After advertisers dropped him for posting several videos with racist language and anti-semitic imagery, PewDiePie has lost his seat as the richest YouTuber in the world.
We’re not talking vaguely hateful shit either, some of his videos feature full-on Nazi salutes, swastikas, and the occasional shot of Hitler, albeit it in jest, he claims. Oh, and he used the N-word in a live stream once. Not too funny, dude.
After all that, it’s not too surprising that PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg, IRL) slipped from the number one slot on Forbes' annual list. What is surprising? He only fell to 6th place, with his earnings dropping from around $15 million to $12 million. Wah, wah.
Google took PewDiePie of its preferred program and he was dropped by Disney from their now defunct Maker Studios. Even so, the YouTuber still maintains an audience of nearly 60 million people.
PewDiePie lost his richest YouTuber throne to some other white dude you’ve probably never heard of, DanTDM, but at least this one doesn’t appear to be a bigot.
DanTDM, or Daniel Middleton as he is known off-screen, boasts a whopping 11 billion views on his channel. With his 17 million subscribers, he almost has a dollar to account for every one of them, raking in an impressive $16.5 million this past year.
The 27-year-old from England was working at a grocery store, back when he started making videos about Minecraft and Pokemon back in 2012. Strong come up, if you ask me.
Between June 1 2016 and June 1 2017, the 10 richest YouTubers bring in a collective $127 million before taxes and management fees– that’s an eighty percent increase from last year. Forbes calculates its list past on data from YouTube, agents, publicists, and lawyers.
You can check out the full list below, before reconsidering all your life choices.
1. Daniel Middleton (DanTDM) – $16.5m
2. Evan Fong (VanossGaming) – $15.5m
3. Dude Perfect – $14m
4. Mark Fischbach (Markiplier) – $12.5m
5. Logan Paul – $12.5m
6. Felix Kjellberg (PewDiePie) – $12m
7. Jake Paul – $11.5m
8. Ryan ToysReview – $11m
9. Smosh – $11m
10. Lilly Singh (IISuperwomanII) – $10.5m
