A six-year-old Russian girl has been named as one of the highest earning YouTube stars in 2020, earning a huge $18.5 million in the last 12 months alone. Anastasia Radzinskaya, who goes by the name Nastya, is the star of her own channel, 'Like Nastya', which is run by her family.
The highest paid YouTube stars of 2020 list, which was compiled by Forbes business magazine, named Nastya as the 7th highest-earning YouTube star on the planet. Nastya's videos mostly involve her doing normal things a six-year-old usually does, such as playing with her parents, playing with her toys, and taking trips. The videos are designed for a young audience who are interested in seeing what Nastya gets up to.
As more children have been confined to their homes this year due to the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in screen-time in a lot of households, and parents are looking for new and different things for their children to watch. As most of Nastya's videos are activity-based, it doesn't even matter that English isn't her first language, therefore allowing her channel to capture a global audience.
In total, Nastya's videos were watched a mind-boggling 39 billion times in 2020 and her channel has a total of 65.8 million subscribers. Nastya's influence has now spread on to other social-media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. The money generated by the channel has allowed Nastya and her family to emigrate from Russia and they are now settled in Florida, United States.
A number of young people made the top 10 Forbes list of YouTube earners, topped in first-place by 9-year-old Ryan Kaji, who gained fame from his 'unboxing' videos, in which he opened up and tried out new toys and gadgets. His superhero alter-ego even got to appear as a float at the Macy's Day Parade in November. He is believed to have earned $29.5 million last year.
In second place on the list of biggest earners is Jimmy Donaldson a.k.a. 'Mr. Beast' whose stunts, such as building the world's largest Lego tower, have netted him 3 billion views and a cool $24 million.
Another group of YouTube stars making the top 10 earners list (3rd place), are the five best-friends that make up the channel 'Dude Perfect', Coby Cotton, Cory Cotton, Garret Hilbert, Cody Jones and Tyler Toney, whose channel is also based around gadgets and super-cool stunts and challenges. They are said to have earned $23 million last year.
Others on the list include Markiplier (5th place), who earned his views from stunts and from video-games, Preston Arsement (6th place) who focuses on the videogame Minecraft, and comedian David Dobrick (9th place). Though not all YouTube stars are kids or from the younger generation, Rhett and Link, a channel run by 43-year-old Rhett James McLaughlin and 42-year-old Charles Lincoln III, focusing on nerd culture and comedy, came in 4th place, with a revenue of around $20 million.
Most revenue for YouTube channel owners (and YouTube itself) comes from the ads that are streamed before, during and after shows, however many YouTube stars also earn significant sums by advertising or featuring products directly in their shows.
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