What Is Ray William Johnson's Net Worth?
Ray William Johnson is an American comedian who has a net worth of $10 million. Ray William Johnson has earned his net worth from his extremely popular YouTube channel. The "Ray William Johnson" channel is one of the most subscribed channels on YouTube. The channel has over 17 million subscribers and over 13 billion video views. An industry publication stated that as of February 2011, Johnson held six of the top twenty most-watched videos of the month.
Early Life
Ray William Johnson was born on August 14, 1981, and raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was attending Columbia University to pursue a career in law when he started watching videos on YouTube and eventually began making videos himself. These videos were standard video blogs, or "vlogs," that he published on a now-deleted YouTube channel. His early videos garnered a following of around just 30 people.
YouTube
In April 2009, he began posting to his "Ray William Johnson" channel, and later in the year, the channel had already become YouTube's first to reach five million subscribers. The channel had also already obtained nearly two billion total views. He noticed that people visit YouTube either to watch viral videos or to follow videos from their favorite bloggers, and that spawned his idea for his first formatted show, "Equals Three." This was a way for him to combine the two popular video styles. Originally, Ray produced his videos out of his New York City apartment, but in 2011, he signed a deal with Maker Studios to produce videos on set in Culver City, California. While at Maker Studios, Johnson produced a Spanish-language version of the series called "Igual a Tres."
Johnson started a new collaborative YouTube channel called "YourFavoriteMartian" in January 2011. This channel featured animated comedy music videos. The songs were performed by a virtual band of fictional cartoon characters, and Ray wrote lyrics and beats and sometimes collaborated with other musicians to produce the songs. The characters featured on the channel include Puff Puff Humbert (lead singer, voiced by Johnson), DeeJay (DJ), Axel Chains (drummer), and Benatar (guitar/keyboard).
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Leaving Maker Studios
In October 2012, Johnson announced he would be leaving Maker Studios, contending that they had been pressuring him to sign a new contract that limited his access to his Google AdSense account and would reportedly take 40 percent of his earnings from "Equals Three." This contract would have also required him to give up half of his intellectual property rights to both that show and "Your Favorite Martian." In November 2012, Johnson founded his own production studio, Equals Three Studio. He continued producing "Equals Three" on his own. He ended "Your Favorite Martian" that same month.
Johnson announced he would cease hosting "Equals Three" in the near future to focus on other projects in December 2013. His last show as host, titled "Thank You for Everything," was published on March 12, 2014. At the time of Johnson's departure, the channel had over 10 million subscribers and 2.6 billion total views. The show came back in July 2014, this time with Robby Motz as the host. Motz departed in July 2015, at which point Kaja Martin took over, but Martin was replaced by Carlos Santos a few months later. Over the course of its run, the series featured numerous celebrity guests, including Robin Williams, Jason Biggs, and Sarah Silverman.
Facebook Series
Johnson debuted his first scripted series, "Riley Rewind," in December 2013. It was originally released on Facebook before it moved to YouTube. The series revolved around a teenager with a special time-shifting power. It was released in five parts and totaled around 50 minutes. Ray reported the series had received 10 million views on Facebook by 2015. Johnson continued producing comedic material for his main "Ray William Johnson" channel. His new series included "Booze Lightyear," "Top 6," and "Comedians On." "Top 6," which premiered in February 2015, is a list show that is written and hosted by Kelly Landry and discusses six items about a given topic in each episode. "Comedians On" and "Booze Lightyear" were eventually canceled.
Other Work
Johnson started a daily video blog titled "BreakingNYC." He made vlogs almost daily while living in New York City until June 2010. Ray moved to Los Angeles, and after a hiatus that lasted nearly a year, he created a new higher-quality series that contained a similar format. The new series was titled "Breaking Los Angeles and the Adventures of Puff Puff." A new video is released every Friday and is filmed in Los Angeles. Ray often has popular guests featured on the channel, such as rappers Wax, Hoodie Allen, and Dumbfounded and slam poet George Watsky.
Outside of his YouTube career, Johnson was attached to an indie film project titled "Who's Driving Doug" in May 2017. Ray played the role of a new driver for a disabled recluse played by former "Breaking Bad" star RJ Mitte. The film was written by Michael Carnick and also stars Paloma Kwiatkowski. Johnson also had a part in "Jay & Silent Bob's Super Groovy Cartoon Movie." In January 2016, he appeared in a series of commercials for DiGiorno Pizza. Johnson is also the co-creator of the film production company Mom & Pop Empire. The company previously co-produced a film called "Manson Family Vacation" with Mark and Jay Duplass. The film premiered at South by Southwest in 2015 and its distribution rights were bought by Netflix soon after.
