Hi, hey, hello. Lifestyle creators Brooklyn and Bailey exceeded their goal of raising $100k for The Alliance for Period Supplies on day 11 of their 28-day journey through all 50 states. Another vlog series smashing a fundraising goal? We love to see the Trahan effect going strong.

–Hannah Doyle

To think that just two years ago TikTok was widely viewed as a guilty quarantine pleasure. Today, the app is becoming social users’ go-to platform for search and news.

TikTok is now the fastest-growing news source for adults in the UK, according to a recent news survey by UK communications regulator Ofcom. Interestingly, over half of the Brits using TikTok to track current events prefer getting their news updates from creators and friends and family instead of conventional news organizations.

Big picture: The survey comes on the heels of internal Google studies that found a growing number of young people are using TikTok for search. “In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search…they go to TikTok or Instagram,” said Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan.

Now Google is responding with a new campaign on TikTok and YouTube called Let’s Internet Better. They’ve tapped TikTok heavyweights including Hank Green, Matt Taylor, and Alexia Del Valle to publish content designed to encourage Gen Z to think more critically about internet safety and fact checking, two elements TikTok is widely criticized for dropping the ball on—or at least not prioritizing.

Despite Gen Z’s changing tastes and preferences, Google remains a dominant search presence with cultural cachet…it’s just that now they’re just facing competition a little more formidable than Ask Jeeves. To maintain relevance with the TikTok-native generation, Google needs to evolve to cater to their needs—that could include fewer ads in prime search real estate and a more robust images and video section.

Taking a page from the ever-present (except when it’s not) Lofi Girl, lifestyle creator Kelly Wakasa has released a copyright-free music video.

The goal? To encourage his fans to use the song with his tagline, “do what excites,” for free in their own content.

Why is this outside the norm? Usually, artists copyright their work so they’re compensated for exposure. For instance, a movie can’t use a Taylor Swift song without getting her approval—and paying her for it.

But even for creators smaller than Swift, copyright matters. Consider artists whose songs have blown up on TikTok, only for them to never 1) see a dime or 2) get credit. There, copyright ownership might make a meaningful difference.

Copyrighting your work guarantees more control over your content and the context in which it's consumed. But it’s not everything—going copyright-free like Wakasa opens the floodgates for other creators to riff on your ideas, sometimes creating non-monetary value (new fans, streams, etc.). We expect creators to dabble in the no-copyright space as a means of organic growth in the near future.

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Pretty dang hard, apparently. British YouTuber JackSucksAtLife recently detailed the challenges of growing JackSucksAtEspañol, his channel for Spanish-dubbed versions of all his videos. The channel has 95,000 subscribers, compared to Jack’s main channel at 2.4 million.

In the last four months, Jack has spent 5,000 pounds on JackSucksAtEspañol, but generated just 25 quid (for anyone who doesn’t speak British, that’s spending about $6,000 to make about $30).

What did he spend that money on?

To revive the channel, Jack spent nearly 1,000 pounds on ads over five days, which netted him 60,000 views, 800 new subscribers, and about 30 pounds in ad revenue.

In theory, reaching different cultures can be lucrative—see: MrBeast’s five foreign language channels—so long as costs like ads and voice-over help don’t put you too far in the hole.

But as JackSucksAtLife shows, maybe detailing the challenges is a growth hack itself. One comment on his ad experience video: “[These analytics videos are] probably my favorite types of videos from you.”