Evan’s considerably richer than you (Picture: YouTube)

Excuse us, while we just wonder what we’ve been doing with our lives.

This nine-year-old boy banks an incredible $1.3 million (£853,354) a year, just from reviewing toys on YouTube. He’s basically got that job you always wanted (i.e. Tom Hanks’ job in Big) and he gets paid big bucks to do it.

Evan and his dad Jared (to maintain some privacy, they have withheld their last name), set up their YouTube channel EvanTubeHD in 2011. Four years on, they have almost 1.4 million subscribers and have had a staggering 1.2 billion page views.

Zoella who?


Evan and sister Alisa take on the Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans Contest (Picture: YouTube)

The father-son duo post up to three videos a week. Evan reviews the toys – from anything which involves Angry Birds to Elsa’s Sparkling Ice Castle – and Jared does the filming, editing and posting.



Jared says the videos started as a bit of fun and an excuse for some dad and son bonding time – until the views kept rising.

He told Fast Company: ‘When we first started the channel, we had no intention of making a cent from our videos. We didn’t even know it was possible.’

But, after Evan’s reviews started getting thousands of hits, Jared started to get a little more curious about that ‘monetise’ button available to YouTube content creators.

‘Lo and behold, money started showing up in our AdSense account,’ says Jared, adding, ‘Granted, it wasn’t much—maybe a few dollars a day. But I thought if I took this small stream of income and put it into a mutual fund, by the time the kids were ready to go to college, there would be a nice chunk there to assist with rising costs of education.’

A little dad/son bonding time (Picture: YouTube)

Dad now estimates the family’s annual earnings – his wife Alisa and 6-year-old daughter Jilian also get involved in the videos – to be in the region of $1.3 million. This now includes fees for Evan appearing in ads and making guest appearances on TV.

That’s quite a college fund.

But, Jared explains that Evan is still just a regular nine-year-old, which he credits for their incredible success. ‘I think one of the biggest attributing factors is Evan’s ability to connect with viewers,’ he says. ‘They see him as their friend and somebody they can relate to.’

And, for him, working with his family all day is the ultimate payback.

‘Like most people, I’ve often thought of dream jobs I’d love to have,’ he explains. ‘But never in my wildest dreams did I think one of them would be making a living creating videos while doing fun things with my family. This is definitely one dream job that is going to be hard to top.’

Oh, now he’s just showing off.

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