The Horror Of YouTube

PRESENTED BY QUINCE

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Horror-focused creators have racked up huge engagement on YouTube, and that popularity is now spilling into Hollywood success.

The Big Picture: Horror has become one of the most reliably successful genres of entertainment across every media format. But considering the content of the content, ad-driven online platforms may not have the infrastructure to best support these creators… making them look for opportunities elsewhere.

Behind The Scenes: YouTube has become the internet’s version of the campfire — a digital space for scary storytelling fueled by horror shorts, paranormal investigations, and found-footage content.

But its top creators are now looking for greener pastures.

Closing Credits: YouTube has been buttoning up monetizable content on its platform in an effort to attract more and more high-quality advertisers… but doing so has kept horror creators from making anywhere near as much money as other types of creators who have equally large followings. Add in age-restriction warnings, and the ability for videos to get recommended for YouTube’s discovery algorithm becomes increasingly tricky. If YouTube wants to cater to horror creators better, expect the platform to roll out specific ad strategies or content hubs that benefit the genre.

Go Deeper: YouTube has been the gateway for Hollywood to find horror talent for years — look no further than the career of Lights Out and Shazam director David F. Sandberg.

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LinkedIn’s freelancer-focused Services Marketplace has exploded in growth, putting the job-focused social platform on a path to become a key marketplace for work.

Why It Hits: As several white-collar industries continue to shed employees en masse as interest rates remain stubbornly high, hundreds of thousands of people are looking for work… and when they can’t land full-time jobs, they’re resorting to freelance work to piece together a living.

Between The Resumes: LinkedIn may be the center of the job-hunting universe.

The Future: According to TechCrunch, more than 100,000 people have been laid off from just the tech industry. That means a lot of people are looking for work, turning to LinkedIn and competing platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. Services Marketplace is still a small business for LinkedIn, but it is driving sign-ups for its Premium subscription tier (which is heavily used to draw more interest from job seekers). If hiring doesn’t pick up in a meaningful way, expect many people to start building careers by piecing together freelance jobs… whether they want to or not.

77.5% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Are you interested in using an avatar to attend a Zoom meeting on your behalf?

“Yeah, okay. I’m gonna give a company everything they need to deepfake me. GTFOH.”

“If you send your avatar to a meeting with me, I’m immediately hanging up.”

“I’m just not comfortable handing over control of my voice and likeness to any business. Certainly not for the sake of a few seconds of Zoom messaging.”

“This is so weird.”

“I’m not much of a people person, and I’m shy. This would help a lot.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🎞️ Legendary Entertainment is in advanced talks to buy Dalian Wanda Group out of its stake in the company… effectively ending the once-lucrative China-Hollywood relationship.

📺 Netflix has tapped John Mulaney to host a new live variety talk show after the success of Everybody’s In LA.

⚽ The Arnault family, the royalty behind LVMH, are set to team up with Red Bull to buy the Paris FC soccer team.

🎥 Filmmaker Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) partnered with Apple to make the first short film designed specifically for the Vision Pro.

🔥 OpenAI has to raise a lot of cash because they burn through a lot of cash — possibly tripling to $14 billion in just 2026.

🤑 Even PayPal is launching an advertising business, rolling it out across PayPal, Venmo, and Honey.

🤳 X is rolling out a new monetization strategy of paying Premium users for how much they engage with other Premium users.

🎉 Substack is entering the experience economy with a slate of IRL events.

🎮 Mark Zuckerberg is about to become a gaming livestreamer. Okay, then.