CHILD’S PLAY
Young toy reviewer Ryan is earning millions on his own YouTube channel
YouTube boy (7) who’s making millions
LIKE most seven-year-olds, he loves toys. Lego, cars, trains, squishy things, cuddly things, things that make a noise, things that contain surprises – pretty much anything and everything. But this seven-year-old kid is in a class of his own. He breathes the rarefied air of the filthy rich and will probably never need to work a regular day in his life.
This past year alone he raked in a staggering $22 million (R308 million) – a whopping amount by any measure and especially when compared to the average American annual salary of around $50 000 (about R700 000).
And he’s done it by talking about toys on YouTube. His channel, Ryan ToysReview, is so popular it’s catapulted him from eighth position in 2017 to the top of the recently released Forbes list of highest earning YouTube stars of 2018.
His channel boasts more than 17 million subscribers and 26 billion views – and advertisers and toy manufacturers are falling over themselves to get in on the action.
Ryan’s face – and his signature thumbsup sign – is plastered on his own range of toys sold at Walmart and Target stores across the US. Teeny-tiny Ryan figurines sit inside toy cars, planes, trucks and his most popular toy, the Giant Mystery Egg.
The egg, in fact, is where it all started when he was just three.
In an obviously staged little video the toddler cracks open a homemade egg filled with Lightning McQueen ( from the animated movie Cars) toys inside.
While it can take months or even years for YouTubers to gain traction on the platform, Ryan went viral within four months, according to technology news website The Verge.
Now he’s a pint-size business with a set of ambitious parents stage-managing his every move.
RYAN’S surname is unknown and his home town is also being kept secret for security reasons. His parents – while they appear in dozens of his videos – are also unnamed. His mom is a former science teacher who quit her job to manage her son’s affairs. She’s the one who started Ryan’s YouTube channel in 2015 but the whole thing was his idea, she insists.
“One day he asked me, ‘How come I’m not on YouTube when all the other kids are?’ So we just decided, ‘Yeah, we can do that.’ Then we took him to the store to get his very first toy – I think it was a Lego train set – and it all started from there.”
According to Ryan’s dad, a structural engineer, the first videos were a way to share the boy’s antics with loved ones who live abroad.
But of course, it didn’t stay with only them for long. Kids love Ryan, and his early amateur videos featuring him playing with one toy at a time did have a certain charm to them.
These days not much reviewing happens at all. Instead, the mini multimillionaire mechanically spouts out lines such as, “Wow, I wonder what else is inside!” And fiddles with a few of his dozen or so latest acquisitions for a few minutes, before shouting, “Don’t forget to ’scribe. See ya later, bye!”
NBC recently asked the YouTube sensation why he thinks he’s so popular and
(From previous page) he replied, “Because I’m entertaining and I’m funny.” But there’s more to it than that.
RYAN’S clips are sometimes more than 30 minutes long – which most vloggers will tell you is a virtually unattainable dream, given viewers’ goldfish-like attention spans. But young kids are different. “They’re watching for a longer period of time than a typical viewer watches YouTube,” says industry analyst Josh Cohen.
“Give a three- or four-year-old an iPad and they’ll watch the whole video – and YouTube really likes it when they’re watching the whole video.”
That’s where the big bucks come in. Most of Ryan’s videos feature prominent placements of hot new products – and it doesn’t matter whether he engages with them or not. It’s all about the screen time.
Of course, it would be impossible for Ryan to keep all the toys, so they’re donated to charity afterwards, his mom says.
Unlike most YouTube influencers, only a small chunk of Ryan’s earnings are from sponsored posts – around $1 million (R14 million), according to Forbes.
The rest comes from YouTube’s ad revenue scheme, which gives video creators a portion of the profit they make from sticking in commercials before the clips. Ryan’s family – which includes toddler twin sisters, Emma and Kate – have their own channel too. Ryan’s Family Review sees them out and about on family outings and follows their day-to-day goings-on.
Still, despite the growing fame and fabulous fortune, Ryan’s mom insists school comes first. She also denies any suggestion she and her husband are exploiting their boy.
What’s most important is that Ryan really loves making the videos, she says.
“As long as he’s loving it and it doesn’t disrupt his daily routine, we plan on continuing. But the moment he’s not having fun anymore, that’s when it will be time to stop.”
‘Young kids are watching for a longer period of time than a typical viewer watches YouTube’