Good morning. LinkedIn joined the short-form frenzy by announcing a new TikTok-like video feed this week. First games, now swipeable short-form—what can’t the 20-year-old networking site do?

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

YouTube Shorts Monetization, One Year In

It’s been one year since YouTube rolled out its revenue-sharing program for short-form videos. And these days, over 25% of creators in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) are making money on their Shorts, YouTube said.

Quick refresh: Short-form creators can apply to the YPP once they top a) 1,000 subscribers and b) 10 million Shorts views over a 90-day period.

Why it matters: Short-form vertical videos have become significantly more popular among YouTube creators since monetization opened up.

• The number of Shorts uploaded to YouTube has grown by 50% over the last year.

• Over 2 billion creators post Shorts every month, driving 70 billion daily views.

But increased viewership is unlocking more than just AdSense checks. 80% of creators who joined the YPP through Shorts eligibility now make money through other YouTube features (like long-form advertising, memberships, or BrandConnect).

• One such creator, sports commentator Andrew Fenichel, connected his external merch store through YouTube’s Shopping tool last August.

• He told us that linking apparel items to his Shorts has driven 5 million product impressions and 10,000 product clicks.

• “That’s all passive, which I like, too…I don’t have to do a ton of, ‘Hey, I’m wearing this hat right now,’” he said.

Big picture: While some creators are uploading longer content due to increased watchtime from connected TVs, going shorter has offered a lower-lift alternate route to building a creator business.

“Shorts as an option on YouTube made the barrier to entry for me—as a creator who works a full-time job—lower, as I’m able to post more on a day-to-day basis,” Fenichel told us. “In turn, being able to monetize Shorts has made this feel like a legitimate career path.”

The Subtle Art of Growing a YouTube Channel

Mark Manson, author of the popular book The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F**k, has gone all-in on YouTube in the past year—and he’s grown from 100k subscribers to 1+ million.

The why: Manson became disillusioned with Hollywood after spending years making a movie and attempting to get two TV deals off the ground.

• “The system is so gummed up with all these bureaucracies and legal bullsh*t and territory rights and administrative overhead that…the money was peanuts,” Manson told us. 

• “Meanwhile you look at the numbers on YouTube and TikTok and MrBeast was in the stratosphere at that point. I was like ‘What am I doing? I think I’m on the wrong side of this.’”

The how: Manson hired a team to help him experiment with videos in the self-help genre—exploring mental health in South Korea, helping people with social anxiety through challenges, and collaborating with productivity creators.

“I have an advantage in that there’s already a lot of brand awareness around me and there’s a tailwind [from my books],” Manson said (FYI, he’s sold more than 16 million copies). “I’ve been very big on trying new formats that no one in my space has ever really done before. Sometimes that fails and sometimes it really pays off.”

Looking ahead: Manson wants to use his media experience to help future creators.  

“As I continue to become even more of a dinosaur, I think there’s a lot of opportunities over the next 5–10 years to pivot to adjacent businesses like production companies, agencies, help the next generation come up behind me, and eventually get off-camera myself,” Manson said. “For now, it’s mainly just seeing how far I can push my own content.”

We spoke to Mark about the viability of Hollywood for small creators, how writers fit into the creator economy, and more. Read our full conversation here.

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Twitch Tightens Community Guidelines (Again)

The latest update in Twitch’s community guidelines, effective today, bans content that “focuses on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time.”

Why now: Twitch streamers like Morgpie have popularized using body parts as green screens (like projecting Fortnite gameplay on her own body). Now, that could be grounds for a ban.

Zoom out: This new rule continues a prolonged back and forth between 1) Twitch and 2) creators working around Twitch guidelines.

Last year, Twitch loosened its nudity guidelines, then quickly doubled back after creators pushed the boundaries of “artistic nudity.” In response, creators streamed from angles that suggested they weren’t wearing clothes…and Twitch subsequently updated its guidelines to ban implied nudity.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Cody Ko and Jimmy Tatro will star in a film adaptation of The Real Bros of Simi Valley.

• Meta is bringing AI to its Ray-Ban smart glasses.

• Rooster Teeth’s Red vs. Blue will end its final (and 19th) season with a full-length feature film.

• Spotify is testing video courses.

• Creators Guild of America launches Mosaic, an IMDb-like platform for creators.

• Logan Paul blasts a new documentary about him live on TMZ.

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

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

• Read: In Delia Cai’s newsletter series Hate Read, writers anonymously submit their hot takes. The latest: a takedown of corporate life.

• Watch: Product design creator Scott Yu-Jan made an iPad charging dock using his Mac Studio, putting it all in a 3D-printed frame that takes the shape of a 1984 Macintosh. The result? High-tech efficiency that’s equal parts retro and practical.

• Listen: How could we not recommend Beyoncé’s latest record, the genre-bending country album Cowboy Carter?  

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