Making Money on YouTube

[ ]It blows my mind how much money some people make on YouTube. If you happen to be a narcissistic, cross-dressing man and you do makeup tutorials you can have a mansion in LA and a Rolls in the driveway. No shit. But those sad fucks are the exception to the rule. Having said that, some cats with medium-sized channels can still make some serious cash. Channels that are monetized have a "Superchat" option in the chat on livestreams. People can donate via CC or Paypal. Their comment is highlighted, and generally the host will acknowledge their donation, but not always. [ ]There's also a membership option where you pay a monthly fee. Your name in chat changes to green. It starts at $2.50 a month and goes up from there. There's one guy who comes on every morning with sort of a business/economics show. He'll have over 2 or 3K people watching his livestreams, every day, and he's selected the option where only members can chat. He probably has at least 1,500 members paying a minimum of $2.50 a month, plus people Superchat on top of that. Most people want a shoutout when they donate but he never pays a bit of attention to the chat. It's nothing personal; he wants to get his message across without distractions, even though the chat is basically dollar signs rolling by at a good clip. YT takes 30% off the top but who cares when that kind of money is rolling in. [ ]Don't get me wrong...I don't begrudge anyone (with a few notable exceptions) making money on YouTube. It's a lot of work being a content-creator, especially if you have a bunch of pro gear. It's a full-time job for lots of people. There are some good people on there and they deserve every penny. The morning dude makes a lot more than I'd think he would. He makes several-thou a month on memberships alone, but even without that I'd say he easily makes $1,500 an hour in his steams from Superchat. He clears over 11. He does a two-hour show seven days a week. Do the math. Plus he gets even more money from ads from the thousands of people who watch his livestreams later. Unreal. [ ]The image above is from a stream I was watching when I started this post. It's a missionary/minister-type dude. He does a lot of work in Africa which makes him okay in my book. He was doing a breakdown of the Super Bowl halftime show and I watched for maybe half an hour. I wasn't paying attention to the chat but all of the Superchats pop up at the top of the page, and his digits were pretty impressive. This is a random screenshot I snagged during the show. Not too shabby I'd say. You don't see all that many $400 donations but they do happen, and there were quite a few hunj donations. In fact when I checked again there was yet another $400 Superchat, as if they didn't want to be outdone. There were several more $100 ones and many other smaller donations, maybe 150 or so, ranging from $5 up to $50. I'm sure he cleared two grand or more. He's not quite up there with morning dude or makeup dudes certainly, but that kind of scratch ain't bad. He only goes live once a week or so, but morning dude must be nailing down maybe $750K a year. [ ]And still even that is a drop in the bucket compared to the dicksuckers. I haven't bothered to look into how much they make because I don't care, but it's a lot. Plus they get endorsements from the major beauty companies. What a flippy-floppy-ass world we live in. What some people will do for money never ceases to amaze. Morning dude has it good enough I'd say. Too much money can turn someone into an asshole, makeup or not. As it is I'm sure he's hired a good CPA and probably an attorney. Even missionary dude gets a good payoff for the time he spends. He probably takes in $35K or more a year, and that's just a part-time job. It's gravy. God's gravy as it were. Please pass those heavenly mashed potatoes. [ ]I've actually made some money myself because of my little channel, although it was unsolicited. I met a sweetheart about four years ago, and two Xmases ago she found out about the dog treats and ordered $100 worth. I made up a big batch and sent her some Moongazers and a small set of chimes as a gift, and she sent $50 more as a gift too. That worked out well. Another young lady took a shine to me. When she found out a couple of years back that we didn't have a washer and dryer (through a mutual YT friend) she ordered both from a local family biz and had them delivered. Another woman I met about two years ago ended up being a good friend, and a profitable one. The moral of this part of the story is that kindness sometimes does come back. [ ]Another sister showed up on the meteor page one evening. At first I didn't know it was a female. Her YT name was String Cheese, and at first I assumed it was a guy. Not only was she new to the meteor page and didn't know what was going on, she wasn't overly computer-savvy. I learned more in three years in that chat about things like weather, the Sun and its effects on the planets, earth changes and of course meteors than I learned in all my life before. So when a newbie showed up anyone in chat would try to help out if they could. Whomever it was I knew they were genuinely interested and eager to learn, and I jumped in to help. At first she apologized for asking "stupid questions" but I told her that we all had to start somewhere, and the only thing that would be stupid would be to NOT ask questions. That put her at ease and maybe allowed her to trust me. [ ]Long story short I found out she was a she, and over the next few weeks I helped her as much as my limited expertise allowed, and we became YT friends. After we'd been chatting for a couple of weeks I was helping her with something that was pretty involved. I can't type and I gave her my number and told her she was welcome to call so I could explain it in person. I knew it was a big step...women especially, but everyone has to be careful on YT, and whom you trust. There are some harmless (and fun) YT groupies out there, and believe it or not I have a few, but there are also stalkers out there, and worse. She did call, and it worked out great. I knew she'd love my mom so I introduced them, and now they talk once a week at least. She's a trip. [ ]About six months ago her dad passed away and she inherited some money. I should back up and say that before that she was struggling a bit, and when I found out through our same mutual friend that all she had to eat for the next two weeks was peanut butter, I sent her $40. It wasn't much but it helped her out when she really needed it. One day she called and said to check the mail. She sent me a $500 Amazon gift card, plus $150 in cash, $50 each for me, mom, and even my dog. How's about that? You never know how much a kindness might mean to someone. It's my nature to help someone if I can. I didn't know her from Adam. In fact I thought at first her name might BE Adam. I was happy to help, and it came back to me many times over. [ ]I've thought several times about starting a channel for monetization, and promoting it and the whole deal, but it'd mean working long hours and treating it like a business. It might be worth doing, especially considering there's not much else to do these days. At this point in time I doubt I could get to where morning dude is, but I know I could easily match missionary dude and then some. I have some ideas. When I saw the dollar signs popping up in missionary dude's chat I was floored. It'd take maybe a year to grow the channel but there are lots of ways to do that. I wouldn't want to have to work as hard as morning dude either, and the subject isn't my field of expertise. Forget makeup dudes. You don't have to suck any dicks if you don't want to. Making money on YouTube? Surprisingly it can be done. Maybe you'll have some YouTube groupies yourself. You never know. Get busy.