This 5-year-old is the world's biggest YouTube celebrity

So what's going on here?

What's going on is Ryan ToysReview, a YouTube channel that emerged last year and promptly began a swift takeover of the internet's attentions. It's not that hard to root out why: toy unboxing is a popular (and profitable) online endeavor, and Ryan is fun to watch doing it. There's a refreshing sense of true amateurishness to the whole operation—where YouTube has in a lot of ways become a mess of staged and overproduced content, the semi-planned spontaneity and half-committed bits of Ryan ToysReview impart legitimate charm. The spirit of a typical video, around 10-15 minutes, is a loosely edited hangout session, which sometimes gets messy.

His parents started it

Ryan ToysReview/YouTube

Though it's no longer at all difficult to imagine a 5-year-old reaching celebrity status in this day and age, no one expects a kid that young to be braving the internet alone. Ryan is no different, and his channel—channels, really, and more on that in a moment—were set up by his parents. However, it must be stressed that they only set up his channels after he asked his mother, "How come I'm not on YouTube when all the other kids are?" Which, to some, is a sort of existential question so paralyzing it might lead one cancel their internet service. But Ryan's mom set things up for him, and production was off and rolling.

Ryan's father provides another reason for the channel: staying connected with long-lost family. "Ryan has a lot of extended family outside of the U.S.," his father told Tubefilter. "So YouTube was a great way to share childhood memories with them. It's also a great way for us to spend more time together as a family and to bond with him,"

The internet noticed, and not everyone was happy

Of course, a force so titanic as Ryan ToysReview can't hit water without making a splash, and his success has made waves across the internet as lines are drawn and other YouTubers prepare to face this new, increasingly dominant menace with the innocent smile. In his video, King of YouTube, Pewdiepie, acknowledged the challenger, posting a video called "THE 5 YEAR OLD THAT WILL SURPASS PEWDIEPIE" with a mixture of trepidation and resolve.

He's doing good in the new year, starting off jockeying for position on the world-wide charts, coming in at second place in the race for eyeballs with 612.8 million views in the week of January 14-20 as reported by Tubefilter.

His videos are actually useful

Ryan ToysReview/YouTube

The most shocking thing about watching these videos is that Ryan's actually a pretty good host, which comes in handy during occasional videos that show excursions to the toy store—fact-finding missions. There are also family game nights, and trips to the amusement park where he gets the whole crew in on the action on sister channel Ryan's Family Review — it's really kind of shocking how there's something here for everybody. If you just want to see cute kids, Ryan's got you covered. If you like to watch a happy, healthy family play together in their home, getting glimpses of real joy that remind you of the good times, then there's plenty of that here.

And if you just want to see if the dang toy is entertaining, your questions will invariably be answered by the comprehensive field test Ryan inflicts on it. Watch one of these videos, and you'll legitimately know whether or not a toy would be a good get for you or your kids. You can see the whole review in Ryan's eyes. It's genius, really. Commercials try to sell you toys—Ryan's videos use the target audience to show you if they're actually any fun.

Ryan's parents buy the toys

As easy as it would be to believe this channel exists solely for Ryan to play with toys funneled to him from gigantic corporations using him as a living advertisement, that simply doesn't seem to be the case here. Ryan's parents insist they pay for all of the toys, with no outstanding agreements with manufacturers to have them shipped directly for an endorsement — although they have begun to get it on the branding game. And for the time being, why would they? With the runaway success of the channel from ramshackle beginnings, it would be foolish to try and improve on what's already working. It's not like they can't afford the toys, now, and those shopping trips can make for some devastatingly cute footage.

Most of the toys go to charity

Ryan ToysReview/YouTube

Another interesting tidbit from an interview with Ryan's parents conducted by TubeFilter is that a lot of the toys Ryan plays with get donated to charity, making this a lot more humanitarian of an endeavor than the Richie Rich scenario it suggests. And no surprise, really. According to Ryan's mom, the family has a room in the house devoted only to toy storage. With twin siblings in the mix, this could spin out of control quickly, and it's good they're not holding onto every toy and making the channel look increasingly like a Fisher-Price sponsored spin-off of Hoarders.

But the family is still raking in the cash

It's a good thing a lot of those toys go to charity, because otherwise, Ryan and his family would probably need a bigger house. And the crazy thing is? At this point, they could probably afford it. YouTube monetization works a little bit differently for every channel, depending on views, ads, subscriptions, etc., but a runaway train successful channel like Ryan's is an almost for-sure moneymaker based on views alone. So much so that the site Nailbuzz has his estimated net worth at a cozy $12 million. (The Verge has his monthly earnings estimated at an easy mil.)

Doesn't it make your bow tie spin, just hearing that amount? It should be noted this is merely an estimation, but even within a large margin of error, that's still "holy-cow-how-did-you-do-this" money. Whatever they're making, it was enough for Ryan's mom to quit her job as a high school chemistry teacher to focus full-time on production, a surreal and thoroughly modern career move that we're all but certain she'll pretty much never regret.

It's more than just the toys

Ryan ToysReview/YouTube

One of the most important things you need to know about this channel is that Ryan is a charming and insightful kid. Inquisitive, excitable, a guy who likes the simple things, like science experiments, and trips to the candy store. "Hearts," he says, pointing at a bin filled up with gummy hearts. And then you smile, because look—hearts! And everything is adorable. Look, it's just cute to watch some kids do this mundane nonsense, okay? Look at what else is on the internet. You can't find that much fault in something this cute and innocent.

The channel ends when Ryan wants it to

Ryan ToysReview/YouTube

Making us all breathe a little easier is the fact that Ryan's mom is on the record saying the videos will stop when Ryan wants them to. But truly, the kid has such natural charisma, we almost hope he doesn't. If he has a hint of self-awareness, he could grow up and host anything. He's got that light in his eyes, that flash of joy that brings you in so invitingly. We want Ryan's teenage dirt bike review. We want Ryan's first pretentious art film review. We want Ryan reviewing cars. Real ones—not R/C. It's ten years later and we still see Chris Crocker, so let's not pretend we won't see this kid hosting the news one day. Keep it up, Ryan. The world is yours to play with, now.