Eight-year-old Ryan Kaji earned US$26 million this year on his YouTube channel, making him the highest-paid creator on the platform, according to a list published on Wednesday by Forbes magazine.
Kaji, whose real name is Ryan Guan, was already the video platform’s highest earner last year, with US$22 million, Forbes said.
His channel, “Ryan’s World,” launched in 2015 by his parents, is only three years old, but already has 22.9 million subscribers.
Initially called “Ryan Toys
Review,” it mostly consisted of “unboxing” videos — videos of the young star opening boxes of toys and playing with them.
A number of the videos have racked up more than 1 billion views, and the channel has received almost 35 billion views since its creation, according to data from the analytics Web site Social Blade.
Recently, the channel was renamed after a consumer advocacy organization, Truth in Advertising, filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about it.
Truth in Advertising accused the channel of not clearly denoting which videos had been sponsored, meaning brands paid for the channel to feature their products.
The channel has also evolved as Ryan ages, now offering more educational videos in addition to the toys.
In Forbes’ ranking, Ryan Kaji surpassed the channel “Dude Perfect,” run by a group of friends from Texas who attempt seemingly impossible feats, such as launching basketballs into hoops from the tops of buildings or out of helicopters.
“Dude Perfect” came in second, up from third the year before, having earned US$20 million from June 1 last year to June 1 this year.
In third place was another child star’s channel, Russian Anastasia Radzinskaya. At only five years old, she earned US$18 million.
Her channels — “Like Nastya Vlog” and “Funny Stacy” — boast nearly 70 million subscribers in total, with videos in Russian, English and Spanish.
At the beginning of September, YouTube’s parent company, Google, agreed to pay a US$170 million fine after the FTC accused the Internet giant of collecting personal data from child YouTube users without permission.
The platform used the data to ensure that advertisers were able to target children, the FTC said.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS