This Week: MrBeast’s editor, a prediction market, and a $20K fine. This is just the beginning.
I was at the Sharks game Saturday night watching Team Canada’s two stars face off against each other for the first time since the Olympics. Incredible game. And I’ll be back at the Shark Tank Tuesday for another game. It’s hockey overload time, so let’s skate to where the puck is going in the creator economy too.
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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TOP STORIES
THE CREATOR ECONOMY’S FIRST INSIDER TRADING SCANDAL
In my 2026 trends analysis, I said that prediction markets would come for the creator economy just as they have for sports and politics. What I didn’t expect was that a creator economy insider would both prove my point and get fined and banned for doing so.
According to prediction platform Kalshi, a MrBeast editor used insider information to make a bit of extra pocket money on the prediction platform. His “near-perfect trading success” first raised eyebrows and then raised an alarm. He’s now banned for two years and was fined $20,000. It’s more than just a bit of bad judgement. As I write this, nearly $300,000 has been wagered on whether MrBeast will say “Beast”, “Contestant” or “Insane” on upcoming videos.
But it’s become a bigger than Beast problem. A quick check saw bettors wagering on when IShowSpeed will reach 100 million YouTube subscribers, who will win Streamer of the year at the 2026 awards, will Kai Cenat become a billionaire before 2030 and will David Dobrik post a new video on YouTube this year. The money wagered today is small. The trend is real and moving fast.
I got this prediction right. I wish I hadn’t. (NPR, Kalshi)
NETFLIX GETS CREATORS. YOUTUBE DOES NOT
We don’t get much data from Netflix, but they do release a semi-annual viewership report. The 2H2025 one reads like a win for traditional TV, with Wednesday, Stranger Things and Squid Game topping the charts. But a peek behind the curtain reveals that it’s actually a win for creators. Ms. Rachel drew 73 million views across two seasons, Mark Rober’s episodes hit 11.9 million views with an amazing view-through rate: Viewers who started watching almost always finished. Man vs. Baby saw 43.5M views. And a 16-minute lyric compilation from K-Pop Demon Hunters beat almost every other unscripted program on views.
What’s Going On: Netflix isn’t discovering creators. It doesn’t want creators to develop TV-friendly formats. Instead, it wants to rent your audience. Want to be on Netflix? Lean into the content and audiences you already have, and loan them over. It’s surprising that YouTube doesn’t take advantage of this, as it Hamlets its way through another round of “should we fund original content” debate. (Netflix)
- Related: Netflix backs out of Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition, meaning a whole lot of cash just got freed up to spend on creators. (THR)
- Related: Netflix licenses French kids series Samuel, which leveraged its TikTok beginnings into European streaming distribution… and now global via Netflix. Also highlights a new IP development pathway too. (Patrik Wilkens)
COPING IN A WORLD OF COGNITIVE OVERLOAD
@Abby Ho explores how kids today are bifurcating between hybrid kids with intentional tech boundaries and Brain Rot kids who’ve been sucking at the teat of technology pretty much non-stop. Reaching these audiences that grew up in “environments that prioritize immediacy, personalization and emotional response” requires an entirely new approach. She analyzes how nostalgia speaks to these audiences as a way to reinterpret the present, rather than relive the past. She also reinforces my theory laid out here late last year that creator-first media is moving from WHO (YouTube Creators) and WHAT (TikTok Topics) to YOU. Ho asserts that “Instead of requiring audiences to imagine the world, (today’s media) places them directly at the center of it… constantly stimulated, constantly personalized, constantly moving! (Fellow Kids)
RESEARCH
Your Audience Just Got Older. And It Wants to Go Outside. The 2026 Creator Economy Report from Influencer Marketing Factory (with HypeAuditor) is one of the more data-heavy snapshots I’ve seen in a while. But the breathless optimism hides a darker side.
First the optimism. U.S. creator ad-spend is projected to hit $43.9B, 51.5% of creators say their income grew YoY, and 25–34 is now the biggest audience cohort across major platforms.
Now the darker side. AI is coming for the ad budget, as 77% of marketers say they will reallocate their spend towards AI by the end of the year. The industry is clearly bifurcating into creators with existing durable businesses, and everyone else still trying to climb the ladder. For example, 76% of TikTok creators average less than 1,000 views per post, nearly half of creators make under $10k a year. That’s a hobby, not a job.
The unexpected insights?
- Creators need to think like brand partners, not content vendors, as brands increasingly focus on co-creation from the get-go
- The real threat isn’t being replaced by AI. It’s being drowned out by a global flood of newly-empowered creators who can now make great content for almost nothing. When quality stops being a differentiator, all that matters is your voice, the stories you tell and the trust you’ve built with your fans.
- IRL is underrated too. 41% of fans attended an in-person creator event last year, two thirds want to attend one this year, and a third will buy stuff while they are there.
- The olds have arrived. TikTok’s 45+ audience was just 2% of its 2019 audience. It’s 25% now.
- YouTube shorts is underrated, as only 40% of creators average under 1k/post (almost half of TikTok, above), engagement increases as the audience grows (vs the opposite for TT and IG), and it drives more sales than TikTok.
My takeaway for creators? Hone your storytelling chops. Figure out how to build for the biggest and the smallest screens. Own your audience via newsletters, community and IRL. And use AI to get as efficient as possible. Everyone else will end up in that 76%.
Finally, the creator economy’s assumed audience of mobile-first and algorithmically sorted teens and young adults has changed. It’s older and it wants to go outside and buy things.
The usual caveats apply. The report comes from an influencer marketing agency that lives on packaging creators up for brand deals. No statistical data around sampling was shared, meaning it’s directionally useful but not predictive. And the predictions and expert quotes, while coming from smart people I respect, skew needlessly optimistic about where all this is headed. (get a copy at – The Influencer Marketing Factory)
QUIBIS
PLATFORMS
- If TikTok Jumped Off a Bridge: Snap is the latest platform to hand out trophies to its own creators with the upcoming ‘Snappy’ awards in late March. I’m sure they’ll be totally unbiased. (Snap)
- The Suits Keep Coming: LA Court just sued Roblox for failing to protect kids from exploitation and grooming. (Games.GG)
- Pay Up or Else: I first highlighted YouTube’s strategic shift to subscriptions back in Feb 2024. Now with an increased focus on punishing ad blockers, deprecating the free experience, and adding new features to the Lite $8 monthly plan, it’s even more obvious that they want you to pay. (YouTube, 9to5Google).
OTHER CREATOR ECONOMY
- MicroDramas As Digital Infrastructure: Chinese food delivery platform Meituan expands its in-app microdrama offerings with AI-based animated formats. Imagine Instacart or UberEATS doing that here in the west. (WenWen Han)
- Hey You Kids: Traditional ad media takes aim at Unilever CEO’s push towards a “social-first demand model” with a healthy dollop of “get off my lawn”. (Ad Week)
- Buzzwords at the Speed of Culture: So this is what ex-TikTok exec @Adrienne Lahens has been up to. An AI-driven storytelling environment tuned for brands and marketers. The tagline is jargon-laden, but Lahens and her founder have the chops to back it up. (Infinite Studios)
- Format Licensing: Fremantle has formats. The Sidemen have audience. The two together have recreated appointment viewing… via YouTube on Sunday afternoons. (@Peter Cory)
- The Every Night Show: Speaking of formats, Variety discovers the creator-led late-night talk show reinvention. Wishful thinking, but with Netflix out of the WBD sweepstakes, could a crimson-hued Colbert reboot make sense? (Variety)
- Creators Need Continuity: CMO turnover is an old story. But as @Leanne Perice explains, it’s extra-bad for creators because the brand/creator partnership truly shines in longer-term engagements. (Next in Media)
- A Finsta by Any Other Name: @Rachel Karten interviews the Instagram exec behind their anonymous @notfit4main account. (Link In Bio)
- Don’t Ignore the Piggy Bank: @Simon Owens explores why your archive contains hidden gold. Great advice and it’s relevant for creators and traditional media alike. Plus, Simon just went 5x weekly, where does he find the time???! (Simon Owens Media Newsletter)
CREATOR TECH – AI, AR, VR, MORE
- Go 90 (The Other Way): Amazon AWS launches real-time horizontal to vertical video conversion to help sports, news and other live programming stream and clip to vertical devices with minimal latency. Of course it’s AI-powered. But there’s no instant replay in live-sports delivery. (THR)
- Creator Spotlight: Nice profile from @David Adeleke on Abayomi Semudara, an emerging tech creator from Africa. (Communique, @SemudaraAbayomi)
- The Lonely Mountain: Palmer Luckey launches a new “farmer’s bank for tech”. Why can’t we have a farmer’s bank for creators? (Banking Dive)
- Let’s Play a Game: @Sam Lessin calls vibe coding “Roblox for Adults”. He’s not wrong. (SWL Week in Review)
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Trying to get my SXSW keynote finished – needs polish and rehearsal – and looking forward to seeing everyone in Austin in 11 days. Ping me if you are going to be there!
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100% written by me. AI used very sparingly for edits.
I’ve built and sold multiple creator economy startups to top media companies – including an MCN to Discovery and VidCon to 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.
