YouTube has recently unveiled its innovative ‘Hype’ feature, designed to empower fans in promoting their favorite creators. This exciting development is now available worldwide, as announced by the platform on Tuesday. Initially revealed during the Made On YouTube event in 2024, this feature introduces a dedicated button located beneath the traditional ‘like’ button, specifically for videos from creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers.
The rollout of this feature spans across 39 countries, including major markets such as the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, and India.
Fans can now support their preferred creators by hyping up to three videos each week. This action contributes points to the videos, enhancing their visibility on a newly established leaderboard that users can access through the Explore menu. To ensure fairness, YouTube has implemented a system where smaller creators receive a more significant boost, meaning that the fewer subscribers a creator has, the greater the advantage they gain when fans hype their content.
Videos that benefit from this fan-driven boost will feature a distinctive ‘hyped’ badge. Additionally, users can customize their Home feed to display only videos categorized as ‘hyped.’ When a video they have hyped approaches the leaderboard, YouTube will send notifications to those who participated in hyping it. Enthusiastic supporters can also earn a ‘hype star’ badge each month as a token of appreciation for their engagement.
YouTube’s motivation behind introducing the Hype feature stems from recognizing the desire of dedicated fans to contribute to a creator’s journey. Furthermore, this initiative presents YouTube with a potential new revenue stream, as the platform has plans to allow fans to purchase additional ‘hypes’ to further elevate their favorite videos in the future. Currently, paid hypes are being tested in select markets, including Brazil and Turkey.
In the coming months, YouTube is also working on developing specialized hype leaderboards tailored to specific interests, such as gaming and fashion, along with features that enable fans to share their hyping activities.
Creators will have the ability to monitor their hypes and hype points through the YouTube Studio mobile app, where they can also access a new Hype card in their video analytics and review their performance in weekly data summaries.
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