Good morning. TikTok Shop has lowered the barrier to entry for monetization. Now, creators with as few as 1,000 followers can earn affiliate marketing payouts (worth noting: TikTok’s main creator monetization program still requires at least 10K followers).

Maybe by this time next year, Sephora teens will be paying for Drunk Elephant products from their Christmas wish lists with their own creator-earned cash.

— Hannah Doyle 

Jake Shane Wants to Shape the Future of Late Night

Comedy creator Jake Shane has grown a following of over 4 million making TikTok skits like Abe Lincoln finding out he’s on the penny and hosting his podcast, Therapuss. This week he went on The Colin and Samir Show to share his new plan: turn Therapuss into a late-night style show. 

Context: Viewership for late night shows including The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show has declined about 32% over the last few years. Kimmel has been vocal about the format’s descent, claiming there may be no late night network TV shows in 10 years.

Shane disagrees. “That’s if someone doesn't pick [late night] up and save it,” he told Colin and Samir. “I think there’s a great crop of young comedians and it’s absolutely saveable.”

Here’s Shane’s plan to revive late night →

• Partner with a streamer, not a cable network (streaming is now the most-viewed platform in the US).

• Host casual conversations instead of rigid press tours. For example, Shane’s interview with actor Glen Powell went viral after Powell told Shane about a date gone wrong.

• Include performances and bits, similar to Ellen DeGeneres’s style. 

• “[The format is the same], but you’re communicating differently in a way that Gen Z understands and wants to understand,” Shane said.

Big picture: Despite late night’s struggles, streamers have been dabbling in the TV format. Comedian John Mulaney’s successful pop-up Netflix show Everybody’s in LA was upgraded to a weekly series for 2025. And SNL ratings are climbing this year.

“That is my goal for Therapuss—I want to bridge traditional media and digital media together,” Shane said. “There’s not a late night show that has a healthy mix of both, and I wanted a mix of both on mine.”

Listen to Colin & Samir’s full interview with Jake Shane here.

OpenAI Launches Video Generator

On Monday, ChatGPT maker OpenAI released its much-anticipated video generation model, Sora.

The creator POV: “The results I’ve gotten from it are horrifying and inspiring at the same time,” tech creator Marques Brownlee said in a video review.

• What Sora can do: Generate videos from text and photo prompts using a storyboard feature. 

• Users can also view other creators’ AI-generated videos, including the exact text prompts they used. 

• Sora can produce video of varying quality, from 1080p to CCTV-like footage.

Brownlee said Sora is strongest at generating realistic landscapes, abstract videos, and cartoons. He said Sora is weakest around physics (like many generative photo and video tools), where it produces garbled text, lifelike objects that pass through each other, and body parts that morph in awkward ways.

Worth noting: Sora is sensitive to select copyrights, refusing to make content using figures like Mickey Mouse or the Android robot. But when Brownlee prompted Sora to make a video of a tech reviewer, it generated a desk with the same plant Brownlee includes in his videos.

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Will Creators Replace TV Production Companies?

Art creator Ash Xu has built a following of over 1 million on TikTok making paint videos and food commercials. And now, she just directed her first TV commercial for Taco Bell.

How it went down: 

• Taco Bell reached out to Xu in September to work on a commercial.

• Xu pitched the video concept and Taco Bell paid her to film it as well. 

• Xu worked with her management to secure a team of six to produce the spot.

Big picture: Xu joins a growing set of commercial creators like Grace Wells leading projects once reserved only for big ad agencies. Agencies are starting to take note, looking to hire creators in-house.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Instagram is letting creators test Reels with non-followers.

• Expand your creator industry knowledge—subscribe to Passionfruit for free.*

• NPC creator Miles Morales is pivoting away from NPC content to be "known" as himself.

• YouTube TV  launches a "zen" channel with relaxing sounds and landscapes.

• Brands like JPMorgan and AT&T are pulling advertising from Twitch following claims of antisemitism.

• UGC Fortnite studio Creator Corp gets $2 million in investment from venture fund Lumina.

• Spotify plans to build a pop-up podcast production studio in Washington, DC, for Inauguration Day.

^{*This is sponsored content.}