YouTube is taking its new “Hype” feature global, giving fans another way to support their favorite creators and help them reach a wider audience.
The feature, first previewed at Google’s Made On YouTube event in 2024, adds a new button placed just under the like button. It’s currently available to creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers and is rolling out across 39 countries, including the U.S., U.K., Japan, Korea, India, and Indonesia. With Hype, viewers can promote up to three videos each week.
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Every hype gives the video points, which determine its ranking on a new leaderboard in YouTube’s Explore tab. To level the playing field, YouTube says smaller creators will get an extra boost from each hype. Videos that receive this fan-powered push will carry a “hyped” badge, and users can even filter their Home feed to show only hyped content.
Fans will also get alerts when a video they supported is close to entering the leaderboard. As part of the system, loyal fans can earn a monthly “hype star” badge, while creators can track their hype activity directly from the YouTube Studio mobile app, which now includes a dedicated Hype card and weekly recap. YouTube says it built Hype after seeing how much fans wanted to play an active role in their favorite creators’ success.
But it also signals a new way for YouTube to make money, the company is already testing paid hypes in Brazil and Turkey, which let users buy extra boosts for creators. In the future, YouTube also plans to introduce interest-based leaderboards, such as for gaming or fashion, and give fans the option to share when they hype a video.
