TOGETHER WITH

It’s Thursday and after blowing up on Netflix, dominating the Billboard charts, and winning two Oscars, KPop Demon Hunters is getting its very own Lego set.

Today’s News

💸 Fortnite creators get paid $1B+
🛍️ Pinterest drops a shopping app
📹 The British Film Institute preserves videos
🎾 Pickleball comes to VidCon
🐾 The Backstreet Boys join PAW Patrol

THE BIZ

That’s a whole lot of dough.

Epic Games has now paid over $1B to the creators of Fortnite’s “Islands”

The payouts: Three years after the launch of Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN), Epic Games Director of Fortnite Developer Relations Hannah Lowry has confirmed that creator payouts associated with the product have reached $1 billion.

UEFN allows users to seamlessly upload their creations as Fortnite “Islands,” which are then inhabited by millions of players. By handing over 40% of Island revenue to developers, Epic Games has built a strong base of Fortnite creators.

Within a year of UEFN’s launch, payouts associated with it reached $320 million and top earners began launching studios to develop custom Islands. Typical Gamer, for instance, has invested millions in Fortnite development through his studio JOGO.

The context: Since its launch, Epic Games has positioned UEFN as a viable alternative to Roblox. But as meteoric as the Fortnite product’s rise has been, its rival’s revenue has soared even higher. Payouts to creators who build Roblox experiences topped $1 billion in 2025 alone.

Epic Games’ plan to close that gap involves in-game item sales, which have become a significant source of income for Island creators. At Unreal Fest in Chicago, Lowry revealed that, for about 3,000 Islands, in-game transactions actually generate more revenue than the preexisting UEFN payout model.

It’s worth keeping in mind that a 1:1 comparison between Fortnite creator revenue and Roblox creator revenue is somewhat misleading. While the main Fortnite battle royale game still eats up a big chunk of the community’s play time, the vast majority of Roblox playtime comes via creator experiences. Therefore, Epic Games’ archipelago of Islands is in a good place—even if layoffs are taking a toll on Fortnite’s parent company.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

Pinterest is dipping its toes into AI shopping.

Pinterest has announced the launch of Ask Pinterest, “a limited access app” designed to help the company “experiment with the next generation of AI-powered shopping experiences.” (Pinterest Newsroom)
A recent report from Pew Research Center found that only 16% of U.S. respondents believe AI will have a positive impact on society. (Gizmodo)
Decentralized social media network Mastodon has announced a new newsletter-style feature that will allow creators to send their posts to subscribers’ inboxes. (TechCrunch)
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has confirmed that Italy does not plan to ban teens from social media, in part because that “type of ban can be easily circumvented.” (TheNextWeb)

GAME ON

An upcoming event will treat VidCon attendees to some serious dinking.

A pickleball competition is bringing more visibility to creator sports tours

The tournament: A cadre of athletic creators will have a chance to flex their pickleball skills at VidCon 2026. Creator TV—the streaming network and content studio that operates under the umbrella of Sabio Holdings—has assembled a 16-player lineup for the Creator Pickleball Tour, which will feature some of YouTube and TikTok’s biggest names.

Participating creators like NichLmao, Peet Montzingo, Merrick Hanna, DangMattSmith, AnythingAlexia, Nevaaadaa, and Yoangelolo will duke it out on the main expo floor at the Anaheim Convention Center, where VidCon’s expected audience of 50,000+ attendees will be able to witness four-player pickleball matches.

Harry Cicma, who has produced pickleball content for ESPN, will be on hand to produce the 16-creator showdown. The footage will then be distributed as an episodic series across Creator TV’s network of FAST channels.

The context: The Creator Pickleball Tour is the latest in a string of competitive events hosted by Creator TV. Through its sports division, the platform has broadcast the World Tag Championships and teamed with King Bach for poker content. Some Creator TV Sports projects have also made it to TV; the studio’s Creator Poker Championship, for example, premiered on the CBS Sports Network this past May.

The success of those events fits into a larger trend within digital media. Creator sports competitions have become so popular that soccer and football tournaments are now sharing airtime with massive global events like the World Cup and Super Bowl. Later this month, the action at VidCon will determine how much excitement can be generated when the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. meets the rising tide of creator activations.

DIGITAL HISTORY

“Badgers” is being preserved alongside other memorable viral videos.

The British Film Institute’s video archive will preserve the weird side of web culture

The archive: With the establishment of a 430-video archive, the British Film Institute is committing itself to the preservation of internet history—no matter how silly that history may be.

The content of the Institute’s video collection is a mixed bag spanning over three decades of web history. Entries include iconic clips like “Charlie Bit My Finger” and “Badgers,” cooking videos from Great British Bake Off contestant Chetna Makan, a video essay about queerbaiting from Rowan Ellis, a tabloid video making fun of former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, and the unforgettable “I Can’t Believe You’ve Done This.”

By serving as a time capsule for those memorable clips, the archive provides a layer of protection that isn’t offered by the internet’s biggest video hosting platforms. British Film Institute Curator Will Swinburne told The New York Times that companies like YouTube “make no promise to preserve and save the work” they distribute. The presence of an established archive ensures that notable videos will not be lost to history if the platforms hosting them shut down.

The context: That threat is more palpable than it may seem. There was a chance, for example, that “Charlie Bit My Finger” would disappear from the public internet after the video was sold as an NFT in 2021. And an unknowable number of short-form treasures were lost when Twitter shut down Vine in early 2017.

The British Film Institute isn’t the only organization taking action to prevent additional losses. A fellow British institution, the Victoria and Albert Museum, recently acquired the video file for the first-ever YouTube video—Jawed Karim’s “me at the zoo”—as part of an exhibit showcasing the history of design. VidCon’s Hall of Fame is another initiative that aims to enshrine individuals who played important roles in the development of creator culture.

WATCH THIS 👀

This is the crossover we’ve been waiting for.

The Boys are back in town (for the new PAW Patrol movie)

The music video: The Backstreet Boys’ latest music video is likely to thrill YouTube’s youngest viewers just as much as the band’s longtime fans. In place of all-white clothing and branded airplanes, the musical group performed their new song against a backdrop featuring cartoon dinosaurs and the animated cast of PAW Patrol: The Dino Movie.

“Bottle Up”—which is featured in the new PAW Patrol movie—might not be the Backstreet Boys’ edgiest tune, but it’s nevertheless a catchy addition to the band’s discography.

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