YouTube Rolls Out ‘Hype’ Feature To Boost Emerging Creators

YouTube is stepping up its efforts to support emerging creators with the global rollout of its newest community-driven feature, Hype. First unveiled during Google’s Made On YouTube event in 2024, the feature is now officially live across 39 countries, including major markets like the US, UK, India, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia.

At its core, Hype is about giving fans a more active role in helping creators grow. It introduces a new button positioned just below the familiar “like” button on eligible videos that allows viewers to “hype” content from creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers. Fans can hype up to three videos each week for free, and each hype contributes points that help the video rise on a newly introduced, country-specific Explore leaderboard. This leaderboard highlights trending content from smaller creators, giving their work greater visibility and a better chance of being discovered by new audiences.

What makes Hype particularly meaningful is its built-in focus on fairness. YouTube has made it clear that the system is designed to give smaller creators a bigger boost. In practice, this means the fewer subscribers a creator has, the more weight each hype carries. It’s an intentional move by YouTube to level the playing field, especially in a platform that often favours large, established channels when it comes to visibility and algorithmic reach.

YouTube developed the Hype feature after noticing that fans want to do more than just watch videos; they want to be part of a creator’s journey. Viewers are increasingly looking for ways to actively support the channels they care about and feel that their involvement makes a real difference. Hype turns that desire into action by giving fans a tool to help creators gain visibility. Building on this idea, YouTube plans to introduce paid hypes in the coming months, allowing fans to purchase extra hypes beyond the free weekly limit. This not only gives audiences more ways to show support but also opens up a new source of revenue for the platform.

For creators, Hype comes with its own set of tools. In the YouTube Studio mobile app, creators can now track their Hype engagement through a dedicated Hype card. They'll also receive weekly recaps in their analytics dashboard, offering clear insights into how their videos are performing and where Hype is making an impact.

YouTube is also working on interest-based hype leaderboards that focus on specific categories like gaming, fashion, music, or lifestyle. These niche rankings will make it easier for fans to find rising stars within the topics they care about, while giving creators more targeted exposure.

The Hype feature is part of YouTube’s broader push to build a more creator-friendly ecosystem. It complements other recent initiatives like AI-powered dubbing, which helps content reach global audiences; the Inspiration Tab, which gives creators personalised content ideas; and live stream gifting, a feature that allows fans to support creators during real-time broadcasts.