YouTube’s ‘Hype’ feature that reinforces the smallest creators launched worldwide

YouTube’s “Hype” feature, which allows fans to help their favorite creators to be discovered, is released worldwide, the company announced Tuesday. It was first introduced to Google Made on YouTube in 2024, the feature – a special button appearing under the existing “Like” button – will be available in video by creators with less than 500,000 subscribers.

The feature is now available in 39 countries, including the US, the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, Indonesia and India.

Viewers have the opportunity to advertise up to three videos a week for a favorite creator. This gives the video points, which help to gain attraction to a new, ranking leaderboard that YouTube users can find in the Explore menu. To make Hyping Fair, YouTube says it will give the smaller creators more push. This means that if a creator has fewer subscribers, they will get a larger bonus when fans advertise their video.

The videos that have received this fan boost will display a “hypeed” signal and users can also filter their home to YouTube to only watch videos with the new “Hyped” category. When a video they have submitted is close to the leaderboard, YouTube will alert users who have helped to advertise it. Complete fans can show their support by gaining a new “Hype Star” signal every month, too.

YouTube said it introduced the advertising campaign because it saw that passionate fans wanted to be part of a creator’s success. However, the addition will also offer YouTube a new flow of revenue, as the company said it plans to let fans buy more “hypes” to help boost their favorite videos in the future. (Paid Hypes are currently Tested Brazil and Turkey for the time being, on YouTube told TechCrunch).

In general, YouTube also develops top advertising boards for specific interests, such as play and style, and a way for fans to share that they have just viewed a video.

Creators can watch Hypes and Hype on the Mobile YouTube Studio app and can check their details on a new advertising card and summarize their weekly data stories.