TOGETHER WITH

It’s Tuesday and Obsession’s box office blowout isn’t over just yet. The YouTuber-directed film has now earned $400 million worldwide. Not bad considering its $750,000 budget.

Today’s News

⚽ CazeTV continues to dominate
🥊 Reddit fights AI slop (with more AI)
💸 Claire’s taps into Roblox hype
🤖 AI slop marketing hits YouTube
👀 Hank Green considered buying TED

GLOBAL TOP 50 • SUBS

YouTube channels are winning the World Cup.

CazéTV is dominating the World Cup on YouTube

The chart-topper: When it comes to the 2026 FIFA World Cup, CazéTV is the man of the tournament. For the second week running, the Brazilian creator (aka Casimiro Miguel) topped our ranking of most-subscribed-to YouTube channels by snagging a total of 2.9 million new subscribers.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. At the start of the World Cup, the YouTube live stream with the most concurrent viewers (eight million) was a rocket launch broadcast hosted by the Indian Space Research Organization. Flash forward a few weeks, and CazéTV has now hosted 15 live streams with more peak concurrent viewers than the ISRO’s rocket launch.

At the top of that list sits CazéTV’s broadcast of Brazil’s knockout-round match against Japan, which achieved a peak concurrent live audience of 21.1 million viewers. That total not only toppled the ISRO’s record; it also more than doubled Ibai’s viewership record on Twitch.

The context: Even if Brazil’s elimination at the World Cup ultimately brings an end to CazéTV’s record-breaking run, it won’t stop Brazilian YouTubers from thriving during the tournament. Sergio Lopes, the Co-Founder of CazéTV parent LiveMode, told Reuters that the company’s World Cup broadcasts in Portugal have reached nearly 90% of the nation’s households.

“Every major sports organisation is asking how to connect with audiences whose media habits have changed significantly. Brazil is one of the places where this transformation has moved very quickly, so it has allowed us to test and refine ideas at scale.”

- Sergio Lopes, LiveMode Co-Founder

Brazilian creators like CazéTV and Natan Por Aí aren’t the only soccer-focused brands and channels benefiting from that transformation. FIFA ranked at #7 in this week’s subscribers chart (and #1 in our viewership chart), while U.S. sports creator Jesser (#5) celebrated the Cup by uniting stars from across the world.

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HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

Reddit is fighting AI with AI.

Reddit has revealed that its automated AI tools now block 23 million spam views and identify roughly 25,000 posts and comments per day. (Engadget)
Netflix originals have a retention problem. According to recent reports, “nearly every Netflix original with a new season in 2026 has been hemorrhaging viewers.” (Gizmodo)
AI “actress” Tilly Norwood is set to star in a full-length film created by Particle6 Productions. (Engadget)
A U.S. district judge has blocked Elon Musk’s attempt to overturn a jury’s verdict that he defrauded Twitter investors during his purchase of the platform in 2022. (The Next Web)

CREATOR COLLABS

Claire’s is tapping into the Roblox hype.

The Lana’s Life x Claire’s partnership blends a Roblox giveaway with IRL retail

The collab: After multiple rounds of bankruptcy filings, Claire’s is hoping that the Roblox community can deliver a sales boost. A partnership between the retailer and popular creator Lana’s Life will bring Roblox-inspired items to 866 Claire’s locations in the U.S. and Canada.

Lana’s Life (aka Lana Rae) is known for serving up looks in Dress to Impress, a Roblox game that has been played more than ten billion times. To bring Rae’s virtual glam into the real world, Claire’s enlisted her for a line of cosmetics, accessories, and squishies, including a handful of items exclusively available at Claire’s. After launch, the first 8,000 customers who purchased a Lana’s Life product at Claire’s received a complimentary Roblox avatar.

The context: The demise of physical malls in the U.S. has encouraged beleaguered retailers to appeal to Gen Z—aka the one demographic still willing to engage in a good shopping spree. That strategy begat numerous partnerships between creators and mall retailers (including Danny Duncan x Zumiez, Karl Jacobs x Journeys, and SypherPK x Pacsun), while Claire’s itself sold JoJo Siwa’s signature bow and even launched a collection alongside Doug the Pug.

Then, as Gen Alpha began to usurp Gen Z, Claire’s pivoted to the world of Roblox by partnering with gamer MeganPlays on a 2022 “phygital” campaign that blended Roblox-inspired designs with brick-and-mortar promotions.

Four years later, Roblox has grown into a goldmine for brands, with content related to the sandbox collecting one trillion YouTube views—and Claire’s is eager to claim its piece of the pie.

GLOBAL TOP 50 • VIEWS

Slopageddon continues.

AI slop marketing is here, and it’s (kinda sorta) working

The strategy: It’s no secret that making low-quality videos with AI can increase the speed of production pipelines and keep costs low for creators—but a mysterious channel called Veltovate has found another use for AI slop.

The YouTube hub is turning its bizarre Shorts into a marketing tactic.

Most of the channel’s uploads appear to be AI-generated, and many connect back to the online Veltovate store by advertising products like blenders and dusting brushes with uncanny clips of casual violence and fake babies.

That strategy might not be entirely ethical, but it’s certainly drawing attention. As the calendar turned over to July, Veltovate ranked 14th in our Global Top 50 chart by collecting 648.1 million weekly views.

The trend: It’s impossible to say how many of those views are translating into sales, but Veltovate is definitely benefiting from an audience that loves gadgets. Channels featuring tools—and especially oddly satisfying machinery—have long been favored in the Shorts algorithm, and that trend continued into this month.

During the first week of July, several YouTube hubs reached the Global Top 50 by almost exclusively posting videos featuring machines and tradespeople at work. Daily crafts clocked in at #31, while SnapWorks moved up to #12 despite having zero regular viewership just three months ago.

By connecting the depiction of gadgets to the sale of gadgets, Veltovate is following the prevailing trends on YouTube Shorts. Viewers want to see machines in use, and Veltovate invites viewers to bring those machines into their homes.

WATCH THIS 👀

Hank Green didn’t buy Ted. But he wants to do something similar.

Hank Green could have been the next TED Talk guy

The revelation: Hank Green once considered buying TED. In a recent video, the Vlogbrother revealed that he weighed the idea of purchasing the org last year, when longtime TED head Chris Anderson “basically Willy Wonka’d” a sale of the company (as Green described it) by encouraging potential buyers to explain why they deserved to run TED.

Green said he thought about throwing his hat in the ring—until he remembered “how miserable it can be to be the public face of an influential media event” (remember who founded VidCon?). The longtime creator ultimately determined that operating TED would add too much to his plate.

But instead of dropping the idea altogether, he decided to “scratch the itch” by putting together a TED Talk-inspired event on a much smaller scale. The result is Something Worth Knowing, a fundraiser for the Greens’ Complexly nonprofit that will unite stars like Mark Rober, Katie Mack, Abigail Thorn, and Simone Giertz in Los Angeles to “share inspiring talks.” The ticketed event is set to take place on September 16.