How much do YouTube's biggest stars earn?
Forbes magazine published a list of the 10 most profitable channels on the social network YouTube, with the magazine estimating that the stars earn over $70 million together.
YouTube, as is well known, pays creators of popular videos for crossing each viewer threshold, while benefiting from increased viewing of advertisements.
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A 25-year-old Swedish man named Felix Kjellberg earned no less than $12 million this year.
Kjellberg's channel features videos in which he plays video games with his friends, while he releases a series of comments and reviews about the various games.
According to Forbes, nearly 40 million people already follow the channel, and major gaming companies pay Kjellberg huge sums just to review games on his channel.
In second place are Ian Hawkes and Anthony Padilla, known worldwide as the duo "Smosh." The pair of friends constantly upload sketch clips, they earned $8.5 million this year.
Benny and Rafi Fine also made $8.5 million this year from a video series in which they feature people who watch game reviews, like Felix Kjellberg's channel.
To enter the "top ten" of the ranking, an income of $2.5 million is required - a particularly impressive figure, considering that these are independent creators who do not benefit from any support, distribution, or professional production.
