Good morning. The internet gods have chosen the official meme of February: Fitness creator Kendall Toole banning a user from her cycling class.
Although the clip is over two years old, “get ‘em banned” is forever.
Creators Sweep the Olympics, Super Bowl
Over the weekend, Nick DiGiovanni (left) is an Olympic torchbearer and MrBeast (right) launches a scavenger hunt with Salesforce and Slack / Nick DiGiovanni, Salesforce
The Seattle Seahawks may have won last night, but creators may have won the weekend.
At the Olympics and the Super Bowl (both of which aired on NBC), creators were on the front lines as talent, commentators, and participants. Here are the highlights →
On Friday, the Olympics kicked off in Italy with 21 million viewers tuning in.
Leading up to the opening ceremony, cooking creator Nick DiGiovanni was a torchbearer following a partnership with YouTube and the International Olympic Committee.
Ashley Alexander, Cleo Abram, and more creators partnered with NBC, tracking podium wins and posting scientific deep dives. The network also connected creators to Olympics TV advertisers, providing potential sponsors around the games.
Other creators pulled double time, including lifestyle creators Allison Kush and Isaac Rochelle, who are working with NBC to cover both the Olympics and the Super Bowl.
Then on Sunday, the Super Bowl aired live from San Francisco to an estimated audience of over 120 million.
Comedy creator Hallie Walker partnered with finance company Ramp to promote its tailgate party in SF (which featured Brian Baumgartner from The Office—and participants walking around with bald caps—as part of its ongoing campaign with the actor).
After airing its own local ad spot, daily tech news show TBPN rebutted Anthropic’s AI ad which touted “Claude without Ads” with a cheeky product called “Claude with Ads.”
In the fourth quarter, MrBeast aired an ad with software company Salesforce for its workplace messaging product, Slack. The premise? Give $1 million to the first person to solve a puzzle, with guesses submitted via Slack. MrBeast directed the campaign, hiding easter eggs between the ad and three YouTube videos. There were over 180K entrants in the queue when we joined just moments after airing, and Google Search volume for MrBeast grew by more than 1300% during the game.
Big picture: Some creators noted that ads felt flat and uncreative this year. “The marketers lost and the big ad agency era ends with a true whimper of mediocrity,” business creator Oren John said. Could creators be the ones to shake things up?
The Next ‘New Girl’ Is on YouTube
Syd (left) attends an Instacart-sponsored fight over bananas hosted by YouTube creators Bunch of Friends, which includes (second from left to right) Anthpo, Hanbon, Coy, and Will / Photography by Syd Cohen, Bunch of Friends
Good morning, Sydizens (Syd here). Last week, I was walking in East LA and spotted a poster that read, “I caught my friend eating a green banana on Thursday, January 15th, 2026 at 2:33pm. Come watch me yell at him.”
It had all the tells of Anthony “Anthpo” Potero, the creator behind John Chungus and the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest: guerilla marketing tactics, oddly specific and free events, a QR code to a Partiful.
I decided to attend and my suspicions were confirmed: It was an event for Bunch of Friends, a group channel started last year by Potero and his roommates, Coy, Will, and Hanbon, that’s grown to over 500K followers.
The vibe→ I showed up to an empty storefront on Melrose with my friend Ally, where we were met with a line of about 20 people.
Instacart sponsored the event, and we were advised that the night would be filmed (likely for their YouTube channel).
By the time the event started, there were about 100 people seated—most of them college-aged Gen Zers, many of them dressed like bananas.
The brand integration felt natural—many times the audience started chanting, “Instacart! Instacart!”
The future? As Coy and Will yelled at each other about a fruit-based prank war in front of their fans, I realized: Could this—caricatures dreamt up by creators and gobbled up (often live) by their audiences—be the next iteration of the sitcom?. Bunch of Friends took the IRL trend we have seen over the past year and used it to strengthen their content, fanbase, and the banana-eating community at large.
Sponsored by CTB
How Theo Vonn Booked His Most Watched Podcast of 2026 So Far
Big audiences don’t always guarantee big guests. You still need connections, including a trusted partner who knows how to actually get talent to say yes.
For Theo Von, that partner is Central Talent Booking. With 26+ years of industry expertise, CTB helped Theo land Jason Momoa for a recent episode of This Past Weekend.
From Jason’s love of Hawaii to using rock climbing to sharpen his focus, the conversation struck a chord. In a little over a week, the episode crossed 1.6 million YouTube views to become Theo’s most-watched podcast of 2026 so far.
Want to book guests your audience won’t skip? Partner with CTB today.
The No. 1 Streamer of 2026 Is…
Twitch's top streamer of 2026 is TheBurntPeanut / TheBurntPeanut
A peanut? Just a month after receiving best VTuber of the Year at the Streamer Awards, gaming creator TheBurntPeanut ended January as the top streamer on Twitch with 11 million watch hours.
How he got here: TheBurntPeanut started streaming in 2019 with a facecam, but gained traction in 2024 when he switched to his VTuber persona, taking the form of a talking peanut.
Starting 2025 with under 300K followers, he grew to a fanbase of 1.8 million by playing ARC Raiders and Escape from Tarkov.
In January, TheBurntPeanut led other gaming creators including Asmongold and Hasan Piker by over 2 million watch hours, according to Streams Charts.
Worth noting: TheBurntPeanut has received allegations of viewbotting, given the large discrepancy between his views and other streamers’ in such a short amount of time. TheBurntPeanut has denied those claims.
👀 Creator Jobs
Crochet creator TL Yarn Crafts is hiring a creative editor for short- and long-form video.
Morning Brew is looking for a freelance thumbnail designer to work across its YouTube channels.
Alex and Leila Hormozi are hiring an LA-based video editor experienced in long-form and willing to travel to Las Vegas.
🔥 Press Worthy
Podcast media company Goalhanger gets an investment from The Chernin Group.
Amelia Dimoldenberg directs a music video for singer-songwriter Maisie Peters starring comedian Benito Skinner.
Apple Creator Studio brings the best creative apps for film, music, design, and more together in one subscription.*
Markiplier’s Iron Lung earned $6.2 million from nearly 3k theaters over the weekend—totaling $31.2 million since its debut last week.
The Try Guys move all 2nd Try YouTube membership videos to a new channel.
Motorsport creator Cleetus McFarland is competing in a NASCAR race.
Dropout releases the first two seasons of its game show Game Changer on Blu-Ray.
*This is sponsored content
