When a YouTuber reaches 500,000 subscribers, it marks a significant turning point for their channel.
According to Bangaly Kaba, a director of product management at YouTube, this milestone often triggers both a surge in growth and revenue.
“We saw disproportionate growth in earnings,” Kaba says, “even though most of our creators are smaller than this size.”
Larger channels tend to attract more views, which leads to more recommendations, further increasing views and revenue, creating a self-reinforcing cycle.
In an effort to foster growth for smaller channels, YouTube has introduced a new feature called Hype.
This is a promotional tool designed to help people discover and share new creators. Unlike the existing “Trending” feature, which highlights popular content, Hype focuses on smaller channels and videos that users actively recommend rather than those they simply watch.
Hype introduces a new button for users to promote a video, and the most hyped videos are featured on a platform-wide leaderboard.
Since early 2023, YouTube has been developing Hype as part of a broader initiative to build stronger communities within the platform.
As highlighted during YouTube’s “Made on YouTube” event in New York City, “community” was the key theme of the day.
Kaba explains that user feedback indicated viewers wanted to feel more involved in the creative process.
“Some of the research told us that viewers want to influence the creative process,” he notes, “and they also want to contribute to the conversation.” Users expressed a desire for features like Cameo-style videos and Q&A sessions with creators.
More than anything, fans wanted a way to actively support their favorite creators. There’s an appeal to being an early advocate for something new and exciting, allowing viewers to feel invested in the content they promote.
In a digital landscape where viewers and creators often overlap—through features like duets, stitches, and remixes—it made sense for YouTube to offer fans a way to contribute to the growth of their favorite channels.
“We really wanted to allow the fans to lean in as community members to help support their favorite creators,” Kaba says.
At the same time, more casual YouTube viewers expressed a common desire: the ability to discover content that wouldn’t typically be recommended by YouTube’s algorithm.
Hype is intended to be the solution, balancing the needs of viewers, creators, and fans alike.
The mechanics of Hype are intentionally complex. Only videos published within the last seven days are eligible to be hyped, and they must come from channels with fewer than 500,000 subscribers.
Each user is limited to three hypes per week, and each hype contributes points to a video’s overall score.
Crucially, the points a video earns are weighted inversely to the size of the creator’s channel, meaning smaller channels have a better chance to rise to the top of the leaderboard.
YouTube has implemented this system to prevent large channels from dominating the leaderboard. The top 100 videos with the most points will appear on the leaderboard, which is country-specific.
Over time, YouTube plans to personalize the Hype section for each user, using data on which smaller videos are gaining popularity across different genres.
Although Hype won’t directly influence YouTube’s traditional algorithm, hyped videos may start appearing in a dedicated section of the recommendation feed.
Kaba also hinted that filters and topic-specific leaderboards may be added to the Hype feature in the future.
The aim of this intricate system is to keep the leaderboard dynamic and give users a sense of ownership over the content they promote.
“There’s a certain beauty in showing the things people have gone above and beyond to say they want to spend hype points on,” says Kristen Stewart, Hype’s interaction designer.
“It sends a signal that this content truly matters to people.” At the same time, YouTube has taken steps to ensure the system isn’t exploited—acknowledging that leaderboards are often vulnerable to gaming by users.
By limiting the number of hypes per user, each hype becomes a much stronger endorsement than a simple “like,” and there’s no option to “un-hype” a video.
When you hype a video, the platform will display how many points it has accumulated and whether it has made it onto the leaderboard.
At the end of each week, users will receive a report, similar to Spotify Wrapped, detailing the performance of the videos they hyped.
Additionally, YouTube has introduced badges to reward early adopters of popular videos or those who consistently hype content that ends up on the leaderboard.
“We’re thinking about all the things we can do to celebrate the people who are impactful hypers,” Stewart adds.
For creators, Hype offers an opportunity to engage with their most dedicated fans, ease the burden of self-promotion, and monetize their viewer base.
Every time a video is hyped, the creator receives a monetary bonus, though the exact amount is not disclosed.
Both Kaba and Stewart have also mentioned the possibility of introducing paid hypes, which would allow users to purchase additional hypes beyond their weekly limit, with the proceeds being shared with creators.
“The default is always going to be free until you run out of hypes,” Stewart says, showing a prototype of what a paid hype option might look like. “After that, we’ll show you the option to hype for $2.”
Initially, Hype will function as a separate feature within YouTube, but it is expected to gradually spread across the platform.
YouTube’s vast and increasingly crowded ecosystem makes it more difficult than ever for new creators to break through.
As YouTube looks to nurture the next generation of stars like MrBeast, it is crucial to find ways for smaller creators to grow without simply tweaking the algorithm to favor them over established channels.
Hype offers YouTube the chance to balance what already works while also exploring new possibilities for growth.
