Build Presents Sean Evans Discussing "Hot Ones"

Hot Ones host Sean Evans (J. Countess/Getty Images)

FIRE SALE

BuzzFeed just sold the owner of Hot Ones. What they sold it for will SHOCK you!

BuzzFeed’s debt is suffocating the company. Selling First We Feast comes just in time for the ailing digital empire.

12/13/24 9:11AM

What’s a successful YouTube channel worth?

Well, if it has more than 14 million subscribers, a hit hot-sauce line, and more than 4 billion views on YouTube... it could be as much as ~$80 million.

Winging it

BuzzFeed, the online purveyor of mind-numbing content such as “16 sassy tweets from the nation’s 16th largest school district,” just sold one of the few properties in its shrinking empire that’s still generating substantial buzz in 2024: the company behind YouTube hit interview show “Hot Ones.” In a statement on Thursday, BuzzFeed announced that it had completed an all-cash sale worth $82.5 million for the First We Feast brand to Soros Fund Management, with host Sean Evans named as one of the investors in the deal.

Though it’s been shopping the First We Feast brand around for months now, the sale going through at this point feels particularly pivotal for BuzzFeed, with the company on the hook for $124 million worth of debt and interest payments that were due this month, per Business Insider. While the deal might have burrowed the digital-media company out of (most) of its debt-shaped hole, it also marks the end of BuzzFeed’s affiliation with one of the buzziest interview platforms on the internet.

First We Feast YouTube subscribers — Sherwood News

There are multiple properties in the First We Feast stable, but “Hot Ones” — a show with “hot questions and even hotter wings” — is undoubtedly the jewel in the FWF YouTube crown. Indeed, the channel has seen its subscriber count soar, as everyone from Gordon Ramsay and Shaquille O’Neal to Tom Holland and Billie Eilish attempt to grin and bear their way through spicy wings and rigorously researched questioning. According to data from Social Blade, the channel counted a little over 550,000 subscribers in 2017. Now, almost eight years later, the figure sits at more than 14.2 million.

Millie Giles19h

The most popular male and female names in the US, according to the latest Census

New data published Tuesday by the US Census Bureau has revealed the most common names provided in the 2020 Census, in the first release to include forename data since 1990.

As described in the brief, Michael was the most popular name for males in the US, with roughly 3.5 million American men reporting having this name or a close variant. This is up from fourth place in the 1990 Census, when the top US male name was James — though there were still 3 million Jameses in 2020’s tally.

Despite a three-decade gap, Mary remained the top name for American females in both censuses, with the 2020 survey counting almost 1.8 million females with this given name. Interestingly, Mary was one of just two predominantly female names that broke the top 10 given names in the US, with the overall list dominated mostly by male monikers.

Most popular names US census 2020 chart — Sherwood News

In all, American females had far more first-name diversity than male counterparts: 16% of US males had one of the top 10 most frequent names among men, compared with 7.8% of women. Zooming out, almost 3x as many given names were needed to cover a quarter of the US female population than that of males.

Max Knoblauch & Tom Jones4/14/26

6 months after hiking Game Pass prices by 50%, Xbox determines it may be too expensive

Microsoft’s new Xbox chief, Asha Sharma, thinks the division’s recent price hikes have been a mistake, per an internal memo to employees seen by The Verge.

“Short term, Game Pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation,” Sharma’s memo reportedly read.

It’s an interesting take, given that Xbox hiked the price of its Game Pass subscription by 50% in October, before Sharma took over. The memo is a signal that Sharma’s tenure — which began in February, taking the industry by surprise — will include some big changes for Microsoft’s gaming strategy.

Whether Game Pass prices will drop is not yet clear. Last month, The Information reported that Sharma and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters have “kicked around ideas” about potential bundles. That would fit with Netflix’s renewed gaming ambitions.

Xbox Game Pass ‘has become too expensive,’ says Microsoft’s new gaming chief in leaked memo

Millie Giles

LIFELINE

4/14/26

Will a resolve to reduce screen time see a revival of landline telephones?

For parents trying to limit their kids’ exposure to smartphones, the answer could be yesterday’s tech.

Millie Giles

IN THE GREEN

4/13/26

Rory McIlroy just secured a second consecutive Masters title — and the biggest prize pot to date

Winning a sixth major title in the year of a record purse, McIlroy is now the Masters’ highest-earning golfer.

Max Knoblauch4/13/26

Roblox announces age-based accounts for young users as child safety lawsuits pile up

Roblox on Monday announced its first accounts created specifically for young children and teens, furthering its efforts to increase child safety on the platform.

In June, Roblox Kids (for ages 5 to 8) and Roblox Select (for ages 9 to 15) will roll out, following the company’s global launch of mandatory age checks in January.

The new account types will feature different default settings — chats will automatically be set to “off” on Kids accounts — and limit access to games of certain ratings depending on age.

Child safety lawsuits and social media bans are piling up for Roblox, whose shares have dropped more than 30% year to date. In February, Los Angeles County sued the platform, alleging it created a “largely unsupervised online world” in which “child predators can readily locate, contact, and interact with minors.”

Roblox Introduces New Age-Based Accounts and Expanded Parental Controls for Users Under 16

Roblox gaming platform says it is ready to make changes to get Russian ban lifted