Now that 2016 is in full swing and all of the lists about new technology and best restaurants to visit have dropped, let’s talk about what’s really on our minds. How am I going to make tons of money this year? Well, one of the hottest new professions out there for 2016 is online blogging.

Video-logging, or vlogging, is one of the biggest trends on YouTube and people with a large enough audience  can, in fact, get paid for making their videos. The topic of how much money bloggers and vloggers make is considered to be taboo due to the many trollers on the internet that are angered by the idea of someone sitting around recording themselves talking and getting paid to do so. So what if that’s how people wish to spend their days?

Well, some people are making millions doing it.

Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie on YouTube, racked in a total of $7.4 million dollars in 2014 just from posting videos of him playing video games on his account. Many people were completely enraged over this news.

 

Forbes posted a nice rebuttal to the haters, stating that “if Kjellberg had made his money by starting a construction business, trading bonds or creating a killer app, would we still have the right to criticise him then?” The problem is that people don’t know how much work goes into creating each video.

Now, not everyone is going to become an insta-millionaire just from posting one video on the internet and calling it a day, but for the people who do have the opportunity to get paid that much blood, sweat, and tears go into each post they make. Senior Lizzy Wagstaff said that “if [she] had the time and knowledge on how to make a good blogpost or video, she would love to create one incorporating her art and photography.” Most vloggers and bloggers post once a day, if not more. Luckily, that benefits them as well because the more viewers and exposure they receive, the more revenue they are pulling in.

Michaela Dinman ‘16 is a huge fan of Khan Academy on YouTube and learns a lot from their educational videos. “They deserve every penny they earn, they’re real teachers to me,” she stated.

So, how exactly do you get paid from making YouTube videos? The first step may be the hardest of them all. In order to become partnered with YouTube and claim money from posts, you have to first get viewers. Once you pull in enough subscribers  and go through the process of partnering with YouTube and Google Adsense, your videos will become monetized. These are the ads you see on people’s videos.

For every ad that is at least half watched or clicked on, the creator of the video that the ad is on is paid a small portion of money. When that money reaches the threshold of $100, Google Adsense is able to give a payout to the YouTuber. These payments are sent via direct deposit once a month, and if the threshold is not met, the money rolls over to the next month. For YouTubers who are racking up hundreds of thousands or even millions of views on their videos each month, their checks are in the thousands.

So, to sum up the big question: can I make money as an internet blogger? The answer is most certainly yes, and quite possibly tons of it, but that won’t always be the case. Lots of time, effort, and maybe even luck goes into getting the views and attention in order to get the big bills. For anyone that’s looking to try it out, I say more power to you. You’ll never know what can come out of it unless you try.