New York: An eight-year-old has topped the list of highest paid YouTubers after earning nearly $26 million USD in 2019 through his channel. The list, which was published by Forbes magazine, has Ryan Guan or ‘Kaji’ as the highest earner on the platform. In 2018, Ryan’s youtube channel called ‘Ryan’s World’ earned over $22 million USD according to Forbes.
The channel currently has nearly 23 million subscribers and was launched in 2015 by Ryan’s parents when he was only three years old. Earlier, Ryan’s videos primarily showed him unboxing toys, playing, and reviewing them.
The initial name of the channel was ‘Ryan Toys Review’ but the young creator was forced to change it after a complaint was filed by a consumer advocacy group known as Truth in Advertising. The FTC complaint alleged that there was no way of knowing which of Ryan’s videos were sponsored and which ones were not.
As Ryan continues to grow up, his channel has also evolved from reviewing toys to creating educational videos.
The second on the Forbes list of highest paid youtubers was ‘Dude Perfect’, a youtube channel operated by a group of friends from Texas. The videos on this channel show the YouTubers attempting impossible stunts such as jumping out of helicopters and launching basketballs into hoops.
However, the third spot on the list also featured another child youtuber, Anastasia Radzinskaya from Russia. It can be recalled that Youtube recently came under fire for its algorithm that allowed advertisers to target young children by collecting personal user data. The social media platform agreed to settle the matter by paying a fine of $170 million USD.
