Tuesday, January 18, 2022
YOUTUBE SOCIAL MEDIA MILLIONAIRES: The Highest-Paid Performers
The Highest-Paid YouTube Stars: MrBeast, Jake Paul And Markiplier Score Massive Payday
MrBeast is the new No. 1 with record earnings, and Jake Paul ranks second despite past scandals. Here’s how much these celebs raked in.
With a name like MrBeast, perhaps it was only inevitable that he’d grow to be as big as he’s become. The 23 year old earned $54 million in 2021—the most of any YouTuber ever—as his videos accumulated 10 billion views, doubling from the previous year. What do people like so much? Well, the internet loves watching stunts, and MrBeast excels at delivering super-sized ones. In the last year, he has spent 50 hours buried alive, offered $10,000 to anyone willing to sit in a bathtub of snakes and hosted his own version of Squid Game, building replicas of the Netflix show’s sets.
MrBeast leads our latest list of the top-earning YouTubers for the first time and likely earns himself a spot among the world’s highest-paid entertainers. In fact, his $54 million payday would have put him in the Top 40 of our last Celebrity 100, a ranking of the top-paid stars across all of entertainment, above folks like Billie Eilish, Kim Kardashian, Angelina Jolie and even BTS. The two right behind MrBeast–No. 2 Jake Paul ($45 million) and No. 3 Markiplier ($38 million)–also would have made that Celebrity 100, which had a $35 million cutoff.
Altogether, the YouTubers collectively earned about $300 million in 2021—another record amount—up 40% from a year earlier, mostly propelled higher by increasing views on their YouTube channels and the ad revenue they generate from those videos. (More people than ever are on YouTube: The platform has close to 2 billion users now, a 40% increase in five years.) Around half their earnings come from that ad revenue. To pad their pay further, all these stars have branded merchandise lines. And they variously dabble in generating additional revenue from Twitch, Snap, Facebook, podcasts, NFTs—even hamburgers. A few have signed lucrative deals with Spotter, a Los Angeles startup buying up the rights to old YouTube videos.
Their chunky checks make one thing abundantly clear: It’s only getting harder to distinguish a digital star from an Angelina.
#1 | MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson)
Thanks to that surge in views, his 2021 payday is almost double what last year’s No. 1 brought in. (That would be the $29.5 million brought in by Ryan Kaji, who slips to No. 7.) Another attention-grabbing project from 2021: MrBeast Burger, an app and menu that lets fans order MrBeast-branded meals from 1,600 restaurants across the country that have partnered with him to fulfill the orders. MrBeast handles the marketing, pushing the burgers at his nearly 90 million YouTube subscribers. He and the restaurants then split the profits from the orders. So far, the operation has sold 5 million sandwiches.
#2 | Jake Paul
Look who’s baaack: Paul returns to this list—he last made it in 2018 with $21.5 million in earnings—largely on the strength of his boxing earnings. He fought three well-publicized bouts last year with a pair of MMA fighters: one match with Ben Askren, two with Tyron Woodley. (Paul won them all.) In many ways, boxing, a sport long populated by contentious stars, is a natural fit for Paul, himself no stranger to controversy. He had been one of YouTube’s most popular names until his brother Logan posted a December 2017 video filmed in a Japanese forest grimly famous as a suicide spot. Fans hated it—deeming it distinctly in poor taste—and the backlash hit both Paul brothers. Their sponsors cut them, and YouTube demonetized them. Now, they can earn off YouTube ads again, but Jake posts less frequently than he once did, using the site mostly to market his boxing career, which now accounts for nearly 90% of his earnings.
#3 | Markiplier
Few social media stars can move merch like Markiplier, who saw especially strong sales from the T-shirts, hoodies and other items tied to his Unus Annus series, the main reason his earnings have nearly doubled from our previous list. (Those Unus Annus videos were a collaboration with fellow YouTuber Ethan Nestor-Darling and ran on Markiplier’s YouTube channel starting in 2019. A year later, Markiplier deliberately deleted them all.) Next, Markiplier hopes to remake himself as a TV star. In 2021, he filmed a television adaptation of The Edge of Sleep, a post-apocalyptic thriller he initially dramatized as a podcast in 2019; the TV project still needs a home, and he hopes to sell the series to a company like Netflix or Hulu later this year. Markiplier remains a popular YouTube fixture (31 million subscribers), having first cemented his fame by recording himself playing things like Five Nights at Freddy’s, a video game about a haunted pizza place.
#4 | Rhett and Link
What started as the duo hosting a nerdy daily talk show, Good Mythical Morning, has grown into something of an empire with spinoffs and brand extensions, boosting their views and earnings on YouTube. One of their most successful efforts: Mythical Kitchen, a cooking series with a separate host, Josh Scherer. The two-year-old show already has 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. Another initiative is their Mythical Accelerator fund through which they intend to invest $5 million in other YouTubers. (They made their first deal in 2021, contributing an undisclosed sum to up-and-comer Jarvis Johnson.) And in October, they satisfied a longtime fan request to drop their family-friendly act, hosting a two-hour, decidedly R-rated livestream, an event to which they sold 70,000 tickets for as much as $50 a pop.
#5 | Unspeakable
Unspeakable can’t shut up about Minecraft, the pixelated video game that’s now a childhood staple. Over 20 million people subscribe to his four YouTube channels, where he posts videos of himself playing Minecraft and other games. In other clips, he does things like fill a room with live alligators. Born in Houston as Nathan Graham, he has posted steadily on YouTube for the past decade. Last year, Unspeakable sold off his catalog of YouTube videos to Spotter last year, betting that he can use the lump sum to grow his business more quickly rather than wait for the videos to accrue ad revenue. (Spotter is now one of the largest independent owners of YouTube content, making several deals like the one for Unspeakable’s back catalog in recent years.) In the meantime, the Spotter money was at least enough to help Unspeakable debut here.
#6 | Nastya
Nastya also did a Spotter deal last year, selling the rights to her old YouTube videos to Spotter for cash upfront while retaining the rights to any new videos she puts up. The seven year old, who immigrated from Russia with her parents, has drawn in 87.5 million subscribers to her Like Nastya channel, where she chronicles her life in prosaic installments. (Top hits from 2021: videos about decorating Halloween cupcakes and about spending time with her best friends, Evelyn and Adrian.) Along with the Spotter money, she and her corporate minders have busily added other brand extensions, including a merchandise line and a NFT collection.
#7 | Ryan Kaji
Ryan started on YouTube at the tender age of 4, reviewing and playing with toys. Now 10, his parents and the others guarding his business interests—that includes former Disney executive Chris Williams—are increasingly focused on keeping his brand alive as he ages out of playtime. The answer, they hope, may be the animated characters that costar with Ryan. (They’ve made some progress. One such character, Red Titan, a child superhero with a crimson cape and a passing resemblance to Ryan, has become well known enough to appear as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon for the past two years.) For now, his main YouTube channel, Ryan’s World, maintains 31 million subscribers and an enormous line of branded merchandise and toys sold at big-box retailers like Target and Walmart.
#8 | Dude Perfect
If it seems dangerous to you, it is gold for this sports-comedy fivesome (twins Coby and Cory Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones and Tyler Toney). Their videos are filled with things like someone bench-pressing 405 pounds underwater and walking on a biplane’s wings mid flight. What’s better than watching these stunts online? Seeing them up close and personal: The group will do their third live tour this summer in 24 cities. And for the bravest of heart at home, Dude Perfect last year published 101 Tricks, Tips, and Cool Stuff, a 250-page, photo-filled book complete with step-by-step instructions.
#9 | Logan Paul
Like his brother Jake, Logan comes back to this list after a 2017 scandal pushed both siblings off. And like Jake, Logan has pivoted toward boxing. He had a bout last June against former world champion Floyd Mayweather, which, as an exhibition fight, had no official winner. As Logan continues to rehab his image, he had one of the first celebrity NFT releases with a $5 million sale last February, while his podcast, Impaulsive, has generated over 100 million YouTube views over the past year.
#10 | Preston Arsement
Preston runs several YouTube channels, but the name of his most popular one, PrestonPlayz, says all you really need to know about him: The guy plays a lot of video games, mostly Minecraft. Nearly 12 million people subscribe to that four-year-old channel, which he has done a good job of keeping topical: In one of his most recent videos, he built a playable Minecraft version of the challenges from Squid Game.
— Justin Birnbaum and Brett Knight contributed reporting.
PIVOT TO THE PACIFIC: Underwater Volcanic Eruptions Inside "The Ring of Fire"
Tonga’s volcano eruption and tsunami explained in maps and charts
There are some 1,350 potentially active volcanoes around the world, many located around the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’.
The South Pacific nation of Tonga is still cut off from the world two days after an underwater volcano erupted – triggering tsunami alerts across the Pacific.
Tonga comprises 169 islands, of which 36 are inhabited, and has a population of about 105,000 people.
As of Tuesday, Tonga police had reported two deaths, but the true extent of casualties is still not clear with most communication lines still down.
Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai
On January 15, the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai volcano, about 70km (45 miles) northwest of the nation’s capital, Nuku’alofa, sent plumes of smoke 20km (12 miles) into the air and caused significant damage.
Before and after satellite images show smoke rising from the underwater volcano days before it erupted.
While the volcano has erupted regularly over the past few years, there has been nothing like this most recent eruption. Early data suggests it was the biggest eruption since Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines more than 30 years ago.
Robin George Andrews, a science journalist, volcanologist and author of Super Volcanoes, told Al Jazeera from London that “it was the most energetic [volcanic] explosions in the entire 21st century”.
Where are the world’s volcanoes?
There are some 1,350 potentially active volcanoes around the world, according to the US Geological Survey.
Many are located along a 40,000km (25,000-mile) arc along the Pacific known as the “Ring of Fire”, which is also where about 90 percent of all earthquakes occur.
Tonga is home to several volcanoes, all along the Ring of Fire.
How underwater volcanoes erupt
There are about one million undersea volcanoes – and most are extinct. According to the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration group, about “three-quarters of all volcanic activity on Earth actually occurs underwater”.
During an eruption, hot magma forces the oceanic crust open. This can lead to tsunamis – a series of ocean waves caused by the displacement of water.
Volcano tsunami warnings
A 1.2-metre (4 foot) wave swept ashore in the Tongan capital, with locals reporting fleeing to higher ground, leaving behind flooded houses, some with structural damage, as rubble and ash fell from the sky.
Tsunami warnings were issued across the Pacific, including in Samoa, Australia, Japan, Hawaii, Chile and the US Pacific coast.
Waves damaged boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California – more 8,500km (5,300 miles) away – but did not appear to cause any widespread damage.
By Sunday, the warnings had receded."
Monday, January 17, 2022
GOTTA HAVE HEART: It's just a muscle, a pump ...No wonder magic and religion settled in!
The Cultural Observer ". . .The heart is the only human organ other than the penis to move beyond our control, and we’ve never got over it. . ."
Hindu gods, Aztec rites, Blondie hits … why the heart is our eternal symbol
The pig heart transplant is a medical marvel but centuries of art and history give us pause to reflect on what truly makes us human
A man in Maryland has been given a pig’s heart as a transplant (genetically modified, phew), and the old chestnut rolls out again: won’t that maybe somehow make him … piggy? The rationalists laugh, and the surgeons reassure: it’s just a muscle! A pump!
Physically, they may be right (the heart is complex and still not fully understood), but culturally they couldn’t be more wrong. Over millennia and across the world, the heart has also been a house, a book, a rose, a pine cone, a pomegranate, a bunch of grapes, a pincushion, a wheel, a fountain, a picnic spot, a cup, a harp, a map. It flies, sinks, grows, breaks, rejoices, flutters, burns. It’s wounded with blades, sacrificed, given, stolen, swept, polished, eaten. Frida Kahlo painted it, as a pile of paint.
The heart is the only human organ other than the penis to move beyond our control, and we’ve never got over it. Imagine being stone-age: you feel it beat faster when you’re angry, scared or lustful, when you hunt; you know to shoot for the heart to kill. But you don’t know how it works. Dead, it’s just a flesh whoopie cushion. No wonder magic and religion settled in. Followed by love, courage, honesty and the rest.
> In Gilgamesh, the oldest written story, the hero’s heart beats with pride.
> In an Egyptian poem, at least 3,000 years old, a woman says: “My heart flutters hastily when I think of my love for you; it lets me not act sensibly, it leaps from its place.” Be still my beating heart …After death, the Egyptian heart was weighed against the Feather of Truth before a panel of deities: models of scarab beetles carried lengthy prayers beseeching the heart not to speak out against its owner.
The true heart would go west across the Nile to spend eternity eating cake with Osiris; the impure heart was itself eaten, by Ammit, a chimaera of crocodile, hippo and lion. As Hank Williams wrote centuries later: “Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you.”
Heart symbolism emerged naturally and seeped inexorably into all religions.
Plato described the heart as two-sided, with chambers, which is echoed in the two tablets of the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament, where law is written in the heart. In the Qur’an it’s made of glass, for God to see your thoughts: it must be kept clean, to reflect God back clearly. That may not have been Debbie Harry’s point, but it was her image. It was in love songs long before the Song of Solomon’s “Set me as a seal on thy heart”. The Hindu gods Sita and Rama lived in the heart of the monkey god Hanuman 9,000 years ago.
It makes a noise. It’s a drum, obviously. Long ago, air was believed to pass through it: in Sufi poetry it’s the reed flute, the ney. It has strings – the anatomical cordae tendinneae.
By the 17th century, emblems – illustrations of religious points for the illiterate – showed a Cupid-like little Jesus playing it as a harp. They showed hearts with wings, with eyes, even being circumcised. In some, little Jesus sweeps demons and sins out of a heart-shaped house. Chambers, right? The logic is literal. A 10th-century Chinese heart sutra is written in the form of a pagoda. Nuns in Germany embroidered dear little heart chalets in which Jesus receives a drink, while the lamb of God sits on the chimney – neatly representing the aorta. Steps up are labelled with the virtues that must be shown in order to get there. Christ’s heart-house, speared open on the cross, is open to us. (In another strand, the sacrament of his blood – the love – flowed into the Holy Grail, associating the heart with cups: “copas” was the original suit in cards which became hearts.)
In Mexico, the best-looking young Aztec men were treated as gods for a year – fine food, musicians following them around, girls – before their hearts were fed to the Eagle of the Sun. (The oldest known sculptural representation of the heart is a 4,000-year-old Olmec ceramic, with two chambers, sprouting blood-vessels, and a head.)
Many tribal societies would eat the heart of the enemy to acquire their strength (medieval French troubadours sang of husbands serving the wife with her lover’s heart, and Mike Tyson was still threatening to eat Lennox Lewis’s in 2000). Mexico City is founded where a magician’s heart sprouted into a prickly pear.
All that syncretised neatly with Catholicism, linking back into the heart as edible fruit: the pomegranate, which represented Christ’s passion in Renaissance Europe (echoing Persephone, who also rose from the dead in spring), the grapevine that Jesus had to be (because otherwise how could his blood be wine?), even the apple that Eve tasted, discovering self-knowledge. The heart of Mary, meanwhile, was a rose – except where speared with the arrows of her seven sorrows.
How the symbol skips and hops through cultures and times, echoing and shifting. In 10th-century China, a map of the feelings of the heart; in 16th-century Europe, Mercator using the shape as a projection for a map of the world.
And where did that shape come from, with the scalloped top and pointy bottom? Until the 1300s, it was represented pine-cone shaped, pointy end up. Galen said it had “in medio fovum” – “in the middle a ditch or pit”. Made visible, the ditch emphasises the broken heart – open to new knowledge, to let God, or love, in, or out. As Leonard Cohen sang: “There’s a crack in everything, it’s how the light gets in.”
So yes, it’s a pump. But not only."
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Louisa Young’s new novel, Twelve Months And A Day, will be published by Borough Press in May
INTEL TO SPEND $20 BILLION BUILDING A NEW "MEGA-FAB" SMALL CITY... City of New Albany is working to annex up to 3,600 acres of land t
Intel “mega-fab” coming to Ohio, reports say
Massive $20 billion site would be like “a little city.”
"Intel is reportedly planning to build a large chip facility in New Albany, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus, the state capital. An official announcement is expected on January 21.
The company reportedly plans to invest $20 billion in the site, and the city of New Albany is working to annex up to 3,600 acres of land to accommodate the facility, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which first reported the deal.
Given the size of the parcel and the facility’s rumored price tag, it is likely the site of Intel’s “mega-fab,” which CEO Pat Gelsinger said would be like “a little city.” The mega-fab would contain six to eight modules, he said, and would focus on lithography processes and packaging techniques. Suppliers would have space on the site, too.
The mega-fab would also become a center for training new production engineers. Given the site’s proximity to Ohio State University, just 15 miles away, it’s likely that the company would partner with the university’s electrical engineering department. At the very least, it would provide a nearby source of potential future employees.Intel declined to comment on the story when contacted by Ars.
Ohio and New York were competing for the facility, according the Plain Dealer. New York has a long history of semiconductor manufacturing dating back to the heyday of IBM. If Intel’s mega-fab does land in Ohio, it would be a coup for the state, which isn’t known to be a hub for major semiconductor firms.
Intel has fallen behind in recent years, but Gelsinger is pushing to bring the company back to the leading edge. To get there, he’s planning to make not only Intel chips but also chips for other companies. The semiconductor giant has already signed Qualcomm and Amazon Web Services, and Intel VP Klaus Schuegraf told Ars in October that more than 100 companies have expressed interest. If even a fraction of them follow through, they could help fill order capacity at the mega-fab."
PRETENSE IN YOUR FUTURE: DNA test to be added to Covid screening
DNA test to be added to Covid screening
People most at risk from coronavirus can be identified with a simple genetic check, health officials say
"The Polish Health Ministry is planning to introduce a new type of screening for coronavirus after a gene was discovered that determines the likelihood of a patient suffering from severe or fatal Covid-19.
People most at risk of suffering the severest effects or even dying of coronavirus can be identified using a genetic test, health officials in Poland revealed this week. The study that resulted in the discovery was supported by the country’s Ministry of Health and Medical Research Agency, and involved around 1,500 patients with Covid-19. Researchers from the Medical University of Bialystok identified a gene in chromosome 3 that significantly influences how badly the virus will affect an individual.
“After more than a year and a half of work, it was possible to identify a gene responsible for a predisposition to becoming seriously ill [with Covid],” Health Minister Adam Niedzielski said at a press conference on Thursday.
The findings will now be applied to help identify patients at increased risk from the virus when or even before they contract the infection. The Health Ministry plans to develop and launch a “relatively simple” and quick genetic test that can be performed alongside PCR screening within a few months.
It could also be implemented around the world to help people with apparent genetic preconditions, Polish officials said. . ."
“This is a step towards personalized medicine, which is the medicine of the future – when, knowing our genome, we will know what harm to expect when it comes to our health,” Joanna Zajkowska, a professor at the University of Bialystok, told Polish Radio. . .
[...]
> The Polish study is not the first to suggest correlation between certain genetic factors and patients’ reactions to Covid-19.
--- A genome-wide analysis of Italians and Spaniards in 2020 studied blood types and a chromosome 3 gene cluster in association with respiratory failure caused by coronavirus. Extreme susceptibility to severe illness was found in persons with certain DNA markers, while the study also showed that people with type A-positive blood are at higher risk of respiratory failure from Covid.
--- Other research from Germany also detected correlation between a gene cluster on the same chromosome and the risk of severe infection.
--- A mutation which helps fight off RNA viruses, inherited by some people from our Neanderthal ancestors, has been found."
Reference: https://www.rt.com/news/546148-genetic-test-severe-covid/
ICYMI: Navajo Nation will send $2,000 to adults and $600 to kids in COVID-19 hardship aid
Readers of this blog might like to note that the Mesa City Council approved a different action - giving city employees an across-the-board 2-3% boost in their annual salaries.
Navajo Nation will send $2,000 to adults and $600 to kids in COVID-19 hardship aid
"The Navajo people are getting some much needed help from their Tribal government as another round of COVID-19 hardship assistance checks are expected to roll out soon.
Enrolled citizens of the Navajo Nation can expect funds in the coming weeks with $2000 for every adult and $600 for minors, after Navajo Nation Tribal leaders signed a resolution approving $557 million in funding to be used as hardship assistance.
“Our people need help,” Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said during the virtual signing on Facebook live. “This is the Navajo peoples’ money and we hear your voices.”
The resolution allocates funding that will provide direct financial relief and help mitigate the effects of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by providing $2,000 in hardship assistance for adults and $600 for minors who are enrolled citizens of the Navajo Nation.
“This is a historic day for all Navajo people. Those living here on the Navajo Nation and all of our people off the nation, including our men and women serving around the world in the armed forces,” Nez said during a signing.
“With the signing of this resolution, we are taking another big step forward by providing the support and resources that all families need during this difficult time,” Navajo Nation Vice President Myron Lizer said in a press release. “We ask our people to use the funds to truly help their loved ones so that we can emerge from this hardship that our Nation faces.”
During the virtual signing, comments came pouring in from spectators thanking the Navajo Nation President and Vice President as well as the Navajo Nation Council for passing the resolution. . ."
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
