How YouTube Became the Operating System of Culture

The winner of the streaming wars appears to be YouTube. The platform now commands 13.1% of all U.S. TV screen time, outpacing Netflix at 8.7%, and reshaping what we even mean by television. 

 In just four years, YouTube has paid out more than $100B to creators, fueling an ecosystem of over 3M monetized channels, turning influencers into production studios. The ripple effect is cultural as much as commercial: Even major leagues like the NFL and NBA now collaborate directly with YouTube creators, and YouTube’s foray into sports broadcasting with its first exclusive live NFL game is further cementing its role as a competitor for live entertainment. 

 At the same time, YouTube is quietly becoming the operating system of modern culture. Its latest Culture & Trends report shows creator-originated products driving a growing share of in-app purchases, turning entertainment into retail infrastructure. And its biggest star, MrBeast (447M subscribers), just filed a trademark for Beast Financial, a creator-run banking platform for loans, credit cards, and financial literacy.  

 Even kids’ programming has fallen into YouTube’s orbit. “Bluey,” “Peppa Pig,” and “CoComelon” now dominate global streaming charts, effectively making YouTube the default destination for family entertainment. And with HBO Max being the latest streamer to raise prices, families are drifting toward platforms that feel infinite, participatory, and free. 

 But YouTube isn’t alone in this gravitational pull. Video has swallowed the internet. TikToks, podcasts, AI-generated clips, even Spotify loops…“everything is television.”  Video podcast consumption is growing 20 times faster than audio-only. Instagram recently confirmed it is testing a unified feed where Reels, Stories, and photos all live together—completing Instagram’s shift from static photo grid to endless video stream. TikTok, meanwhile, has become the new front page of culture, with one in five Americans getting their news through the app. An analysis of 15M TikTok feeds revealed no two users share the same viewing experience.  

 Instead of watching together, we’re watching alone, together.  

 Why it matters:  When every scroll is a show and every platform is a channel, attention becomes the only network that matters. Even as, in the words of Atlantic staff writer podcaster Derek Thompson, “You’re not supposed to watch it! The whole point is that it’s supposed to just be there, glowing.” For marketers, winning in today’s media landscape means treating YouTube as both marketplace and medium: pairing data-driven media strategy with creator partnerships that carry narrative depth. 

 Other news and trends 

• Trending on TikTok: Group 7. TikTok’s latest viral moment began as a marketing experiment and ended as a full-blown cultural event. Singer Sophia James posted seven nearly identical clips promoting her song “So Unfair,”  each labeled a different “group.” The seventh—“If you’re watching this, you’re in Group 7”—exploded to nearly 20 million views, birthing an entire online subculture. Fans declared allegiance with top comments like: “I hereby declare Group 7 is the most elite group,” and brands like Aveeno dropped comments like “I heard group 7 has really great skin…” Very quickly, celebs, creators, and brands joined in: Madelyn Cline, Brooklyn and Bailey, Barbara Corcoran, Naomi Osaka, the Kansas City Chiefs, Spindrift, and Cameo all self-identified as Group 7 members. #Group7 has now surpassed 60K posts, joining viral canon alongside “6–7,” another inside joke that signals who’s online and gets it. 

• Monday’s AWS outage. A massive Amazon Web Services outage briefly broke the web this week, disrupting platforms like Facebook, Zoom, and Slack before systems were restored. The issue stemmed from DNS failures in AWS’s eastern U.S. data centers, highlighting the fragility of the cloud infrastructure that powers much of modern life. This breakdown underscored how dependent the digital economy has become on a few centralized systems and how a single server glitch can expose the illusion of a truly decentralized web. 

• Trending tonight on X: NBA’s return. NBA IS BACK is trending on X, with over 30k posts ahead of the league’s 80th season tip-off tonight. This year marks another shift in the TV landscape: The sport is entering streaming in an 11-year media deal with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon, with games airing weekly on Peacock and Prime Video alongside ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer service. (This officially ends TNT’s two-decade run.) Opening night features the Rockets vs. Thunder and Warriors vs. Lakers matchups, marking the league’s first season built for a multiplatform streaming era.  

• Black Mold Goes Viral.  “Black mold” is the latest topic overtaking wellness feeds, with creators and everyday users documenting mysterious symptoms they attribute to toxic mold exposure. The trend has evolved into a full-fledged online ecosystem (one part health panic, one part self-help movement) drawing millions of views on platforms like TikTok. At the same time, creators are using the moment to critique the wellness ecosystem itself, calling out how easily “healing” content can slide into extremism. Some are labeling it the “psychedelic-to-fascist pipeline,” a reflection of how wellness rhetoric can mutate in algorithmic environments. 

Contributors: Chief Social & Innovation Officer Cristina Lawrence, Senior Vice President Jerry Lawrence, Group Vice President Andrew McKernan, and Senior Vice President Tammy Pepito. At Razorfish, we help brands define their higher purpose—the emotional reason why they belong in people’s lives. Ready to find your purpose? Learn more here.