Headline Newds: A New Way to Talk Climate Change
Photo by Matt Palmer
Headline Newds launches on 7 April with a clear intention to disrupt how climate information circulates online. Produced by Yellow Dot Studios, the non-profit studio led by Adam McKay, places climate communication within creator-led platforms, using humour, provocation and direct-to-camera storytelling to reach audiences who have largely tuned out of traditional environmental coverage.
Fronted by Megan Prescott and co-created alongside filmmaker Bree Essrig and climate narrative strategist Jessica Riches, the project brings together experience across television, the creator economy and climate storytelling. Rather than asking viewers to seek out complex reporting, the series embeds bite-sized explainers within the spaces audiences already use to consume content.
Episodes will be released twice weekly throughout April across Instagram, OnlyFans and YouTube, including via the Yellow Dot channel (https://www.youtube.com/@YellowDotStudios), @headlinenewds and @yellow.dot.studios on Instagram, and the Headline Newds OnlyFans page (https://onlyfans.com/headlinenewds)
Each short film focuses on a specific issue, from solar energy and fossil fuel financing to global temperature rise and extreme weather. Titles such as The Sun Is Daddy, Unsafe Words and Dirty Little Secret signal the tone, using sex-positive creator culture as a way to hold attention before delivering factual information.
Creators including Eva Oh, Kat Baker, Ivy Maddox, Sabrina Jade, Rebecca Crow and Lara Knox each front individual episodes, bringing climate narratives to their existing audiences through formats that respond meaningfully to online behaviour. The series positions itself as an intervention in how climate messaging is distributed, shifting the focus from how we say something to where we say it.
The project also reflects a broader shift in how information is consumed online. Creator platforms are no longer peripheral to public discourse but central to it, shaping how audiences encounter news, politics and culture, as seen by the rising popularity of the TikTok search bar compared to Google. By placing climate storytelling within these environments, Headline Newds acknowledges that the attention economy is already structured around platform behaviour, and adapts accordingly.
There is also an explicit attempt to challenge assumptions about who is permitted to communicate serious subjects, which is one of this project’s most appealing narratives to us. By centring performers from OnlyFans and sex work adjacent spaces, the series disrupts the hierarchy that often separates credibility from visibility. In doing so, it reframes both the messenger and the message, positioning creator-led content as a legitimate conduit for environmental communication.
Headline Newds will release new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday throughout April.