, produced by Hollywood studios, as way to juice viewership.  Good luck.
• Fox/Henhouse:  TikTok partnering with the National PTA (Parent/Teacher Association) to help teens stop using TikTok.  Whoops, that’s wrong.  It’s focused on “Create with Kindness” to teach kids how to post more on TikTok – but with positivity!

BEAST WATCH

• Here Comes Honey Beast Beast:  Beast Games will debut on Amazon Prime December 19th.  Same night as our Bay Area Creator Economy holiday party.  Coinkydink?  I think not.  (PS if you are reading this you are invited).
• What Happened in Vegas:  Lawsuits and unanswered questions hang over the Beast Games launch.
• Overtime Isn’t Optional:  Former Mr. Beast producer sues to regain lost wages, claiming she was an employee, not a contractor.  Similar suits have targeted other media companies, and in success here we should expect similar filings.

OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY

• LinkedIn 2025:  Great recap from the LinkedIn partner summit a week ago.  Key stats – Video engagement is 40% higher than other formats, LinkedIn has more comments than Reddit and ROAS is 113%.
• LinkedIntelligence:  LinkedIn posted details on what not to post. There’s more in the “Create” section on what you should be doing. 
• Programmatic Sponsorships:  Startup Agentio – from ex Cameo President Arthur Leopold – raises a $12M A round.  This is definitely a company to watch.  
• You’re My Bluesky:  Want to get started on Bluesky?  Robb Montgomery has a good piece on how journalists and creators can get started – along with a curated list of “reputable news providers”.  It really does feel like the early days of Twitter.
• Gone So Sune:  QVC’s maker/craft/creator shopping app Sune will shut down on December 2nd
• My Guy Rules: Kai Cenat’s manager with a post about how Cenat’s month-long subfest is changing Twitch.  Sure, he’s biased, but there’s truth here too.  
• UK Ban: Great Britian explores banning social media for kids.
• Entrapment? Snap wants New Mexico to end its lawsuit focused on tech predators and disappearing messages.
• Skibidi Slam: Old media exec says Skibidi Toilet just a “flash-in-the-pan”.  Me think she doth protest too much.
• Indian Expert You Should Know:  Nice profile of Gurpreet Singh, co-founder and COO of One Digital Entertainment.  He’s building something special in India and beyond, and I’m looking forward to interviewing him and star creator Prajakta Koli on stage in Dubai in January.
• Win a Million Bucks:  Great opportunity for a creator making “content for good” to bring home a huge prize from the One Billion Followers Summit. 
• Go Solo: Podcasters moving beyond the classic, stale interview format.
• Just Say No: How to protect yourself from AI scraping
• Netflix Coup: The Sidemen are bringing their reality TV show Inside to Netflix.
• Crypto Allegations: New questions arise over Logan Paul’s alleged crypto crimes.
• Logan Paul vs. Lionel Messi:  Prime Hydration counter-sues Mas+ over trademark design issues. Paul and KSI have a point.

    

CREATOR TECH – AI, WEB3, VR, MORE

• Sora Coming Soon?  I’m hearing rumors that OpenAI is getting ready to release Sora widely.  Their latest Sora video shows how character permanence has improved.  Not perfect but pretty good.
• Cheap and Slow: Amazon launches new TEMU-killer Haul, but I wonder how long it’ll last given the incoming administration’s plans to slap tariffs on Chinese goods.
• Bad Sites Get Slammed: Google goes after site reputation abuse – tanking Forbes, CNN, Fortune and other awful affiliate link farms.  Good for the Goog.
• SEO Tips:  24 ways to use AI to improve SEO. At least today, SEO still matters.

   

RESEARCH

• Big News News:  Pew leans into news influencers across social platforms, finding that they’re more likely to be male, predominantly independent and mostly lurk on X – along with Instagram and TikTok.  And nearly 40% of the under-30 crowd rely on them.  Taylor Lorenz says the algorithms are partly to blame for the gender disparity.

• Twitch Still Tops:  Streamlabs releases its Q3 state of streaming report, finding that Kick is up 200%, but still just 3% of the market, vs. a whopping 82% for Twitch.  Plus, YouTube’s coming back strong.  More details inside the report.

INSIDE THE “MAGNUS PROTOCOL” FANDOM

   By Morgan Ward

Just like radio shows of the 20th century, fiction podcasts have engaged fans for the past couple of decades. The Magnus Protocol podcast – a spin-off from The Magnus Archives – took it one step further by combining IRL experiences with an entertaining narrative. The producers at Rusty Quill constructed an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) to launch their new podcast series.  The ARG prompted fans around the world to work together to solve a series of puzzles and ciphers online and in person in Manchester UK – thus discovering a trailer announcing the new show and exclusive merchandise.  Much like the characters of the podcast, fans had to solve the mystery together – sharing ideas on The Magnus Archive’s subreddit or on platforms like Tumblr.  What a great way to reengage the fanbase! Rusty Quill shows that leaning into what makes fandom so engaging – the other people in it – provides a blueprint for creators and companies to foster or re-engage their own fandoms. 

Go Deeper

• Explore how the ARG worked, from RustyQuill’s perspective, and the fans. 
• Voice actress Anusia Batersby talks about her work on the show and speculates about each episode with fans on tumblr.
• Lonelyslutavatar draws art to accompany each episode on their tumblr. 

100% written by humans  – no  AI ghostwriters were involved in the production (except for the cover art!).

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I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including Discovery and Paramount. Subscribe here on LinkedIn to get this newsletter every Monday.

Let me know what you think – email me at jim@louderback.com. Thanks for reading and see you around the internet.