It's no surprise now that YouTube can allow the criminally young to make huge amounts of money making simple videos that appeal to millions of other kids. But it's still hard not to do a double-take when you see that a popular toy reviewer on the platform known as "Ryan ToysReview" made a reported $22 million in the last year between June 1st, 2017 and June 1st, 2018, even though he's only seven years old.
Ryan ToysReview began his illustrious career in March of 2015, when he was only four. The channel began under the auspices of his parents, who say the boy became interested in the medium of toy review videos as a fan first, asking his parents why he couldn't review toys on his own. That ended up being a pretty good question because soon after he began the kid had his first viral hit in July of 2015, with a video reviewing a line of toys based on Pixar's Cars franchise:
The Ryan ToysReview channel is updated almost every day, usually with reviews of new toys or candy products, and with Ryan's parents, sometimes heard from off camera and sometimes appearing in the videos themselves. This has been a wildly successful formula, and the last year has been a banner year for the channel, with $22 million in revenue doubling what the channel made in the previous year.
As of this writing, Ryan has about 17 million YouTube subscribers and his videos have a combined 26 billion views and counting. Earlier this year, he struck a deal with Wal-Mart to sell a signature toy line known as Ryan's World. And just think, toy companies are likely to send such a popular media figure free toys in the hopes of being features on his channel, so he probably doesn't even have to pay for his own toys anymore.
