Good morning. Last night at SXSW, multiple people asked our thoughts on weekend news that Puck political reporter Tara Palmeri is leaving to start her own media venture on YouTube. According to The NYT, she received a grant from YouTube (for an undisclosed amount) to get started on the platform. Our thoughts: With YouTube taking over podcasts and streaming…is startup news its next target?

Read on for our learnings from SXSW.

— Hannah Doyle 

Sidemen Charity Match Shatters Records

After a hiatus in 2024, Sidemen's charity soccer match returned for its sixth year at a sold-out Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday. 

The match was livestreamed on the Sidemen YouTube channel, with over 14 million viewers tuning in to watch creators like MrBeast, KSI, and Kai Cenat on the pitch.

Context: Sidemen held their first charity match in 2016 at St. Mary’s Stadium in front of 15,000 IRL fans and 600,000 on livestream. As of 2022, the Sidemen Charity Match holds the Guinness World Record for most viewers for a charity sports event livestream on YouTube. 

The match has retained a peak viewership at roughly 2.5 million concurrent views for the past three events, but donations and in-person attendance have grown exponentially.

2023 vs. 2025, by the numbers: 

• Live attendees: 67,000 → 90,000

• Money raised: £2,400,000+ → £4,700,000+

• Yellow cards shredded by Max Fosh: 0 → 1

Big picture: Creators played a larger role in this year’s stream than years previous—KSI and rapper AJ Tracey performed a halftime show, and Feastables was the title sponsor. The on-demand version of the stream also reached No. 1 on YouTube trending on Sunday.

Creator Highlights from SXSW

With more than 1,000 events and panels to choose from featuring personalities like Pedro Pascal, Issa Rae, Ben Stiller, Rhett & Link, and Sean Evans, this year’s SXSW was a real test of focus.

But we locked in on creators. Here are our top highlights from Austin →

Two things we learned:

• Ashley Alexander’s Nami matcha brand sold over $1 million in product in its first eight months of business, according to Jo Cronk, president of Whalar. And Nami’s NYC pop-up? Cronk said it was Shopify’s third most-trafficked NYC event ever (next to an event hosted by Nicki Minaj).

• Food creator Zoya Biglary said on a panel that she’s funded her vegan food brand, Fysh Foods, entirely through brand partnerships. “They say women can’t raise money—turns out they can if they stay in the kitchen,” she joked.

One of our favorite quotes: Hot Ones creator Sean Evans shared his secret for turning interviews into viral moments. “It comes down to sharpening the tools in your kit. It takes time to figure it out. And it’s hard for me to look back on the old stuff,” Evans said on a panel. “It’s tedious work, but as long as you care about the person you’re talking to and the audience it’s going to, you can churn through those times that come with getting the 10,000 hours in.”

Finally: We held our first Austin Coffee With Creators event, featuring local creators Isaac Carlton and Isaiah Photo with AI storyboarding tool LTX Studio. Our biggest takeaway? The future of creativity looks bright.

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Reddit’s Big Boost in User Time

Reddit is currently the only major social platform tallying major gains in user time spent on-platform, according to Emarketer. 

Reddit users are projected to spend an average of 34 minutes a day on the platform in 2025, up 3.7% from last year.

By comparison: The only other app with growth in user time projected this year is Instagram, with an increase of 0.3%. Emarketer expects Facebook, TikTok, X, and Snapchat usage to decline by more than 2%.

Why? Emarketer suggests that users are flocking to Reddit for more authentic and relatable content as competing apps put out more and more AI-generated media. Worth noting: Emarketer’s research didn’t include YouTube.

👀 Creator Moves

• Alex Cooper’s Unwell Hydration is looking for a senior strategist to oversee social media content and community management. 

• Talent management company Wasserman is hiring a creator strategist to bring fresh partnership ideas to their digital roster.

• Bucketsquad is hiring a video producer for its Team Jesser YouTube channel to make 1–2 videos a week.

Looking to bring on new team members? You can post opportunities on our (free) job board here.

🔥 Press Worthy

• YouTube warns creators of an AI phishing scam.

• VFX creator Freddie Wong releases a movie, We’re All Gonna Die, in select theaters.

• MrBeast is expected to earn more revenue from Feastables than from videos this year, according to The Verge.

• Dylan Mulvaney is releasing a book called Paper Doll.

• Benoftheweek starts a weekly YouTube livestream.

• Recess Therapy launches a podcast with one of its most famous guests, seven-year-old Miles.