It's Monday and VidCon has announced the 2026 class for its “Hall of Fame.” Among the honorees: Markiplier, Michelle Phan, Philip DeFranco, and Cassey Ho of Blogilates.

Today’s News

⭐ YouTube tests "Top Fans”
🇺🇸 Patriotic Kenny passes away
🛠️ MrBeast build kits hit Lowe’s
🤝 UMG makes a TikTok deal
🎙️ This week on the podcast…

FAN FRENZY

Creators’ most-engaged fans may be in for some exclusive content.

YouTube is testing a “Top Fans” feature limited to just 1% of viewers

The test feature: What if videos could only be watched by the most engaged viewers in a creator’s community?

That’s the idea behind Top Fans, a new distribution option that is beginning to roll out on YouTube. By choosing to upload videos that can only be watched by 1% of their fans, creators can reward their most loyal viewers.

YouTube first alluded to Top Fans during its Made On presentation last year, when execs positioned the feature as an engagement tool for artists within the YouTube Music community. A blog post published at the time claimed that musicians would be able to share “just-for-fans content directly to their most dedicated fans.”

The response: Eight months later, some users are starting to spot Top Fans in the wild—and it looks like YouTube is taking the feature’s exclusive nature seriously. Top Fans videos are so strictly limited to the top 1% of viewers that the remaining 99% are unable to watch those clips even if they receive direct links.

Creators have already proposed several uses for Top Fans, with some noting that the feature could be used to express controversial takes, test experimental formats, or offer a more egalitarian form of gated content than the typical paywalled Patreon post.

YouTube stands to benefit from the new distribution option, too. If Top Fans posts catch on, viewers may start marathoning their favorite creator channels to break into the top 1%. That would increase YouTube’s overall watch time while simultaneously rewarding the platform’s most passionate users.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF

Patriotic Kenny passed away from lung cancer earlier this month.

Patriotic Kenny, who charmed millions of TikTok followers with his positivity and electric scooter videos, passed away last week. The 84-year-old creator was a political activist throughout his final years. (Tubefilter)
A new Meta platform just hit the App Store. The Reddit-style app, called Forums, is self-described as “a dedicated space built for deeper discussions, real answers and communities you care about.” (Gizmodo)
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker has reportedly been subpoenaed by the U.S. Treasury Department following a humanitarian aid trip to Cuba. (Kotaku)
A recent study suggests that “leading chatbots” provide “flawed” answers to questions regarding the U.S. midterm elections approximately 90% of the time. (TechRadar)

CREATOR COMMOTION

Kids can go to Lowe’s and build some MrBeast toys.

MrBeast’s build kits are flying onto Lowe’s shelves

The build kits: MrBeast is taking a page out of Mark Rober’s Crunchlabs playbook with the launch of his own kid-friendly build kits. The products in question—which are part of the YouTuber’s MrBeast Lab Swarms toy line—will be available exclusively at Lowe‘s beginning May 30.

MrBeast (aka Jimmy Donaldson) will drop a new Lab Swarms build kit each month, and Lowe’s will provide a space where kids can assemble the $15 toys. The MyLowe’s Rewards Kids Club workshops will also reward participants with both physical and digital MrBeast badges they can show off to their friends.

Those collaborative workshops are likely to be a hot commodity. According to a Lowe’s press release, 87% of Gen Alpha parents want to improve their connections with their kids through joint activities.

"I’m psyched about the Kids Club partnership with Lowe’s because we’re giving kids more access to being creative and seeing their own projects come to life.”

MrBeast

The context: This is far from Donaldson’s first collaboration with Lowe’s. YouTube’s most-subscribed-to star is part of the roster for the company’s creator program, and Lowe’s was also a sponsor and build partner for the second season of MrBeast’s Prime Video original series, Beast Games. Now, the latest expansion of their partnership adds a new wrinkle to the MrBeast Lab line that Donaldson launched alongside Moose Toys last year.

Kids and parents eager to begin building those hands-on toys can register for the Lowe’s workshops here.

THE BIZ

It’s a sign of the times.

UMG’s new TikTok and Spotify deals are characteristic of an AI age

The TikTok agreement: With its latest set of deals, Universal Music Group is aiming to promote “human artistry”—and AI. The Big Three label has signed a multiyear licensing agreement with TikTok, which will allow the platform to keep songs from chart-topping artists in exchange for royalties being paid every time those songs are included in user-generated content.

That deal marks the end of a rocky period between UMG and TikTok, during which the former accused the latter of “trying to build a music-based business, without paying fair value for the music,” and at one point pulled its songs from TikTok’s catalog.

Now, with an expanded agreement struck, UMG and TikTok are showing a united front. The two companies stated that their deal “extends TikTok and UMG’s groundbreaking commitment to AI (artificial intelligence) protections that promote human artistry…TikTok and UMG will work together to remove unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform, while further improving artist and songwriter attribution.”

The Spotify deal: That “groundbreaking commitment to AI protections” doesn’t mean UMG is strictly anti-AI. The label has also unveiled a new agreement with Spotify, which explicitly allows Premium subscribers to make AI-generated covers and remixes of songs from UMG artists.

“Solving hard problems for music is what Spotify does, and fan-made covers and remixes are next. What we’re building is grounded in consent, credit, and compensation for the artists and songwriters that take part.”

- Alex Norström, Spotify Co-CEO

UMG CEO Sir Lucian Grainge described the deal as a “pioneering AI-enabled superfan initiative” that is “firmly artist-centric, rooted in responsible AI, and will drive growth for the entire ecosystem.”

Together, UMG’s agreements with Spotify and TikTok are a sign of the times. Decades-old companies that have built their legacies on the work of human artists are fine withAI—as long as they get paid for it.

LISTEN UP 🎙️

Google’s end-to-end problem and solution for ContentID in the age of AI.

This week on the podcast…

The episode: It’s been a busy few days in the creator economy. On the latest installment of Creator Upload, hosts Joshua Cohen and Lauren Schnipper break down the biggest reveals from Google I/O, the history of ContentID, the process behind YouTube’s new likeness detection tool, and X's AI-powered push to match creators with brands. (Plus a few details on Tom Brady’s pivot into YouTube trivia.)

Check out the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to find out more.

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