At the Streamy Awards 2023 ceremony organized by the YouTube platform, the best content creators on the internet were announced.
Jimmy Donaldson, known to most as MrBeast, won the main category ‘Creator of the Year’, as well as the award for Best Collaboration (with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). This 25-year-old, who grew up in North Carolina, was the only winner to take home multiple awards, showcasing the exceptional success he has achieved with his YouTube channel focused on various challenges.
The latest edition of Forbes’ list of the most successful internet creators lists Donaldson as the highest-earning individual of all – with an annual income of $54 million. The MrBeast channel was also the second most-followed on YouTube as of August 2023. During this period, Donaldson attracted attention for paying for surgeries that allowed 1,000 blind people to see and 1,000 deaf people to hear again.
Top Ranked
YouTubers are generally highly ranked among the highest-paid content creators. One aspect of this is sponsored posts, as well as ads from which they earn slightly more if they are in video format. According to Forbes, Donaldson actually capitalizes on this aspect. However, many creators who have earned millions as individuals on social media have done so through external business deals. Third-placed Jake Paul, who started as a creator on the now-defunct Vine and later on YouTube, turned to boxing and merchandise sales. Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal from the Rhett & Link channel transitioned from YouTube sketch comedy and other entertainment content to live performances and merchandise sales. Mark Edward Fischbach, known as Markiplier on YouTube, initially posted gaming videos but now also earns most of his money from merchandise sales, as well as podcast and TV offers.
Elliot Tebele may have traveled the longest path from posting memes on Tumblr to running a media company that includes significant Instagram accounts such as FuckJerry, TV productions, consulting, and even social games. Jerry Media has worked or is working with celebrities like Michael Bloomberg (during his 2020 presidential campaign), Seth Phillips (“Dude With Sign”), and Instagram egg.
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The highest-earning female content creator (at least in 2021) was Danielle Bregoli aka Bhad Bhabie, earning her millions on the OnlyFans platform with a simple monetization strategy. The 20-year-old actually started as a meme herself, after a video clip and images of her appearance on the Dr. Phil TV show in 2016 went viral and made her the Cash-me-outside girl at just 13 years old. Bregoli has built a substantial music career in the years that followed and has been earning on OnlyFans since she turned 18 in March 2021. Alexandra Cooper from the Call Her Daddy podcast and TikTok’s biggest name Charli D’Amelio are also among the top 10 highest-paid creators.
Channels with the Most Subscribers
The Indian Bollywood music channel T-Series is currently the channel with the most followers on YouTube (234 million), ahead of MrBeast (179 million) and the children’s content channel Cocomelon (164 million). In 2018, T-Series was involved in a fierce battle for the top spot on YouTube with the entertainment channel PewDiePie (111 million followers). However, since then, Swede Felix Kjellberg, PewDiePie, has slowed down with content and is now in sixth place behind fellow YouTubers. Before 2018, PewDiePie was the account with the most subscribers on YouTube for five years, but the picture has changed today.
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