Bethany Allard

1 week ago | mashable.com | Bethany Allard

Nicole Rafiee has been around the block on YouTube. The 25 year-old creator made her first channel in middle school, and after deleting her channel a few times (she wasn't thrilled when her high school's football team found it), she started seriously posting to YouTube her sophomore year of college. These days, she'd have a lot more difficulty if she felt like deleting her channel when someone in her real life found it.

1 week ago | mashable.com | Bethany Allard

Affiliate links are a well-known part of the creator economy, especially for creators whose content revolves around unboxing videos, beauty tips, or product reviews. And thanks to YouTube Shopping, this can also be a really lucrative practice for creators. At VidCon 2025, creators Carter Kench, Christie Xie, and Ben Schlichter spoke about how they use YouTube Shopping to streamline the affiliate process, and how it's seriously paid off.

1 week ago | mashable.com | Bethany Allard

Cassey Ho started her YouTube channel so she could still instruct her Pilates class on the U.S. west coast after moving to the east coast. She thought the video she posted would be viewed by her 40 students, but instead she got thousands. Sixteen years later, Ho runs the direct-to-consumer brand Pop Flex, has a clothing brand in Target stores, and boasts 10.8 million subscribers on her YouTube channel, Blogilates.

1 week ago | mashable.com | Bethany Allard

YouTube isn't the same website it was 20 years ago, and creators Hank Green, Rosanna Pansino, and Dr. Sandra Lee (aka Dr. Pimple Popper) know that better than most. The three creators, who have been on the platform for 18, 15, and 14 years, respectively, reflected on how their process and understanding of content creation has evolved over the years during their VidCon 2025 panel "YouTube Legends: The OG Creators Who Paved the Way." "Being an OG creator just means you're a fighter," Pansino said.

1 week ago | me.mashable.com | Bethany Allard |Lauren Allain

UPDATE: Jun. 16, 2025, 12:07 PM EDT This post has been updated with new photos, plus more information following our initial testing of the Sleep A30 earbuds. PREORDER NOW: Preorder the new Anker Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds for $159 on Kickstarter, down $70.99 from their full release price of $229.99. That's a 31% discount to score the new earbuds with upgraded features like active noise cancellation. The earbuds are set to begin shipping before August.