The Clippening

For The Verge, Mia Sato explains the super-short clips that saturate your TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube feeds—videos created by largely anonymous accounts whose sole job is to farm views from podcasts and viral content. “Hundreds or even thousands of clipping accounts might be sharing similar videos, all in competition with one another,” writes Sato. “It is the cartilage of the internet, the placeholders for the algorithm to suck in and spit out.” A depressing look at yet another force hollowing out the web.

On Vyro, another clipping service launched by MrBeast, Perplexity launched a campaign in early April centered around Joe Rogan’s use of AI. (Perplexity is a sponsor of Rogan’s show.) Clippers were instructed to make content based on Rogan discussing AI with guests like Bradley Cooper and Johnny Knoxville, with the AI company specifically mentioned. The campaign ran across Instagram and TikTok, paying $1.20 per one thousand views on a video — and came with more requirements. Accounts were required to have more than 10,000 followers to submit clips, and all posts were to include #PoweredByPerplexity and #sponsored (many clipping campaigns have no disclosures that the content is paid). Reached via email, Perplexity distanced itself from the clipping company, with spokesperson Jesse Dwyer saying Perplexity “has no knowledge” of Vyro and “takes any unauthorized use of the Perplexity name or logo very seriously.” When asked to confirm Perplexity had not run or authorized clipping campaigns, Dwyer stopped responding to The Verge. Vyro directed me to Evangelist, a platform that connects brands with clip farms, but the company declined to comment. If clips really are the standard for marketing — a tool that everyone uses, that is at this point old news — why the secrecy?