SUBtember 2025, YouTube Expands Hype, Kai Cenat Mafiathon 3 + Rolling Stone Top 25

Hi! Welcome to September, the first day of SUBtember, and Labour Day in Canada. I'd love to write a longer intro today. It feels like it's been a while since I have... but I was away from Thursday and No Man's Sky dropped a new update - so I'm thinking I'll play that for the rest of the day! As such, let's jump right into all the updates from the last week!

🟪 TWITCH

• SUBtember has officially started. If you're feeling generous and want to support my work, sub to my channel!
• An active test will allow people to gift Twitch Turbo to other users.
• Twitch indefinitely paused further 4K testing and is instead focusing on the 2K experience.
• Twitch Combos now have sound effects enabled by default. You can control them and other sounds via Activity Feed.
• A Russian court fined Twitch ~$767,000 for violating local internet regulations.
• Ad revenue experienced a major issue in the EU and AP regions. It should be fixed, but it likely resulted in significantly lower earnings during that time.
• Twitch is advertising in London's Picadilly Circus.

🟥 YOUTUBE

• YouTube expanded the Hype function to more countries, including Canada, the UK, and Australia.
• Select vertical live streamers in the USA will soon be able to set Gift Goals.
• YouTube is working on the ability to opt out of AI deblurring/denoising in Shorts. The BBC reported on this use of AI.

⬛ TIKTOK

• TikTok has suspended live streaming in Indonesia amid anti-government protests.
• TikTok owner ByteDance sets its valuation at $330 billion.

🟦 DISCORD & TWITTER X

• Discord may be adding the ability to rent game servers with Boosts.
• Discord is working on a new design for user settings.
• You may soon be able to put select menus in Bot modals on Discord.

🔲 OTHERS

• France is suing Kick for alleged negligence over the livestreamed death of Raphael Graven.
• Kick has picked a Maltese representative, days after the livestream death.
• The State of California is also reportedly suing Stake for running an illegal casino and false advertising, and Kick for aiding and abetting them.