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Youtube's #1 Earner is a 7 Year Old Who Plays with Toys

deepestblue

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Forbes.com article - How This 7-Year-Old Made $22 Million Playing With Toys

Ryan of Ryan Toysreview really isn’t that different from any other first grader. The 7-year-old loves trains and cars; he giggles over Disney characters; he builds entire civilizations with Legos.

Except when he plays, he does so in front of a camera. An adult, presumably, then promptly uploads these videos onto his YouTube channel for his millions of followers—most of whom are elementary-school-age peers.

These short, simple videos have made Ryan one of the most popular influencers online, with 17.3 million followers and a total of nearly 26 billion views since he (and his parents) launched his main channel, Ryan ToysReview, in March 2015. For Ryan, this means not only an endless stream of toys to play with but also a seemingly endless stream of money: He was this year’s highest-paid YouTube star, earning $22 million in the 12 months leading up to June 1, 2018, Forbes estimates.
 
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Xeon

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This should be enough motivation for anyone, anywhere, anytime. Destroy excuses! :)

Link to Forbes.com article - How This 7-Year-Old Made $22 Million Playing With Toys

This isn't motivation. This just made me feel very very bad man. Feel like crying.

A 7-year old with a $22 million and still rising networth??! At the age of 7, the no. of supercars he can buy is more than an adult working male who works 10 hrs a day ever can!

To put this in context, his wealth at 7 is already almost half of Lori Greiner who worked hard all her life and cracked her brains running businesses and staying late nights!

With all due respect, just by playing with toys, his net worth is likely on par with, or has surpassed even MJ's (praise and glory be upon him).....

F*ck!!!! I have a strong urge to throw away all his toys.
(sorry, I just can't swallow all this down)
 

Scot

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He was this year’s highest-paid YouTube star, earning $22 million in the 12 months leading up to June 1, 2018, Forbes estimates.

ESTIMATES

Youtube does not release Youtube partner earnings. Most of these numbers are extremely inflated. And, Youtube has been cutting back drastically on its profit sharing over the past few years. Many of their tops stars got screwed. Fails commandment of control hard time.
 

Ascension

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ESTIMATES

Youtube does not release Youtube partner earnings. Most of these numbers are extremely inflated. And, Youtube has been cutting back drastically on its profit sharing over the past few years. Many of their tops stars got screwed. Fails commandment of control hard time.

True, but I'd wager Youtube ad revenue is only a small part of his (parents) income. They don't seem to put affiliate links in the video description, but a fair amount of their videos are marked as sponsored.
Getting your toys in front of a kid who rakes in half a billion views a month seems like the dream for advertisers.
 
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ESTIMATES

Youtube does not release Youtube partner earnings. Most of these numbers are extremely inflated. And, Youtube has been cutting back drastically on its profit sharing over the past few years. Many of their tops stars got screwed. Fails commandment of control hard time.
well his (parents) annual earning estimate is between £1m and £17m, so even on the low end he's still smashing it, plus all them free toys he gets!
 

Thoelt53

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I wonder how these YouTube kid celebrities will turn out as adults. Will they face a fate similar to Hollywood child actors?
Depends on the parents.
 
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GSF

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he also has another channel "ryans family review" features his younger sisters that has estimated earnings between £300k -£5m year
 

Xavier X

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With 26 billion views on a very family friendly channel focused primarily on product, I can almost guarantee the YouTube Ad earnings exceed $22 million. Except if a lot of the videos aren't monetized.
That's only like an 85c RPM. Anyone who knows anything about Google ads knows RPMs like that only apply to low volume and low value publishers. I'll estimate this channel's RPM is more like $2 and up.

YouTube almost never demonetizes channels like this, as they're typically very safe for advertisers. No risk of a random boob popping up, or someone yelling "death to America," or anything.

At most they'll get a strike for music copyright, if they get sloppy with that.
I saw the story yesterday, and while it's really just parents running a channel, with their kid as the front man, it's still impressive.

YouTube can demonetize them overnight, and it all goes away. However, when you're pulling in 8 figures a year, it is enough that the commandment of control shouldn't remotely dissuade you. More like a reminder to diversify and fortify your endeavors at that point.
 

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Kind of on the fence about this one.

Obviously good business approach here - those are some major views they can leverage.

At the same time, its kinda messed up to monetize your 7-year-old kid. I am sure they can claim he is looked after well (and I am sure with that income he is) but over time I would imagine you start looking at your own kid more as a golden goose and less as a person.

I think it's YouTube who should have some kind of policy here. This kid might be well looked after but with those figures out there imagine all the other kids whose parents are going to attempt this. They should stop monetization on a channel where the main host is below a certain age. It is borderline child labour.
 
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Xeon

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I think it's YouTube who should have some kind of policy here. This kid might be well looked after but with those figures out there imagine all the other kids whose parents are going to attempt this. They should stop monetization on a channel where the main host is below a certain age. It is borderline child labour.

Mum of one-year-old Instagram 'influencer' hits back at trolls

Influencer business is a real business nowadays. I've seen it done with dogs on Instagram. The owners of those dogs must be raking in $$$ like no one's business lol
 

jon.M

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At the same time, its kinda messed up to monetize your 7-year-old kid. I am sure they can claim he is looked after well (and I am sure with that income he is) but over time I would imagine you start looking at your own kid more as a golden goose and less as a person.
Exactly. And when a lot of people are dependent on a cash cow -- in this case a 7-year old who can't really stand up for himself -- they can do a lot of bad and inconsiderate things to keep it alive. That's why Hollywood stayed quited about that Weinstein-thing during all those years. Too many people's livelihoods were dependent on the guy.
 

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Fingers crossed the kid turns out OKAY as an adult. Either way, he's in for a hell of a ride. In this case, I see no harm done.

On the topic of the Youtube Ad inventory, it's channels geared towards kids that act as a black hole for advertisers in many respects. If you've had any experience with Youtube Ads, you'll know that one of the biggest wasters of ad spend is channels focused towards children. They are a HUGE pain to exclude as they seemingly go on forever. Not only that, but children often use their parents Youtube accounts which completely destroys the efficacy of demo based targeting.
 
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Xavier X

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I see nothing wrong with it per se. It's no different from having a kid starring in a TV show, a movie or anything in Showbiz really.

The cons only manifest themselves if the parents are shitty. Not in the endeavor itself.
 

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I see nothing wrong with it per se. It's no different from having a kid starring in a TV show, a movie or anything in Showbiz really.

The cons only manifest themselves if the parents are sh*tty. Not in the endeavor itself.

Well the main difference I see there is there is some form of professionalism with those shows. Only a few kids will get selected and its generally a professional environment. Also, that kid is a "professional" - it's their career.

Nothing is stopping your average parent though from "hey play with these toys Timmy" while they stick a video camera in their faces for hours every day. Just seems like a weird thing for YouTube to promote and encourage.
 

The Abundant Man

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Too many people's livelihoods were dependent on the guy.
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Paladin

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My kids can't resist those shows. I've seen some videos with north of a billion views that are nothing less than mind-numbing. All they are is commercials for products and you have to be vigilant as a parent.

If you understand how much revenue YouTube is making from their side of those ads, you'll see why those channels get so much love and attention.

There is a child-safe "YouTube Kids" app and these channels are all that you'll find on there. It sucks the life out of my kids, so I keep 'em away from those videos now.

It's a solid business model and I get why they parents do it. My daughter would love to have her own show where she plays with toys etc. And I could certainly make that happen.

But I don't really like exposing my kids to the world. That's a decision they can make when they are eighteen. It's why even my personal social media has almost no pictures of my kids. You don't own that platform and when you upload pictures they can do whatever they want with it.

I don't really want to give some company the rights to my kids faces etc.

At least with Hollywood parents, there are more structures in place to prevent the kids from getting robbed. After what happened to the child actors of the 1980s. But with these kids, they aren't part of any union, so there is no layer of protection.

Just have to hope the parents aren't monsters and don't blow all the cash, but....

If you want to turn your kid into a YouTube star, obviously that's your choice. But it's not what I want to do with my kids....
 

Ayanle Farah

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I like the fact the value others get has nothing to do with anything usually associated with it such as age, hard work, and time.

Those things can help increase your value but they're not the value itself.
There are people today working 10 hour jobs who will unfortunately never reach 2% of this kids net worth in their lifetime and it won't matter how hard they work.

On the other hand, it gives hope that anyone regardless of their background can get there aslong as they find a way to get other people to know what value they bring.

It's exciting.
 

MakeItHappen

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Just came here to say this. One false move on a video and YouTube could completely shut him down. Income goes from $22M -> $0
Well that's still better than having 100% control over nothing or a 100k/year biz... how likely is it that YouTube will shut him down? Accounts like this make YouTube a lot of advertising money... while for example Amazon has an interest in cutting out FBA sellers / hijacking their markets... and they have done so before, I don't see the same motivation with YouTube cutting out personal brands. Also once you make $22M per year don't you think they will be super careful to not break any of YouTubes rules? Heck they can pay a lawyer full time to check all the videos they are about to release to make sure they don't risk their accounts.
There is nothing in business you have 100% control over... and having a personal brand on YouTube that millions of viewers love and which makes YouTube a lot of money isn't a high risk to me.
 
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Xeon

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Brb, gonna start playing with toys on YouTube

Don't forget to throw in the occasional giggle and cute/shy smile!

Speaking of kids YouTube channels, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here before, but children YouTube channels are making big bucks. Not multi-millions like this kid, but enough to quit your job and do it as a full time career. I remember reading somewhere ago on another forum where this guy was raking in $$$$$ by hiring animators from 3rd world countries then publishing children educational content (animated 3D songs and dances) on YouTube. And because they're kids, the quality of animation doesn't have to be high.
 
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TonyStark

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Don't forget to throw in the occasional giggle and cute/shy smile!

Speaking of kids YouTube channels, I'm not sure if this has been mentioned here before, but children YouTube channels are making big bucks. Not multi-millions like this kid, but enough to quit your job and do it as a full time career. I remember reading somewhere ago on another forum where this guy was raking in $$$$$ by hiring animators from 3rd world countries then publishing children educational content (animated 3D songs and dances) on YouTube. And because they're kids, the quality of animation doesn't have to be high.
Brb, gonna go have kids.
 

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My buddy in St. Louis was riding the wave this time just a few short years ago with his 2 daughters on Youtube....

then Youtube......

Pulled the plug!

They made a few million before Youtube screwed them. Youtube was what his daughters woke up for every day.... they LOVED it. But, the agreement was that they had to pass every class in school. So they did. And then Youtube said he was forcing his daughters to make the videos so they cut them off...... this really seems no different to me. Him and his girls would get between 1 million and 5 million views every time they made a video!
 

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Kids also tend to watch the same videos over and over and just click through whatever comes up in the recommended list. My daughter is 3 and can watch these videos for hours. Everything she watches has 30-200M views.
 
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The Abundant Man

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Kids also tend to watch the same videos over and over and just click through whatever comes up in the recommended list. My daughter is 3 and can watch these videos for hours. Everything she watches has 30-200M views.
Oh gosh. I babysat this kid once. He was 7. The dad gave him an iPad. All he did was watch Hip-Hop/Rap videos on there. Somehow he pulled up porn on there. I took the IPad away from him. He started kicking me wanting his IPad back.
 

MJ DeMarco

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All I know is that YT suddenly will be flooded with new YTubers doing the same thing.

Happens every time.

Like the time some self-publisher revealed he was making $600K/mo ... suddenly everyone dove into self-publishing.

It's like a grand opening announcement for money chasers ... and money chasers are as predictable as a rat chasing the cheese.
 

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When TV came, the people who made a lot of funds used tv as a road for people to access their products. People became famous for acting on tv, tv shows. Kids are spending more time on youtube. It's not too farfetched to see how we can have youtube stars. Years ago Michelle Pham destroyed it with her make up videos. Even though it seems old, online media is the medium for the young. Khan academy started from youtube. A completely new road opened and we are seeing people use it in new and old ways. MJ years ago could have made a blog in his limo and making his website if youtube was available and we'd be his audience. What a sight it would be to see him learning code in the limo, going to the library daily, learning and applying. Rather than being discouraged by this, it is encouraging that a family is able to use the road so well.

For the dot com crash, do you guys think part of it was the hardware and software could not support the ideas people had? There were tons of people who made nutty internet companies, but some of those ideas that failed back then can come back today because of tech being more accessible.
 

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All I know is that YT suddenly will be flooded with new YTubers doing the same thing.

Happens every time.

Like the time some self-publisher revealed he was making $600K/mo ... suddenly everyone dove into self-publishing.

It's like a grand opening announcement for money chasers ... and money chasers are as predictable as a rat chasing the cheese.
How can you provide value to the money chasers? What do they need? What problems and struggles do they have?

Smells like opportunity to me.
 

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