YouTube Adds GIF Replies and Paid Fan Communities

NEW YORK: YouTube announced GIF replies, voice comments from TV screens, paid members-only communities and new ways for fans to spend money on creators at its Made on YouTube event on Wednesday, Sept. 23, TechCrunch reported the same day.

The comment features are a catch-up move. TechCrunch noted that YouTube's comments have lagged other social networks. TikTok recently let commenters reply to videos with their voice and add polls, photo carousels and Live Photos, while Spotify lets video podcasters run polls and Q&As.

Comments Arrive on the Living-Room Screen

Viewers can now reply with GIFs, and they can comment while watching on a TV. The TV version works by voice, so no one has to spell out "LOL" with a remote control, as YouTube put it.

The TV change is the more practical one. Typing with a remote is tedious, and that is the problem YouTube says voice input solves. It also means comments can now come from people watching on the biggest screen in the house.

Moderation Tuned to Each Channel

YouTube is also testing a comment moderation tool that adapts to each creator's preferences. The existing filter is one-size-fits-all, which is hard to manage on live streams where comments move fast. YouTube calls the new tool an "experiment" and has not explained how it works. Reuters, in a report carried by KSL.com, described it as opt-in AI moderation that adapts to creators' preferences.

Members-Only Spaces and Paid Hype

The money features build on Channel Memberships. Creators can now run paid, members-only communities where top fans post and start discussions with each other. YouTube will promote these on a new "channel memberships" page meant to help viewers find groups that match their interests.

Hype, which lets fans push smaller creators' videos up a leaderboard, is getting a paid layer called "Hype with Jewels." Until now fans could hype a video three times a week for free. They can now buy Jewels, a kind of virtual currency, to hype more often. Fans who do will have their handles added permanently to the video description. YouTube said viewers have hyped more than 75 million unique videos over 1 billion times so far.

Direct messaging will also support group chats in the next few months, with short raw video clips that users can share inside the conversation.

Creator Income Beyond Ads

These tools arrive as advertising is no longer the only way creators make a living, TechCrunch noted. Paid communities and Jewels give fans a direct way to pay, and they keep that spending inside YouTube.

Other platforms are pushing in the same direction. Meta has been expanding its subscription plans to reduce its reliance on advertising, and TikTok and Whatnot are growing livestream shopping in the U.S., another way creators earn money without ad revenue.

The community features were part of a wider launch that included A/B testing, live dubbing and AI-assisted editing. Reuters reported that YouTube will combine voice and facial detection in its likeness-protection tools and plans to expand its Shopping affiliate program to 35 countries by year-end, with more than 1.3 million creators already enrolled.

How much creators earn from Jewels and paid communities will decide whether these features stick. YouTube did not share pricing or revenue splits for either feature, and those numbers will matter more to creators than GIFs.