Gawker
A friend at YouTube told me that maybe a half-dozen people make their living as YouTube creators. Everyone else in the site's partner program gets maybe a couple thousand bucks for millions of views (like our guest writer Yuri Baranovsky). How can someone figure out their personal worth to YouTube? Good question. Tech and media blogs like paidContent keep guessing and making rough calculations, but it's all fake numbers based on spotty data. So how much did the YouTube stars in that South Park episode — the ones waiting in YouTube's office for their money until they all fight to the death — how much money did they really make?
The vast majority of YouTube partners haven't talked about what they're pulling in. Neither has the company. And there's really no incentive to; revealing the pay would only make users more agitated when they're not at the top of the list. So we're not sure how much Tay Zonday or Chris Crocker are making. But I can tell you this about the Internet stars that South Park killed off:
1. Tay Zonday, "Chocolate Rain": Unknown, but possibly a good amount. Probably made more from his Dr. Pepper commercial.
2. Tron Guy: Probably nothing; he was only part of other people's videos
3. Gary Brolsma, "Numa Numa": Maybe a little from his uncomfortably bad sequel that racked up nine million views, though this was before the partner program officially launched. But the original Numa Numa, which got eleven million views, was just someone else's copy; remember that Gary was the last huge video hit before YouTube, back when everyone had to download Windows Media and Quicktime files.
4. Star Wars Kid: Nothing. Settled a lawsuit against the kids who put his video online (again pre-YouTube though copies are up at the site), and some bloggers raised money for him out of sympathy.
5. Sneezing Panda: Nothing.
6. Dramatic Prairie Dog: Nothing. Apparently taken from CollegeHumor.com, where someone took a clip from a Japanese show and added the dramatic sound. One site claims it was an animated GIF long before it became a video.
7. Chris Crocker, "Leave Britney Alone": Probably nothing; he doesn't have ads on his channel so he must not be a partner. And I haven't heard anything new about the reality show he was supposed to star in.
8. Chinese Back Street Boys: Almost certainly nothing; the clips seem to have been uploaded by someone else, and no ads appear near them.
9. Laughing Baby: Nothing. No ads. A shame too, cause this video got over 45 million views.
10. Afroninja: Nothing. The clip wasn't his.
Comments
so South Park is now a legitimate news source? ah, how the mighty have fallen [print media] and the jokesters have risen.
That's what I made for viewing them, too.
I prefer last night's episode where there's no internet and Randy and the fam head over to Californi. Randy is by far my favorite character. Oh, wait, this isn't South Park fan forum? Shit.
piercing analysis. keep up the good work.
"so South Park is now a legitimate news source? ah, how the mighty have fallen [print media] and the jokesters have risen"
Really? Personally I think South Park presents society and media in a far more honest and unbiased way than most major news outlets.....
So, um, you don't know the answer, couldn't find the answer, yet you wrote a post with a headline suggesting you did; conning people into thinking you had the answer cuz yu found it. Lame. You're a horrible person and should do something else with your life. Writing is not your thing.
@DanLar75: no, not really... pure snark.
@Some of My Best Friends Are People: easy on Douglas, he's just an asian landlord in Queens trying to make his way as best he can while dealing with crazy lesbionic renters and drunks.
@Some of My Best Friends Are People: I know, I could be making much more at Slate!
Yeah, for a Douglas article, this is pretty weak although probably correct.
Harry "wonders how much the original 'What What, In the Butt' made" Wang
I think the Chocolate Rain guy is a she with some harmone assisted vocals.
Sooooo Gawkers asks "how much money did they really make" and answers with "possibly a good amount" and "probably nothing"? Hard-hitting news, indeed.
Of course the ironic things is that many of us remember modem downloading a crappy home video called "Spirit of Christmas" that later became South Park!
The Chinese Backstreet Boys make quite a bit of money in China and throughout Asia. They are mobbed by fans and paid for appearances. They appear in commercials and even have a statue dedicated to them.
the laughing baby got a commercial with aig insurance. so he probably made some money.
Less people fighting, and more monkey fighting. That is all I have to say.
+ Watch video
I'd like to know what MadV is making, because he's not prolific but got tempted off YouTube for several months by a contract of some kind. Obviously, he's back and there must be reason$ for that?
[youtube.com]
And of course, there was the potential goldmine that was juilliarddropout. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!
[youtube.com]
wow, reading three day-old gawker posts on sunday night...I came upon those chinese backstreet boys a few months and was kind of enthalled for a while. They used to be college students in mainland china. Apparently they are really popular in China, have released a single in China, and were spokespeople for Motorola. They are blogging for a living now, again in Chinese, so they are getting paid and have been for a while. A lot of this is in their wikipedia page too. I know wikipedia is shit, but come one, I could find that out in like three minutes, just by googling "chinese back street boys", I don't see why you couldn't find it as well.
@Jezebabe: ugh typos galore!!! I meant to say i came upon their videos online a few months ago
Comment on this post
Reply by EmailLogin with your username and password below. Or comment on this post via email.
Forgot your username or password? New User?