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Videos from Matti Haapoja and Sam Kolder promoting Higgsfield carried no ad label, and one caption carried a discount link. The Verge says nobody would confirm whether the deals were paid.
The Product Desk · Product desk
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Over the past few days, prominent filmmaking creators including Matti Haapoja and Sam "Kold" Kolder posted videos demonstrating the AI platform Higgsfield, highlighting its recently added Seedance 2.5 functionality and pitching the technology as the future of video production [1]. According to The Verge, the videos are not labeled as ads, and neither the creators nor Higgsfield answered questions about whether these were paid partnerships [2]. That single missing label is what converted a marketing spend into a credibility problem, and the cost is landing on the buyer as much as on the two sellers.
The mechanism is worth being precise about. In response to the videos, other creators began sharing what appear to be screenshots of partnership offers they had received from PR firms working on Higgsfield's behalf [3], which led fans to conclude that Higgsfield had been trying to use creators to boost its profile and win public goodwill [4]. The Verge also reports that the caption on Kolder's video appears to contain what looks like an affiliate link offering 30 percent off an annual Higgsfield subscription [5]. So the commercial interest is visible in the caption while the ad label is absent from the video [1]. That gap is what an audience reads as a lie, whether or not one was told.
The creative work did not help. Haapoja's video functions like an infomercial in which he explains how Cully Hill Boys, Higgsfield's feature-length film starring AI-generated duplicates of the YouTubers Mikyle "N3on" Rafiq and Matt Kiatipis, was produced with prompts [6], and he demonstrates Seedance 2.5 by placing manipulated footage of himself in different sci-fi settings [7]. Kolder's video, titled "AI is replacing me," opens with his production background before turning into a fictional story in which he explores Mauritania with a robot [8]. Both blend real people with distinctly uncanny AI-generated imagery [9].
On Threads, Haapoja's video drew pushback from fans and from other creators who consider him a peer [10]. Marques Brownlee objected to Haapoja comparing generative AI to the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, arguing that unlike a physical tool people had to learn, generative AI is "trained on real human-made material without any credit" [11]. Kolder's YouTube comments were more mixed, with many positive responses alongside complaints that no AI can replace creative artists [12].
Compare the outcome with Higgsfield's other route to the same audiences. Cully Hill Boys debuted last week without much fanfare [13], its cast granted Higgsfield the right to use their likenesses without being as directly involved as traditional actors would be [14], and criticism of the film has mostly not been aimed at the cast [15]. The transaction everyone could see cost the participants less reputationally than the transaction that only looked like one [2].
Two things to watch. First, whether Higgsfield's next round of creator deals arrives with labels attached, since the vendor now has evidence that an unlabeled placement can produce a louder negative reaction than an openly licensed one [2]. Second, whether practitioner-audience creators start pricing this risk into their rates, given that the screenshots circulating came from other creators who received the same offers [3] and that both Haapoja and Kolder alienated portions of their audiences by posting work that reads as advertising [2].
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Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
Haapoja's and Kolder's videos are not labeled as ads, and neither the creators nor Higgsfield responded to The Verge's questions about whether these were paid partnerships; by posting videos that feel very much like ads, both creators left portions of their audiences feeling alienated.
In response to the videos, other creators started sharing what appear to be screenshots of partnership offers they had received from PR firms working on Higgsfield's behalf.
The screenshots led fans to the conclusion that Higgsfield has been trying to use creators to boost its profile and garner goodwill from the public.
The caption for Kolder's video appears to contain what looks like an affiliate link, offering a 30 percent discount on an annual Higgsfield subscription.
Cully Hill Boys debuted last week without much fanfare, which made it seem like viewers might not have had particularly strong feelings either way about it, and negative reactions to Haapoja's and Kolder's videos have been much louder than responses to Higgsfield's other recent creator collaborations.
Over the past few days, prominent filmmaking content creators including Matti Haapoja and Sam "Kold" Kolder posted videos demonstrating the AI platform Higgsfield, highlighting its recently added Seedance 2.5 functionality and pitching the technology as the future of video production.
Evidence-backed comparisons of source perspectives and observed adoption signals. Read the methodology
Which Builder, Operator, and Investor concerns the observed source mix emphasized—not a truth score.
Evidence, demonstrated adoption, hype gap, incentives, and confidence are assessed independently, each on its own current evidence. How these are measured.
One outlet, public artifacts, key terms unconfirmed
All claims come from a single publisher, but they rest largely on directly observable public artifacts: the videos themselves, Kolder's caption, Threads pushback including a named quote from Marques Brownlee, and YouTube comments. What is missing is decisive: the commercial arrangement is unconfirmed because neither the creators nor Higgsfield responded, the partnership-offer screenshots are described only as 'what appear to be' authentic, and the comparative loudness of the backlash is a qualitative read with no metrics.
Real shipped usage, zero usage metrics
There is genuine product activity: Seedance 2.5 is live inside Higgsfield, a feature-length film built with prompts has debuted, several named high-reach creators produced work with the tool, and there is an affiliate discount channel plus PR-firm outreach to additional creators. But every adoption signal is promotional or vendor-adjacent, and the source supplies no user counts, revenue, view counts or retention data, so breadth of real-world use outside the marketing push is unknown.
Revolution framing against uncanny output
The promotional framing - Higgsfield and Seedance 2.5 as the future of video production and a technology that could revolutionize entertainment - runs well ahead of what the evidence shows: output the reporter describes as distinctly uncanny, a flagship film that landed quietly, and no performance or usage data anywhere. The gap is amplified because the framing arrives through channels with an undisclosed or under-disclosed commercial interest rather than through independent evaluation.
Vendor-driven promotion with unlabeled money paths
Incentive distortion is high and explicitly documented. A vendor-side campaign is visible through PR-firm partnership offers, one caption carries an apparent affiliate link with a 30 percent subscription discount, and the videos are unlabeled with the paid-or-not question unanswered by both sides. The endorsers stand to gain commercially from a tool that competes with their own craft, and the vendor gains audience goodwill from creator credibility, so the promotional content should be read as marketing until terms are disclosed.
Solid on artifacts, weak on terms and scale
Confidence is moderate. The observable facts - unlabeled videos, the caption discount link, named critic reaction, a shipped film - are well specified and easy to re-check, and the incentive picture is unusually explicit. Confidence is held down by the single-publisher basis, the unverified screenshots, the unanswered paid-partnership question, and the complete absence of quantitative measures of reach, backlash or adoption.
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1 article · August 21, 2026