From the beginning, people joined social media for fun but of late, some people have managed to carve out a living from them, even to the extent of it being quite lucrative. One of the social networks that has seen regular people earn quite a lot of money is YouTube. As you know, the 10 year old Googleowned service lets people create their own channels where people post content they are passionate about and it has led to some people earn millions of dollars as Forbes found out
This is the first time Forbes has decided to come up with a list of the top earning YouTube personalities. Forbes is well known for researching and publishing a list of the richest people on the planet and this is a move to document those people who are also earning well on social media platform.
Forbes came up with a list of “YouTube Millionaires” who earned a combined total of $54.5 million by generating content on their channels that spanned several categories. Here is the list of the top 5 earning YouTubers:
- PewDiePie ($12 million)– Felix Kjellberg’s channel, PewDiePie is the most subscribed channel on YouTube with nearly 40 million subscribers. He also has the record of the highest view count for a YouTube channel (over 10 billion and counting). It was rumoured last year he earned $7 million so it seems
- (tie) Smosh/Fine Brothers ($8.5M)– Smosh is a YouTube channel by Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla with over 21 million subscribers who post skits on their channel. They also have a movie, Smosh: The Movie that came out in July so expect their earnings to increase by next years.The Fine brothers tied with Smosh in this list who are known for their React video series
- Lindsey Stirling ($6 million)– Her channel has 7 million subscribers who watch her play the violin as she dances. This stint plus her albums, touring and book deals has led her make a substantial amount of money from her “hobby”
- (tie) Good Mythical Morning/KSI– ($4.5 million)– Good Mythical Morning is one of my favourite YouTube channels that was started by Rhett and Link. It is a comedy based channel that has sketches or funny commercials. KSI on the other hand is just like PewDiePie where he plays video games and comments on them. This seems to be a working model for popular YouTubers.
- Michelle Phan ($3million)– She is a makeup artist with over 8 million subscribers on her channel. This is a popular category by women in YouTube where they give makeup tips and earn money from it
It would be interesting for Forbes to come up with a rather general list that encompasses other personalities from other social networks. For example in Vine, the most followed person on Vine, King Bach has a massive 14 million followers on Vine and recently was reported to feature in a TV comedy series (Key & Peele). Being popular on social media pays and as long as we continue to view content from this popular people, more millionaires will be made in the future.
