Good morning. Syd here. As someone who had to listen to JT Music’s “Join Us For a Bite” several times a day to feel normal in 2023, I am elated to see Five Nights at Freddy 2 double its box office target with a $63 million gross, outperforming Zootopia 2 last week.

This success was absolutely due in part to the creators, fan edits, and cosplayers across all social platforms. Good work, y’all.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

College students Abbi Park and Nelson Bellows just launched Spike, a prediction market for short-form content that lets users place bets on a video’s virality.

How it works → 

So far, Spike is classified as a game, since tokens aren’t bought with real money (yet). “You have this barrier to monetization for small creators—often faceless creators like editors or clippers—and they can't monetize [on TikTok] until they're at a certain threshold of following, even if they're getting millions of views on a video,” Bellows told us.

Once Spike is monetized (which Park and Bellows say is the next step), creators will make 1% of the total volume traded on their videos regardless of whether the videos go over their goal.

Setting guardrails: Spike doesn’t allow creators to bet on their own videos, and it pulls from TikTok verified creator fund views—promoted, sponsored, or boosted videos are exempt from the website.

Zoom out: Prediction markets are converging with media in increasingly high volumes. Last week, prediction market platform Kalshi struck deals with CNN and CNBC to integrate real-time betting on world events across news feeds. 

“We are at this point where it’s about attention by any means necessary,” Colin said on an episode of The Colin and Samir Show about prediction markets.

By gamifying the creator economy, Spike is following a formula that has proven to be financially successful in other sectors of media, like sports and politics—but worth noting: Studies have shown betting is dangerous for financial and mental health.

YouTube Rewind, the annual platform series that ran from 2011 to 2019 highlighting the year’s top viral trends, videos, and music, was unlisted from the platform this week. 

Why? "As our 20th birthday year comes to a close, we've decided to blow out our Rewind candles," a YouTube rep told Mashable. "It was a great tradition, but we have new ways to close out the year in style."

Some fans speculated that the videos were unlisted after longtime creator Ryan Higa spoke on stream about a breach of his contract on set of a YouTube Rewind shoot.

Trend watch: Although YouTube has not disclosed the catalyst for its decision, the death—and subsequent burial—of the YouTube Rewind series in recent years points to a larger departure from the monoculture that the platform once curated. 

Earlier this year, YouTube removed the trending page, and revamped its TV look to appear more as a streaming service. As YouTube continues to outperform competitors like Netflix, will its once-centralized culture take the fall?

’Tis the season for giving, and while many creators give big year-round, this week our feeds have been filled with creators reaching out to local communities around the US. Here’s how creators are giving back →

Nevada-based lifestyle creator Serena Neel has documented her Angel Tree shopping—where she buys a list of goods for kids and families in need. Neel has spent the last two months shopping for over 50 recipients, gifting bikes, pets, and keyboards. 

Maryland-based lifestyle creator Sarah Stusek has run a non-profit called Proper Help to pay off school lunch debt since 2022. So far, she’s helped nine schools and paid over $60,000 off in overdue lunch accounts. “I get hundreds of submissions for schools in need every day. While I do hope to be able to scale in the future, right now 100% of all donations go directly to the schools,” Stusek told us.

North Dakota-based pet creator Emilee Mahar donated her platform earnings from the first half of December to a local giving tree. For the second half of the month, she’s donating her platform earnings to an animal shelter.

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.