Good morning. Yesterday, Sean Evans announced that K-pop boy band BTS will be this week’s Hot Ones guests.

We see two options: the wings either go down “smooth like butter” or the episode will be explosive like dynamite.

— Hannah Doyle & Syd Cohen

Today’s lineup:

1. MrBeast reaches 1M viewers on his livestream
2. How an animation channel funds production through live events
3. Technoblade’s father launches a new channel

What is the sum of 50 top streamers, a three-hour livestream, and $1.5 million in giveaway cash? If you thought one million concurrent viewers on Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson’s latest livestream, you’d be correct.

The details: 

After YourRAGE’s victory, he started a livestream on his own channel, where over 200K viewers tuned in—nearly double his previous viewership record. He gave $150K to his Twitch moderators, with the rest going to random viewers.

Zoom out: This was MrBeast’s highest-viewed stream since his 100 million subscriber special in 2022, and one of the highest-viewed livestreams by a single creator on YouTube. Spanish streamer Ibai currently holds the record for most concurrent viewers, at 9 million. For reference, NASA’s Artemis II launch received 4 million concurrent viewers on YouTube last week.

How we see it: Livestreaming, from niche-casting to multi-city tours, is growing in popularity. Why the boom now? Some strategists note that as AI content grows on platforms, live streaming is where creators are building trust.

Animated YouTube channel AnimationEpic celebrated 15 years last week with Inanimate Insanity, a nationwide theatrical event debuting new episodes for fans across 40+ Regal Cinemas.

The celebration was part of a greater IRL strategy, where events account for more than 50% of the channels’ revenue. We talked to AnimationEpic creator, Adam Katz, to hear how he built a channel around showing up in person.

How he got here→

But Katz didn’t just build online, he took it on the road. For the past eight years, AnimationEpic has partnered with animators Jacknjellify, the creators of YouTube channel BFDI, on live events.

Since 2024, they’ve gone on a nationwide tour, which has grown to make up 60% of AnimationEpic’s revenue, with merch and AdSense making up the rest. Last year's tour drew 25,000 attendees across six cities. 

The format is intentionally simple: unreleased episode screenings, live Q+A, meet and greet. No elaborate sets, which keeps production costs low and tickets at $40 per person.   

It works, Katz says, because long-form content builds the kind of devotion that translates offline. "The only way you're going to buy a figure of [a show] or go to a live event is because you care enough. And the only way to care enough is to watch hours of it.”

Big picture: As Hollywood struggles to greenlight animated TV series, creators like Katz are quietly building the infrastructure the industry says it wants: devoted fans and live experiences.

Last week, Technodad—father to the late Minecraft YouTuber Technoblade—launched Team Technoblade, a new channel devoted to unreleased videos, memes, and showcasing fan art. The channel hit 300K subscribers in the first four days since launch.

“This gives us a place to share new Technoblade content, while keeping his main channel a mostly untouched historical record,” Technodad said in the announcement video.

Inside the community: When Technoblade passed in 2022, his YouTube channel had 10 million subscribers, a number that has more than doubled since. His Discord server and subreddit have over 180K active users combined, where community members share memories and fan art.  

Lasting impact: There are certain creators who have had significant influence on their niches—like Emma Chamberlain’s signature vlog style or MKBHD’s tech reviews. Over the past four years, Technoblade’s Minecraft community has not only honored the legacy he built, but actively worked to expand it.