Good morning. The Florida Gators won the NCAA men’s basketball championship in a nail-biter, just after UConn cut down the net (again) in the women’s tournament. While everyone else was counting the score this March Madness, we were tallying how many times IShowSpeed’s Dick’s Sporting Goods commercial played (we lost count at 47).

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

The Effect of President Trump’s Tariffs on Creators

Last week, President Donald Trump announced tariffs of at least 10% on all imports from many countries, and domestic businesses across sectors—including the creator industry—are already feeling the repercussions.

Here’s what creators have to say →

QTCinderella said tariffs will impact her customizable accessory brand, Deco Deco, which imports most materials. “Some of my suppliers have already pulled out of the US, and some of my suppliers have tripled or quadrupled their price,” she said.

Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson said it’s now “way cheaper” to manufacture his Feastables chocolate brand outside the US, since other countries aren’t imposing the same aggressive tariffs. “We’ll figure it out,” he shared on X. “I feel for small businesses though. Could really be a nail in the coffin for them.”

As the full scale of tariff impacts only begins to emerge, creators across genres have used the tumultuous news cycle as a chance to educate their audiences:

• Math creator Stand-up Maths hit #19 on YouTube’s trending page with a video explaining the tariff equation provided by the White House.

• Hasan Piker debunked a false rumor on X about a 90-day tariff pause that briefly caused markets to bounce back. 

• Finance education creators The Wall Street Skinny broke down the theory that President Trump’s tariffs were imposed to refinance US debt.

AI Slop, Explained

Welcome to AI slop: a bizarre picture of Jesus with shrimp arms or babies flowing out of a semitruck. 

Surreal, nonsensical, and AI-generated, this kind of content is increasingly showing up on feeds across platforms. And because this AI slop is cheap and easy to produce, it’s inspired a whole subset of businesses across Meta, Pinterest, YouTube, and X that aim to monetize on views and engagement.

What creators are saying: 

• “The majority of AI slop is still kind of strange and funny, for now, but I worry about how much time we’ll all keep spending staring into screens reacting to events, craving lifestyles, and relating to people that never actually existed,” journalist Christophe Haubursin said in a video.

• “While I don’t agree with [AI slop creators], I understand how they can justify it to themselves. They’re technically not hurting anyone and culturally more than ever there’s a focus on results,” auto creator James Pumphrey said in a video. “I think that’s a dangerous sentiment for a majority of people to have when we’re standing at a human crossroads like this.”

• “The way these systems and platforms are designed, it’s incentivized to create a world that’s flooded with AI content,” Corridor Crew creator Sam Gorski said in a video debunking AI slop.

• “How anyone will know what’s real in five years is entirely unknown to me,” Hank Green said. “But in order to get there we’re going to need people, systems, and organizations with a strong alliance to the truth and that’s not always well-selected for by algorithmic media.”

Big picture: Platforms have issued policies and tags designed to better identify AI, but that hasn’t stopped AI-generated content from exploding on social platforms—for example, over 54% of longer English-language posts on LinkedIn are likely AI-generated.

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Podcast Roundup: Talk Tuah Returns

Haliey Welch’s Talk Tuah podcast has returned after a four-month hiatus with KSI as the show’s first guest back. Jake Paul’s sports betting company, Betr, produced the first run of episodes, but Welch’s 16 Minutes production company will take over. Like clockwork, Talking Talk Tuah had an emergency recap episode out within a day of Welch’s return.

Patreon has launched a podcast network initiative, starting with exclusive shows from Wondery and Sony Music debuting on Patreon. The new program is part of Patreon’s larger push into podcasting—the platform said that, in the last year, podcasters have earned over $472 million on Patreon, making podcasting its highest-earning content category.

Former Bachelor star Nick Viall has signed a deal valued between $20 million and $30 million with podcast platform Libsyn to keep his podcast, The Viall Files, and shows from his Envy Media network on the platform. Since its inception in 2019, The Viall Files has notched over 250 million downloads.

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🔥 Press Worthy

• Content creator and activist Deja Foxx is running for Congress in Arizona.

• YouTuber Rebecca Zamolo launches a fertility brand.

• Food creator Keith Lee is hosting Complex’s Family Style Food Fest in NYC next month.

• Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing premieres on Netflix today. 

• Best Buy launches a creator program with shoppable storefronts.