Being a full-time YouTuber has become one of the top high-paying jobs in the world, and the world’s wealthy YouTubers are living proof of this. No one could have predicted that YouTube would become an essential part of everybody’s lives after it first launched in 2005. And now, most of the YouTubers in the biz are even crossing over into the mainstream, as YouTube is becoming more prevalent in the news.
Popular YouTube stars have become more prominent in the media landscape due to their accomplishments or scandals. However, there’s still debate on the popularity of the most successful YouTubers. Who is more popular? We’ve tried to rank these famous YouTube Stars for you.
30. Fine Bros Entertainment
Fine Bros Entertainment, aka FBE, was initially established by Benny and Rafi Fine, both content makers and media innovators. The company produces a variety of subject matters, the React series, storytelling web series, and a “transmedia” comedy series called MyMusic. FBE began making content around the year 2004 and took the opportunity to reach new viewers once they launched their channel in 2007.
They’re among the few businesses on YouTube with over 10 million subscribers spread throughout two channels. They currently have more than 50 million subscribers throughout all platforms, and their online content has gained over 15 billion views.
29. Ryan Kaji
Ryan’s World, previously known as Ryan ToysReview, is a kid’s YouTube channel centered on Ryan Kaji and his parents. The channel has been described as a combination of personal vlogs and toy unwrapping videos. Although the channel appears to embrace excessive consumer culture, it also incorporates innocent children’s shenanigans to create a friendly atmosphere for its audience.
As per Forbes, the channel managed to earn $11 million during the 2016-17 period and was the 8th top paid Content creator on YouTube. Ryan Kaji’s YouTube channel has over 30 million subscribers and almost 45 billion views as of now.
28. Paul Brothers
The Paul brothers were in scandals all through their careers. Since both brothers began their social media career paths on Vine, Jake Paul accumulated over five million followers before Vine eventually died out. At the same time, Logan was listed as the tenth most powerful social media personality.
However, the duo has gotten quite a bad rep on platforms due to controversies, and several have branded them as wannabes and attention-seekers. Despite the criticism and negative press, the two brothers have amassed an accumulative fan base of 43 million and continue to break records.
27. Lilly Singh
Lilly Singh began her career in YouTube around the year 2010. According to Forbes, she became the tenth highest-paid YouTuber in the world by 2017. She, however, has launched her first documentary film, showing her promotional tour. Lilly has also published her first book, making it number one on the New York Times best-seller list. So, she has become much more than a YouTuber with all the success and opportunities coming her way.
Singh went by her real name, Lilly Singh, instead of her previous screen name, “Superwoman,” on her YouTube channel in 2019. She has already accumulated an audience of around 18 million both through her main and vlog channels at this point.
26. Jeffree Star
Jeffree Star is one of the industry’s well-known makeup artists and beauty experts. However, he started his social media life on Myspace. Through creating a blog regarding his life, Star grew a following and established himself as both a popular figure and specialist on self-image and self-belief, stardom, wellbeing, and glamor.
Even though he has been through many controversies in recent years, he still appears to inspire a large number of people around the globe with his beauty and cosmetics advice.
25. Guavа Јuісе
Guava Јuісе’s real nаmе is Rоі Fаbіtо, and he is a famous YоuТubеr frоm thе Рhіlірріnеѕ. As the other half of the YouTube channel Wassabi Productions, Roi rose to prominence. Even though he was born in the Philippines, he moved to Durham, North Carolina, when he was just two years old.
He uploaded his first YouTube video in July 2006, nearly two years before he and Alex Burriss started working with their popular channel hoiitsroi. After the duo finished their studies, they decided to make content for YouTube and started posting in 2012. In April of 2012, they uploaded a video саllеd “Саll mе Мауbе,” аnd іt quickly became viral. It has rесеіvеd mоrе thаn 135 mіllіоn vіеwѕ to date.
24. Rosanna Pansino
If you enjoy baking, you’ve probably come across Rosanna Pansino’s Nerdy Nummies channel! Rosanna Pansino is a well-known baker and actress. She is famous among her fans for her self-titled channel, which features everything from extravagant cakes to highly amusing challenges.
Even though this young woman is now a well-known YouTuber with a fan base of over 10 million, she never gave up her childhood dream of becoming an actress. As a result, Rosanna was also able to achieve TV stardom with roles in ‘Glee’ and ‘CSI.’ However, with over 12 million YouTube subscribers, her bakeware line, and two best-selling cookbooks, she is already a more giant star than many Hollywood stars.
23. Jaiden Animations
Jaiden Animations launched her YouTube channel on February 16, 2014. She is well-known for posting energizing videos that have received much attention and praise. ‘JaidenAnimations Intro’ was the title of her first video. This was accompanied by yet another animated post titled ‘Sneaky Advertisements.’ She has over 10 million subscribers on her channel now.
Jaiden was born on September 27, 1997. She grew up in Arizona before relocating to Los Angeles. Jaiden earned her bachelor’s degree from Arizona University. When it comes to animation, Jaiden is brilliant and articulate. Her animated stories are both intelligent and captivating.
22. Jenna Marbles
Jenna Nicole Mourey, commonly known as Jenna Marbles, became one of the first YouTube stars. Jenna Marbles is well-known on YouTube for her ‘how-to’ videos and amusing video scripting languages. She has achieved notable success by making videos about mundane subjects.
In 2010, Jenna began appearing on YouTube for the first time. Her viral hit video “How to fool people into thinking you’re attractive” catapulted her to fame. She is a celebrity and a comedian, actress, and vlogger. She has over 20 million subscribers now, with approximately 1.7 billion video views.
21. Coyote Peterson
Coyote Peterson is a famous wildlife instructor and YouTuber from the United States, renowned for his channel “Brave Wilderness.” The channel focuses on animal documentaries. On September 8, 2014, he launched the channel with the first video named ‘Breaking Trail-Trailer.’
His first animal catching video, which featured a snapping turtle, quickly went viral. Some of his most popular videos feature him allowing dangerously poisonous insects to bite him. In one of these videos, he is stung by a cow killer wasp. Its sting is reputed to be the second-most painful on the planet. The video has accumulated over 32 million views. His channel now has over 19 million subscribers.
20. KSI
KSI is a well-known British internet personality named Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji. KSI has been creating widely popular gaming and vlog content for his channel since 2009. KSI first appeared on YouTube in 2008 as JideJunior, and in 2009, he registered his current account as KSIOlajideBT. He used this channel to post FIFA gaming commentary videos.
KSI is still one of YouTube’s most prominent content creators, producing high-quality content both as an individual creator and as a representative of the Sidemen, an ensemble of British YouTubers he co-founded. In addition, Oladeji Daniel “Deji” Olatunji, KSI’s younger brother, is also a YouTube personality.
19. PopularMMOs
Patrick Brown is a well-known YouTuber and gamer. Due to his channel title, he is also recognized as PopularMMOs. His YouTube channel is primarily dedicated to gaming. He is a Minecraft player well-known for his amusing commentary in gaming videos.
Patrick understands how to capture the audience’s attention, creating fictitious characters to entertain his audiences. PopularMMOs launched his first YouTube channel on April 17, 2012, and within two years, he had one million subscribers. In the next two years, Patrick’s channel grew to 10 million subscribers as he continued to post regularly. PopularMMOs currently has over 17 million subscribers.
18. Zach King
Zach King is a Los Angeles-based internet personality, filmmaker, and magician. He is best known for his “magic vines,” which are six-second clips that have been digitally modified to appear as if he is performing magic. He began posting on YouTube in 2008 and then started posting on Vine in 2013.
He then joined TikTok in 2016, when it was still known as musical.ly, and soon escalated to millions of followers there too. In high school, Zach began posting to YouTube, giving tutorials on using Final Cut Pro. Zach King’s net worth is estimated to be $3 million now.
17. Smosh
Back in the early 2000s, the Smosh YouTube channel became one of the most hyped channels on the fledgling video-sharing website. Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox created smosh.com by creating flash animations. By posting videos on Smosh YouTube’s channel since 2005, they quickly became one of the most popular channels.
These videos included restaurant visits, commentaries on recent issues, or skits on social media parodies. Although not necessarily YouTube influencers, this network would interest famous brands referenced in their video content. On February 22, 2019, Rhett & Link’s Mythical Entertainment offered to acquire Smosh, bringing the two YouTube channels together. Smosh has over 25 million subscribers now.
16. Dude Perfect
Dude Perfect comprises five close buddies who met at Texas A&M University. They are Coby and Cory Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and Tyler Toney. In their spare time, they produced several limited-budget sports video content. They then got a lot of attention in 2009 with “Dude Perfect Backyard Edition.”
The fivesome accumulated over a million subscribers within the next four years as snippets of one of their video contents appeared on ESPN shows. The journey wasn’t that easy for them, though. They had to face a lot of struggles while building their name. But in the end, it all paid off as Dude Perfect is now one of the most successful YouTube channels with over 56 million subscribers.
15. MatPat
Matthew Patrick, also known as MatPat, is the creator of one of this decade’s most popular YouTube channels. The Game Theorists, The Film Theorists, The Food Theorists, and GTLive are all his channels. His Game Theorists YouTube channel grew from 500,000 to 3.5 million subscribers in a matter of a year in 2014. It now has over 15 million subscribers.
Matthew had already progressed to appear on other massive YouTube channels, spreading his highly contagious good vibes to his ever-growing viewers. MatPat is proof that everything is possible if you just continue to push forward!
14. HowToBasic
HowToBasic is the screen name of a well-known Australian YouTuber who creates how-to tutorials and posts them to his channel of the same name. HowToBasic’s sloppy “tutorials” are marketed as typical tutorials but contain erratic actions and raging over items, most notably eggs. He is the third most subscribed person in Australia as of now.
Although the YouTuber’s identity is unknown, because he does not speak or show his face in his videos, he continues to captivate a large audience with his bizarre tutorial videos. He is worth around $4.5 million, with over 16 million subscribers on his channel.
13. TheOdd1sOut
Robert James Rallison is a webcomic artist and a YouTuber from the United States. He started his social-media career by uploading his creative works on Tumblr, then moved on to ‘iFunny, Tapas, and finally on YouTube. His channel now has more than 21 million followers.
The first video on TheOdd1sOut was ‘A Book I Made as a Kid,’ which has received over five million views. Robert’s circumstances are displayed in the form of webcomics in the video content on the channel. Robert launched his 2nd ‘YouTube’ channel, ‘TheOdd2sOut,’ nearly at the end of 2017. It, too, has over two million subscribers.
12. Ryan Higa
Ryan Higa, popularly known as Nigahiga for his YouTube channel of the same name, is a Japanese-American YouTube persona. He is among the most subscribed YouTubers, with over 21.3 million subscribers to his main channel ‘Nigahiga’ and 4.76 million to his secondary channel ‘HigaTV,’ which usually contains behind-the-scenes clips from his main channel’s videos. He even appeared in a film named Tell Me How I Die.
Higa and his buddy Sean Fujiyoshi began the channel in 2006 by uploading videos of themselves lip-syncing to songs by famous musicians. But before that, he created his first YouTube video while attending Waiakea High School.
11. LazarBeam
LazarBeam received widespread recognition and acclaim following the Madden challenge video content. Lannan Eacott is his full name. LazarBeam’s net worth is $4 million as of 2022. He earns thousands of dollars annually from sources, such as YouTube income and his official merch of hoodies.
LazarBeam’s career officially began in January 2015, debuting his YouTube channel. Before that, he left high school and started working in various fields, including construction. He also spent some time training to become a pilot, but he never received his license.
10. Liza Koshy
Liza Koshy is an American actress who rose to prominence through her YouTube channel. Liza previously worked at Vine, then Koshy moved to YouTube and began making comedy sketches and vlogs, often collaborating with her ex-boyfriend David Dobrik. Koshy had 6 million subscribers in 2016. In 2017, Koshy became the Youtuber to reach ten million subscribers in a short time.
In her hilarious videos, we see her play various characters, such as young Liza, Carlos, Helga, etc. Liza Koshy quickly became known as the “Queen of Puns” after her audiences and fans kept pointing out the highly amusing puns she tends to make in the majority of her videos.
9. Shane Dawson
Shane Dawson is a 32-year-old famous YouTube content creator who has been active on the platform for a couple of years. He has amassed 30+ million subscribers across his channels. His early work mainly consisted of sketch comedy videos in which he played original characters, impersonated celebrities, and made fun of popular culture.
Dawson began his YouTube show about conspiracy theories in 2015; he also made a web series named Conspiracy Series later in 2019. He even wrote the books “I Hate Myselfie” and “It Gets Worse.”
8. DanTDM
Daniel Robert Middleton, commonly known online as DanTDM (formerly TheDiamondMinecart), was born in Hampshire, England, on November 8, 1991. Dan became one of the most popular British YouTube stars and one of the most well-known YouTube gaming personas.
He started his YouTube channel in 2012, making him one of the game’s early content creators. For so many years, DanTDM was regarded as the face of Minecraft on YouTube. He now has a staggering 25.9 million subscribers. Dan’s YouTube gaming channel focuses primarily on Minecraft, but as of 2020, Dan also uploads videos of himself playing random video games, accomplishing Discord challenges, and reactions.
7. Rhett and Link
Rhett James McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln “Link” Neal III are a widely recognized American comedy duo, Rhett and Link. Rhett and Link were friends from the first grade of elementary school. However, their fame came after launching Good Mythical Morning, a nerdy talk show.
What began as the duo hosting a simple nerdy daily talk show has grown into somewhat of an empire with spin-offs and new launches, increasing their views and revenues. Another successful program is Mythical Kitchen, a cooking show with Josh Scherer. Rhett and Link have over 4 million followers and over $32 million in net worth.
6. Vsauce
Michael Stevens, one of the digital world’s geniuses, is a well-known American motivational speaker, educator, entertainer, comedian, editor, and internet personality. He is famous for his popular educational channel, Vsauce, which answers many intriguing questions through interesting videos dealing with thought-provoking concepts. Michael Stevens’ Vsauce videos are distinct from other YouTubers due to his subject matters.
Michael Stevens began his career as a YouTube video editor in 2007, and his videos that went viral on YouTube caught the attention of many. He was soon invited to join the ‘Barely Political’ online comedy group. Later, he created Vsauce, for which Stevens has already received numerous awards.
5. David Dobrik
David Dobrik is a YouTube personality, actor, and talent show judge from Slovakia. He rose to prominence on Vine before launching his vlogs on YouTube in 2015. He made his first Vine in 2013 and frequently collaborated with other well-known viners. Dobrik’s vlog channel has approximately 18.5 million subscribers and 8.2 billion views. He also founded the YouTube group The Vlog Squad.
David Dobrik moved to the United States with his family when he was six years old. He grew up in Illinois. Dobrik moved to Los Angeles after graduating from high school to pursue a career as a social media personality. David Dobrik’s net worth is expected to be $15 million in 2022.
4. Jacksepticeye
Seán William McLoughlin, known as Jacksepticeye, is an Irish YouTuber famous for his vlogs, gameplays (which account for 90 percent of his channel’s content), and comedic Let’s Play series. He co-founded the fashion label Cloak with fellow YouTuber Markiplier, and he is the creator of Top of The Mornin’ Coffee. Jacksepticeye has also given to charity on numerous occasions through live streams.
Sean used to be a drummer for the heavy metal band “Raised to the Ground” before becoming a YouTube sensation. The Irish performer created a channel years ago but did not post any videos initially. However, now, his channel has more than 14.8 billion views and over 27.8 million subscribers as of January 2022.
3. Markiplier
Mark Edward Fischbach, better known by his YouTube username Markiplier, is a United States social media personality. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Fischbach started his career in Cincinnati, Ohio. He now resides in Los Angeles, California. In addition to making content for his main YouTube channel, he is also the co-founder of clothing brand Cloak with fellow YouTuber Jacksepticeye.
A handful of social media stars could sell merchandise like Markiplier, who saw robust revenues from T-shirts, hoodies, as well as other things related to his Unus Annus series. His channel has over 17.3 billion total views and over 31.6 million subscribers. Markiplier’s next goal is to reinvent himself as a television star. He shot a TV adaptation of The Edge of Sleep, a post-apocalyptic horror movie, and hopes to sell the show this year to a corporation, like Netflix or Hulu.
2. PewDiePie
Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, has to be currently one of the most successful YouTubers. His channel used to have 60,000 subscribers in 2011 but grew to over a million the following year. His net worth is expected to be around $54 million in 2021.
Felix sold Photoshop art, worked as a harbor captain, and ran a hot dog stand before joining YouTube. As a high school student, he was interested in art and video games. So, the rising star bought a computer, played video games, and posted the gameplay on YouTube. Now, his channel has around 4,458 videos.
1. MrBeast
Jimmy Donaldson is a YouTuber known for his MrBeast channel. He has risen to become the world’s top-paid YouTuber through a combination of astute business acumen and daring high-concept stunts. Donaldson’s early YouTube career was somewhat experimental, with him trying various types of content to go viral.
MrBeast mainly maintains his audience with extravagant stunts, including when he redeveloped the Squid Game set in his remake of the battle royale contest, or even when he shut himself in a maximum-security jail cell for almost fifty hours. Besides, MrBeast has also taken the top spot in Forbes’s “richest YouTuber” this year, earning $54 million in 2021.