Christmas is officially here, but who is on our Passionfruit Naughty and Nice list this week? TikTok is trying desperately to get off the Naughty List, petitioning the Supreme Court to delay their looming ban.
MrBeast might also be on the Naughty List for how his new Beast Games show was run. But platforms like YouTube are on the Nice List for letting creators opt out of AI companies’ training using their videos. As for the rest of them, we’ll leave you with this round-up so you can decide for yourselves—but don’t forget to leave out cookies and milk for your favorite creator economy publication.
TikTok’s Last Chance Saloon
Remember that emergency injunction we talked about last week? Well, the federal Appeals Court rejected it. TikTok filed this proposed injunction to temporarily pause the app’s potential incoming ban on Jan. 19.
The reason for wanting to pause this ban is simple: to give the Supreme Court a chance to consider TikTok’s legal case. The company has (unsuccessfully) argued that banning TikTok will violate American users’ First Amendment rights.
With rejection after rejection, TikTok is doing all it can to keep its head above water. After being rejected by the federal appeals court, TikTok CEO Shou Chew visited Donald Trump, and TikTok took its appeal to delay the ban to the Supreme Court.
As of Dec. 18, the Supreme Court has confirmed that it will hear the arguments over whether the “ban or sell” TikTok law is constitutional. It may well be the last chapter in this ongoing saga.
You can read the full articles here and here.
What To Do If TikTok Gets Banned
Suppose TikTok is banned. What do we do then? Passionfruit reporter Steven Asarch’s article poses this question and predicts the possible outcomes of this extremely uncertain time. If TikTok is banned, Asarch predicts “a massive hole in the market” both financially and culturally.
There’s also the fairly unlikely scenario that TikTok is sold to a US-based investor, like Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick and billionaire Frank McCourt. If this happens, the app will be without its iconic algorithm, which will lead to the app losing “at least some of its charm.”
While there are always Reels and YouTube Shorts, they don’t have quite the same je ne sais quoi as TikTok. As we face losing TikTok, we strongly advise users to back up their content.
Read more advice and commentary from the article here.
The Best AI Podcast Clip Generator
If you’re a certified yapper, podcasts might be perfect for you. If you want to make a decent one, scripting, recording, and editing the episodes will take a lot of time and effort. In turn, you might find that you lack the time to properly promote the podcast.
However, in such a saturated market, high-quality advertising for your podcast is crucial. The good news is AI can help with this. Specifically, AI podcast clip generators. These tools purport to cherry-pick the most interesting parts from your podcast and turn them into engaging promo clips.
As Rachel Kiley explained, using an AI clip generator has several advantages, including increased efficiency, more optimized advertising, and increased revenue opportunities.
To find out more, read the article here.
YouTubers Can Now Choose Whether They Want AI To Train Using Their Videos
As of Dec. 16, YouTube creators get to choose whether their videos are used to train AI models. This setting, which is available to those creators with access to YouTube Studio, automatically opts users out of having their videos trained on AI.
By accessing the YouTube Studio Content Manager, creators can either opt-in to having their videos trained by AI or opt-in to only having certain companies training their videos. These companies include AI21 Labs, Adobe, Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, ByteDance, Cohere, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, Perplexity, Pika Labs, Runway, Stability AI, and xAI.
“We see this as an important first step in supporting creators and helping them realize new value for their YouTube content in the AI era,” YouTube spokesperson Bob said in the blog post.
You can find out more about the feature here.
MrBeast Has Had a Very Tiring Week
While the release of the series has been shrouded in controversy, MrBeast is pulling out all the stops to ensure that Amazon’s Beast Games, which was released on Dec. 19, is a success.
He’s popped up in Times Square, teamed up with influencers for a “brain rot medley,” enlisted the FaZe Clan to help with a $100,000 briefcase challenge, and even returned to Twitch for the first time since 2019.
But despite his (arguably desperate) attempts to get noticed, none of this is Jimmy ‘MrBeast’ Donaldson’s most outrageous moments of the week. That accolade goes to the reports that he hired out the Pyramids of Giza for filming. Sure, this is for a completely separate project, but the timing is more than a little bit suspicious.
To read our full article about MrBeast’s campaign, click here.
Kai Cenat Named the Most-Watched Streamer Of 2024
For Kai Cenat, it looks like his Christmas wish has just come true. According to new figures by StreamsCharts, the creator was the most-watched streamer of 2024. He amassed a total of 184.5 million hours of watch time, putting him way ahead of Jynxi (77.08 million) and xQc (75.4 million).
Now than ever before, Cenat is blowing up. He’s become part of the NBA creator program and collaborated with a number of celebrities on streams, including Kevin Hart, Bill Nye, Snoop Dogg, and Serena Williams. As he shows no sign of slowing down, we have a feeling that this is just the start.
You can read the full article here.
Passionfruit on YouTube: Deep Linkers with Gamefully Unemployed
In the eighth episode of Deep Linkers, we were joined by Tom Reimann and David C Bell. Previously of Cracked.com, Reimann and Bell are the dynamic duo behind the Gamefully Unemployed podcast network, which focuses on movies and pop culture commentary.
Since then, they’ve kept growing, collaborating, and are now developing a product of their own. But how do they do it? What’s the secret to becoming a successful podcast creator, and navigating the creator economy? The pair will answer these questions and more in the episode linked above.
