They are not even 10-years-old, but these children are millionaires who hop around the world, travel in luxury cars and owe their astounding success to one platform – YouTube. “These kids who came from nowhere have more influence than Mickey Mouse,” Eyal Baumel, a longtime strategist for YouTube personalities, told The Wall Street Journal for a piece on the popularity of YouTube child stars.
The rise of YouTube has allowed people to document everyday details of their lives and put them in the public eye, making millionaires out of ordinary families in the process. It also created a new niche – of young children who review toys, dress up as superheroes, attend swanky birthday parties and rake in millions with lucrative brand deals.
The Wall Street Journal took a look at the lives of four children in particular, who go by Vlad, Niki, Diana and Nastya. The children are stars of three YouTube channels - “Vlad and Niki,” “Like Nastya” and “Kids Diana Show.” Between them, they have over 300 million YouTube subscribers. Their videos typically target pre-schoolers or young schoolgoing children.
The WSJ report notes that all four of them lead seemingly fairytale lives – attending birthday parties on yachts and flying across the world to stay in luxury hotels. In one video, for example, Vlad and Niki (9 and 7 years old) ditch their mom’s Range Rover for a ride in their dad’s red Ferrari. In another, Diana and her family travel to the Maldives.
The children often collaborate with each other and show up in each other’s videos – three years ago, they all attended a birthday on a yacht in Miami. But over the years, the friendship between them and their families has transformed into rivalry as each vies for the top spot on YouTube.
YouTube and beyond
They owe their start and their stardom to YouTube, but these young social media stars are now expanding into licensing deals and streaming shows.
Natsya (full name Anastasia Radzinskaya) is developing an animated series in collaboration with Westbrook, Will Smith’s production company, and Netflix has already expressed interest in it.
Meanwhile, “Vlad and Niki” signed a seven-figure licensing deal with HBO Max for streaming their content.
These YouTube stars also have lucrative licensing deals with toy companies. Zuru Toys, a China-based company, produced a specialty line of “Vlad and Niki” toys in 2020. Meanwhile, Diana and her family have small figurines based on them that can be purchased at retailers like Walmart.
According to WSJ, toy makers also pay these YouTubers to play with their products. They can earn anywhere between $75,000 to more than $300,000 for doing so.
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