The listed Forbes top 10 YouTubers 2018 shred is as follow:

But! But! Here is the deal. Being youtube highest paid on YouTube doesn’t mean you are making the most money. Being the highest paid means that you are being paid the largest amount for sponsored content. These do not account for other sources of income, for example, Jeffree Star cofounded a cosmetic line ‘Jeffree Star cosmetics which is making over $100 million. Making the most money means that your gross income from Youtube surpasses others. In Oct. 2019 The Street has listed 8 Youtubers earning the highest amount of money which goes as follows.

8. Lilly Singh – $10 million

7.  Rayan ToysReview – $11 million

6. Smosh – $11 million

5. PewDiePie – $12million

4. Markiplier – $12 million

3. Logan Paul $12.5 million

2.Vanoss Gaming $15.5 million

1- DanTDM = $16.5 million

Well while most names are from the list by Forbes the order varies and the numbers for the same Youtubers varies. The variation is so much so that earnings of Ryan ToysReview has gone half, but this time at least one of them is a female YouTuber. I guess The Street was trying to be inclusive as they have not shared the source or merits for the statistics and ranking they provided. However, they did share detailed information on making money via YouTube.

It’s not like women are not funny, entertaining, creative or informative, the trouble is that more often than not they are viewed just as a sex symbol. Yes, in this very day! This kind of label leaves limited viewership with a certain mindset and only a limited earning opportunities. Female YouTubers who use their sex appeal and general gullibility to their favor are not either helping the case. However, according to Copy Blogger its off page things rather than the content itself that influence your ranking up to 85%.

While many will like to believe this has nothing to do with feminism or women’s rights, it is not true. It is relevant to the perception of women on the internet, the law protecting the right to equal pay, and the effect of YouTube as media in shaping gender stereotypes. I have statistics to show that a woman with a greater following than a man can be earning way less than him. But still, these statistics are not showing the complete picture. There is more to the story and I will dig it all out for you.

Let’s get to the Youtube numbers

Mediakix listed 20 Female Youtubers With the Most Subscribers in September 2017, which reported Yuva as the Female YouTuber with more than 19 million subscribers. She currently has 23.4 million subscribers. Jenna Marbles has also crossed 19 million subscribers. However, a huge number of subscribers have failed to enlist them in the highest-earning Youtubers.

It is interesting to see that the Youtube Star with the highest-earning is Ryan ToysReview, a 7-year-old with 18 million subscribers now and $11million in income, while Jake Paul is second to him in earnings with 3.5 billion subscribers. This shows that probably the number of subscribers is not a sure count of the money you are making.

Why Female YouTubers are so far behind?

What’s the Secret to YouTube Earnings? Is it about the number of followers or the quality of content? Or is it about the niche and affiliate programs you are involved in? Is it really about gender? Yes, and no for all the questions as the answer is not that simple and there is no hard and fast rule to make money on YouTube. The only thing that is certain is that females are reportedly making less money. Why though?

While the men in Top Ten by Forbes are from diverse categories of Gaming, Comedy, Fashion, and Children toys, Female Youtubers listed by MediaKix are from categories of Fashion and Comedy. This on one hand hints that female YouTubers are covering fewer niches, on the other hand, it shows that even in the niches women are competing with men, men have excelled. For example, the cosmetic industry predominantly targets women and has only recently shifted its focus towards men but a Male Youtuber (though he identifies differently) has dominated the sales. Even in the Comedy category, we have many great female comedians but men have taken over the Forbes ranking. What could be the reason?

According to my understanding, the brand’s associated reliability very heavily with gender. As reflected by the survey results of Word Stream, female digital marketers are 21% under-rated in comparison to their male counterparts in the field, even though women were statistically performing 19% better than men. Yes, you read it right, let it sink in. Another important result from the survey was that it was female clients who showed more gender bias towards female representatives. This translates into ‘women putting down women’. Such a shame I know!

This is the prime reason females are offered fewer opportunities for brand endorsements and also less payment. When a cosmetic brand targeting a female audience knows that a male Make up artist will be favored by the targeted population in comparison to a female, they automatically reach out to a male makeup artist even though they are very scarce in comparative numbers.

Conclusion

From the above-given statistics, it is safe to deduce it is not as much about the quality of content produced, but the gap in Earnings of male and female is credited to two factors. Party to lesser diversity in targeted niches, but majorly due to Gender Bias. Let us hope that as we progress as a human race we can move forewords all such prejudices of race and gender. Here is another article about gender bias in the writing community and publication industry that might interest you.

Forbes–listed-NO-Female-Youtube-Star … Forbes Listed 10 Youtube Highest Paid Stars and Not One Is Female! Here is Why?