Entertainment
KSI Leaves Sidemen
KSI announced this week that he is leaving the Sidemen after 13 years. A spokesperson confirmed that the announcement was real, not a staged stunt for entertainment or a temporary promotional bit. Despite early fan speculation that it might be a stunt or part of a bit, the announcement was confirmed as real by multiple major news organizations. In a statement, KSI said that he would no longer produce Sidemen videos or appear in the group’s regular content. In the video he posted on YouTube, KSI called the announcement the hardest video he had ever made and said he had been considering the decision for months before he shared it publicly with his audience and the other members.
KSI, whose real name is Olajide Olatunji, was one of the original members of the Sidemen. Born in London in 1993 to British-Nigerian parents, he began uploading videos to YouTube in 2008, initially focusing on commentary for the FIFA game series. The name “KSI” comes from a Halo clan he was a member of. Olatunji met other Sidemen members (Joshua “Zerkaa” Bradley, Simon “Miniminter” Minter, Tobi “TBJZL” Brown, Vikram “Vikkstar123” Barn, Harry “Wroetoshaw” Lewis and Ethan “Behzinga” Payne) in school. The name “Sidemen” comes from a GTA Online group that all future Sidemen members were in (except Wroetoshaw).
KSI dropped out of school around 2011 to focus on YouTube content full-time. He appeared in most of the group’s high-profile videos since Sidemen officially formed in 2013, helping the collective become one of the most prominent YouTube groups in the UK. The Sidemen’s group channel has more than 23 million YouTube subscribers and was reportedly the fastest YouTube channel to reach one million subscribers. Individual member channels and social media pages also have subscribers and followers in the millions.
KSI’s career has included multiple controversial incidents. He was accused of sexual harassment of female staff at a Eurogamer event in 2012, was dropped by Microsoft and was banned from future Eurogamer events. In March 2021, he apologized for using transphobic slurs in past videos, stating he did not know the word was offensive. In April 2023, he apologized for using a racial slur and took a break from social media.
KSI works across multiple fields beyond Sidemen videos and merchandise. He has fought as a professional boxer and appeared in films and on television. He has served as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent, starting as a guest judge in 2025 and becoming a full-time judge for series 19. He has released multiple charting albums. His business ventures include Prime Hydration with Logan Paul, launched in 2022, and Lunchly, a lunch-kit brand founded with MrBeast and Logan Paul in 2024.
The Sidemen posted a statement on Instagram saying they were sad to share the news and that KSI had decided not to continue as part of the group. They did not mention a replacement or a revised lineup at the time of the announcement. KSI said the decision was not the result of a conflict with the other members and that he still views them as “friends for life”, but later reports indicated that some of the remaining members were upset about the exit and the timing of the announcement. When asked about the departure, Sidemen member Miniminter confirmed the news during a livestream, but did not elaborate further. Regarding his decision, KSI explained that his work in music, boxing, television appearances, and business ventures had become too demanding to sustain alongside regular Sidemen content and the group’s scheduled production cycle.
Fans reacted on social media with disbelief and confusion, and many posts framed the announcement as a joke or a temporary stunt before the news was confirmed. KSI responded to the reaction by saying he is not leaving YouTube and that he will continue to create content outside the Sidemen, which suggests he is shifting his focus rather than abandoning the platform or the public eye. The Sidemen have not announced how they will adjust their content without KSI or his creative input.
KSI’s departure ends a long period in which he functioned as one of the most visible members of the group He will continue his work in music, sports, television, and business outside of the collective. The announcement does not indicate that the relationship between KSI and the other members has ended or that future collaborations will be impossible. CNN reported that the group remains active with the six remaining members.
The Sidemen Charity Match and other group projects have not been canceled, and the group has not said whether KSI will appear in any future events as a guest or special participant. The announcement on May 31 serves as the official end of his regular participation, and no further video or statement has been released to change that position.
Entertainment
Alza Microdrama Festival Lands NYC’s First Creator Award
New York’s Made in NY Award has honored film and TV talent for twenty years. This October, the Alza Microdrama Festival will hand it to a content creator for the first time.
For twenty years, New York City’s Made in NY Award has gone to people who work in film and television. Directors. Actors. Producers. This October, for the first time, one will go to a content creator.
The Alza Festival, billed by its founders as the first premium U.S. festival dedicated to microdrama, announced a partnership Wednesday with the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. The deal covers its October 16 to 18 debut. The Hollywood Reporter reported it. The partnership launches a new civic program called Created in NY, and it extends the city’s Made in NY Award to a creator for the first time.
That extension is the story. The award turns a platform-native format into something the traditional entertainment establishment now recognizes. It comes with a government stamp. Microdrama, the ultra-short vertical series built for a phone screen, has spent its short life as an algorithm phenomenon. A city award places it on the festival circuit. That is where the film and TV work New York has always claimed lives too.
What the City Is Backing
The Created in NY program runs educational panels and workshops. It adds a showcase screening block for program finalists. Then comes the Made in NY Award itself. The festival around it will carry premieres and screenings of microdramas, industry conversations, networking events, masterclasses and brand activations across three days.
Rafael Espinal, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, framed the move as a bet on who comes next. “New York has always defined what’s next in media, and vertical storytelling is no exception,” he said in the announcement.
The office created the Made in NY Award in 2006 for film and television. Its ceremony sat on hiatus for a decade. It returned last year at Gracie Mansion.
From Algorithm to Audience
Alza comes from Pete Torres, a former COO of the Tribeca Festival, who serves as founder and CEO. His co-founders are Rita Vinnik, a former TikTok creator initiatives lead, and Katie Korfhage, a former Tribeca vice president of development. Korfhage is now COO of the live events company producing the festival.
Torres has been direct about the gap he set out to fill. “Vertical storytelling has evolved into one of the fastest-growing forms of entertainment in the world, yet until now it hasn’t had a dedicated cultural home,” he said. His shorthand for what a festival changes: “Alza is where creators move from algorithms to audiences, and where brands can participate in culture in a more meaningful way.”
The commercial case sits underneath the civic one. The format originated in Asia, particularly China, before moving into the U.S. fast. Deadline reported the genre is estimated to make annual global revenues of between $20 billion and $30 billion by 2030. A festival gives that money a room, a stage and a red carpet.
The founders have opened a call for submissions.
New York already hands its cultural blessing to the industries it wants to keep. The Made in NY Award has marked film and TV as the city’s business since 2006. Now it adds a creator to that list. It does so in the same building where the ceremony returned. The city now counts vertical storytelling among its own.
The winner will be named across the October 16 to 18 run. The first creator to hold a Made in NY Award does not exist yet. The door the city just opened does.
Entertainment
Kareem Rahma Walks From CNN, Debuts His Show on YouTube
CNN sat on Kareem Rahma’s cab-driver series for seven months. He took it to YouTube’s biggest ad-sales night instead, and a sitting mayor explained why that matters.
The pitch was a comedian riding shotgun with New York’s yellow cab drivers, asking them to take him to the place they love most. Deadline reported that CNN held that show, Kareem Rahma‘s Keep the Meter Running, in development for seven months with no greenlight in sight.
So Rahma took it and left.
The comedian and creator walked away from the CNN deal and premiered the long-form series independently on YouTube, debuting it May 13 at the platform’s Brandcast Upfront. The choice to skip a legacy network and land on a creator stage is the whole story. A culturally specific show stalled inside a traditional pipeline, and its maker self-distributed it at the industry’s biggest ad-sales event for creators instead.
The CNN deal carried a requirement Rahma found confining: each episode had to run 45 minutes. On YouTube he set that aside. Episode runtimes now stretch and shrink with the story, from 12 minutes to 45.
“Some episodes are 45 minutes, and some episodes are 12 minutes, we’re not really concerned with having an exact runtime,” Rahma told Deadline.
Seven Months in Development, Then the Door
Rahma was direct about why he left. “I did the whole rigmarole with television, and it was a disaster,” he told Deadline. His exit line was shorter: “I don’t want to wait anymore. I walked away from the deal and decided to do it independently on YouTube.”
The series itself threads the American Dream through the people who drive its cars. Each episode follows Rahma into a New York yellow cab, riding with the driver to wherever they most want to go, with his own immigrant father’s story running underneath. Nine episodes were shot around New York City, with one shot internationally.
The runtime detail is not trivia. It marks the gap between what a network format demanded and what the work actually needed.
The Trust Layer Networks Cannot Buy
Axios framed the stakes in terms a media buyer would recognize, calling Rahma the trust layer for how urban, multicultural, under-45 people think about work and the American Dream, a constituency it described as one brand campaigns cannot reach the same way.
That reach is the asset CNN was sitting on. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who rode in an earlier preview episode of the show, put it plainly in a line Axios cited from the Wall Street Journal. “Kareem’s world, it’s the world that actually reaches my friends,” he said.
YouTube spent Brandcast making the same argument with figures. The platform told the room that viewers of organic creator content that mentions a brand are 13 times more likely to search for it and 5 times more likely to buy, per Axios.
The gatekeeper had a culturally specific show and a built-in audience for it, and moved too slowly to keep either. The platform that did move offered Rahma what the network would not: speed, runtime control, and a free front door to his own viewers.
The first episode is live on his channel now, free, the meter already running.
Entertainment
Caedrel Debuts at No. 1 on the Parasocial Streaming 100
The inaugural Parasocial Streaming 100 opens with a League of Legends co-streamer at No. 1 and a Surge 50 where chess players and shooter fans climb in the same week.
The first name on the first Parasocial Streaming 100 belongs to a man who does not play in the tournament he is winning viewers with. Caedrel, the British former League of Legends pro whose real name is Marc Robert Lamont, opens the franchise at No. 1, broadcasting from a co-stream setup while the game’s biggest teams fight on the main stage. Twitch has been his home since 2020.
Caedrel debuts atop the Parasocial Streaming 100 with 3.8 million hours watched and 74.7 thousand average concurrent viewers for the tracking week beginning June 29, according to Borealis, Parasocial’s creator intelligence platform. The edition is dated July 6. Every one of the 100 ranked names is a debut, because there is no week before this one to climb from.
Caedrel live on Twitch — MSI 2026 co-stream (tracking week 2026-06-29)
The timing is the story the numbers tell. The 2026 Mid-Season Invitational began June 28 in Daejeon, one day before the tracking week opened, and Caedrel’s co-stream ran with it. For an event-anchored creator, proximity to a live international tournament is the difference between a strong week and the top of a chart. That is the commercial lesson the inaugural edition hands the creator economy on day one: for co-streamers, the tournament calendar is the business model.
The Co-Stream Became the Main Feed
Caedrel led all League of Legends co-streamers in the first quarter of 2026, generating 19.56 million hours watched on Twitch, nearly double his nearest rival, Esports Charts reported. That is not a one-week spike. It is a lead measured over three months.
His reach is a habit audiences built over years, one tournament at a time.
A co-stream, once the secondary way to watch a match, has become the primary one for a large share of English-speaking fans. The Parasocial Streaming 100 puts a number on that shift in its very first week, and the number sits at the top of the chart rather than somewhere in the field.
The Surge 50 Runs on Origin Stories
The companion chart, the Parasocial Streaming Surge 50, measures velocity rather than raw size, and its differentiator is the origin story behind each climb. This week the top of the Surge 50 spreads across game verticals that rarely share a leaderboard, Borealis data shows.
YoDa opens the velocity chart at No. 1. Behind that debut sits a chess cluster that would have looked improbable on a streaming chart a few years ago. Anna Cramling, the Spanish-Swedish chess player, enters at No. 2, and the sisters behind BotezLive, Alexandra and Andrea Botez, land at No. 5. Chess as a Twitch spectator sport is young; a velocity chart with two of its faces near the top marks how fast that audience is compounding.
The shooter scene fills the other seats. Polish CS2 co-streamer IzakOOO debuts at No. 3, the Canadian speedrunner SmallAnt sits at No. 6, and Mixwell, the Spanish former pro, enters at No. 8 while co-streaming Valorant at the Esports World Cup. Like Caedrel, Mixwell is riding a live event, the Surge 50’s quiet echo of the story at the top of its sister chart.
Chess players and shooter co-streamers surging in the same tracking week is the Surge 50’s argument for existing.
What the First Edition Establishes
Borealis logged no top movers this edition, no Hot Shot Debut, no Greatest Gainer, because those designations need a prior week to measure against. The inaugural chart is a starting line, not a race result.
Next week the movement begins.
MSI 2026 runs deeper into July, and Caedrel’s co-stream runs with it. The second edition will show whether the tournament calendar carried him to the top or whether the No. 1 spot has an occupant who intends to stay there once the main stage goes dark.
