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Today's News

🏛️ MAGA arrives on TikTok
🇦🇪 Gushcloud expands into Abu Dhabi
💡 YouTube competes with Snapchat
🫘 Hank Green's app climbs the charts
🗓️ 20 Years of YouTube: In 2020…

TALKING POLITICS

The White House is bringing MAGA memes to TikTok

The strategy: As Donald Trump moved to woo young people and creators in the lead-up to the 2024 election, TikTok became a major part of his campaign strategy.

Despite initially trying to curb the app's influence during his first term, the MAGA leader reversed course on the campaign trail by promising to overturn the Biden-era "divest-or-ban" law. That strategy worked in his favor, and Trump has been mostly absent from the app since taking office—until now.

The account: Since launching earlier this week, a new White House TikTok account has already reached more than 150,000 followers. The first video on that channel features a montage of Trump footage, including audio of the president saying "I am your voice."

So far, that 27-second video has accumulated over 1.2 million views. Other uploads repurpose Trump statements as TikTok audio snippets presumably designed to be redistributed by his supporters.

The context: In some way, the Trump administration's new approach to TikTok resembles that of the preceding presidency. Joe Biden made his way onto the app during his ill-fated reelection campaign, and many of the videos he shared were linked to the "Dark Brandon" memes that became popular during his stint in the Oval Office.

Biden's TikTok use, however, took a backseat when he moved to limit Americans' access to the app—and Trump could soon be in a similar boat.

While the president has granted multiple reprieves to prevent a TikTok ban from taking effect, ByteDance and Washington legislators have been unable to agree on a deal that would tighten the U.S.' control over the app. More recently, Trump has put pressure on ByteDance by claiming (through his deputies) that the latest extension to September 17th will be the last—but it's unclear whether China is even willing to play ball.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

As part of a new partnership with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office, Gushcloud will establish headquarters in the MENA region and team up with local governments, universities, and creators. (Tubefilter - Partner Story)
Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed a lawsuit against TikTok that accuses the platform of "preying on Minnesota's young people" with "addictive" and "damaging" features. (CBS News)
Paramount's latest YouTube-driven marketing strategy: streaming the entire Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning movie for free—but only in Morse code. (IGN)
Is "the Meta Effect" the key to success in comedy? According to a new report, Instagram has become "social media's most influential platform for driving stand-up ticket sales." (Deadline)

PLATFORM UPDATES

YouTube is challenging Snapchat with a new Effect Maker

The tool: A new Effect Maker is bringing "fantastical scenes" to YouTube Shorts.

That's how a Creator Insider video describes the output of the tool, which lets users design and share augmented reality (AR) overlays for short-form YouTube videos. Completed effects will be available to all logged-in users with access to Shorts, and creators can set up a separate channel tab to display effects they've built and distributed.

YouTube says it's been honing Effect Maker "over the past year" while "slowly expanding" access to the feature. This latest update makes Effect Maker "widely available to users with access to advanced features on YouTube." For now, however, the tool is only available on desktop devices, and YouTube has yet to share details about a potential mobile rollout.

The context: By launching Effect Maker, YouTube is making itself more competitive in an evolving creator ecosystem.

Similar features are already available on Snap (through Lens Studio) and TikTok (via Effect House), and effects built through those hubs are increasingly showing up on Shorts. Now, YouTube is doing what it can to provide the same tools and experiences—so users don't have to turn to its rivals to find them. The platform already plans to beef up Effect Maker with additional upgrades, including some AI-powered effects.

In addition to leveling the playing field in terms of available features, Effect Maker's rollout could also spawn a new revenue stream. Both Snapchat and TikTok have built monetization into their effect creation tools, and YouTube now has the opportunity to do the same (though it hasn't yet indicated whether effect monetization is imminent).

BEAN THERE, DONE THAT

Hank Green's focus aid topped the App Store charts

The app: It's been 18 years since the launch of Vlogbrothers, but Hank Green still has what it takes to mobilize an enormous fanbase. The YouTube vet's latest creation is Focus Friend, a productivity aid that quickly became the most-downloaded app in the U.S. upon its August 17 release.

Published by Honey B Games, Focus Friend invites players to put an adorable, bean-shaped character to work whenever they need to buckle down on a task. Players who leave their phone alone for long enough unlock cosmetic decor items that can be used to trick out their bean buddy's virtual room. The timer-based app offers a similar concept to the Pomodoro Technique—plus a little bit of digital body doubling and a whole lot of cuteness.

The creator: Focus Friend is far from Green's first creation (his other credits, for instance, include Vlogbrothers, VidCon, Crash Course, and multiple books), but it's already shaping up to be one of his most successful projects.

Unsurprisingly, John Green has proven to be one of the app's biggest fans. In a Vlogbrothers upload, Hank's older sibling professed love for his little bean friend. (Although he had some complaints about the white-haired "John Bean" character that can be unlocked as an in-app purchase.)

Luckily for the Vlogbrothers' other fans, Focus Friend is far from the only undertaking Hank Green plans to check off his to-do list. In a recent Bluesky post, he claimed to have 19 different projects in the works.

WATCH THIS

20 Years of YouTube: In 2020…

In February 2025, YouTube turned 20. The video site has gone through a lot over the past two decades, including an acquisition, an earnings glow-up, and multiple generations of star creators. In our 20 Years of YouTube series, we'll examine the uploads, trends, and influencers that have defined the world's favorite video site — one year at a time. Click here for a full archive of the series.

The reckoning: 2020 opened up new doors for many YouTubers, but it also showed the door to old favorites who were forced to reckon with their past content.

Take Jenna Marbles and Shane Dawson: five years ago, they each had more than a decade of YouTube experience and tens of millions of subscribers hanging onto every upload. But as a racial reckoning swept across the United States as part of the George Floyd protests, Marbles' and Dawson's old videos came under the microscope.

Both creators responded to controversy over their past content—including old blackface uploads—with remorseful apology videos. Marbles also chose to put her channel on indefinite hiatus, whereas Dawson faced sanctions from YouTube.

The context: The cultural crusades of 2020 demanded accountability from creators who had thrived on edginess—but on a deeper level, those public trials signaled a generational changing of the guard. Marbles and Dawson's popularity had been bolstered by a Millennial cohort hungry for something more daring than traditional TV. As Gen Z increasingly dominated internet culture, however, the window slammed shut for that brand of offensive rhetoric (at least, temporarily).

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