- Celebrating mini moguls.
They are young kids making it happen in the business world.
It is hard to overstate how huge my next guest is.
He has one of the biggest YouTube channels
on the planet Earth, mm-hmm.
He has over 26 million subscribers,
and made over $30 million in 2020.
Yes, you're all questioning
what you're doing for a living right now, mm-hm.
In fact, his most-watched video has been...
It's been seen nearly two billion times.
And he's only nine years old.
All right, everybody, let's say hi to Ryan Kaji,
along with his parents, Shion and Loann.
(audience cheers)
- Hi!
- Hi, you guys.
So Ryan, can you tell me about your YouTube channel?
Because we all wanna know how to do better.
- Well, my YouTube channel is called Ryan's World.
And when I was little, I liked unboxing toys.
But now I do a lot more things than just unboxing toys,
like science, experiments, educational videos,
workout videos, skits, gaming videos, and more.
- Oh my God, listen to you.
Okay, so Ryan, do you remember
the very first video you posted?
- Yeah, the very first video that we made
was about me going to the store
and me getting a Lego Duplo train,
and then bringing it back home and playing with it.
- Oh my gosh, I love Legos, let's see it, I love Legos.
- [Loann] Let's push your choo-choo train around.
Can you push it around?
- [Ryan] Uh-huh.
- [Loann] Wee!
- Was that fun?
- Oh my God, I can see why you make
so much money doing this, you're adorable.
So wait, you do this with your whole family.
So is it fun for you, 'cause it is all family involved?
- Yeah, it's fun to do it with all of my family.
And it never gets boring 'cause we do different things.
- I know, I like changing it up as well.
I mean, to Shion and Loann, how did this all start?
- Well, Ryan's been watching YouTube ever since he's little.
And he started watching other kids on YouTube.
And one day he just come up and ask me,
you know, "Can we start a YouTube channel?
"There's other kids on here.
"It looks like they're having fun."
Then I started watching YouTube videos with him,
and it really did look like the family on there,
and the kids on there were having a blast together.
So I thought, why not?
We can use it as a fun experience,
bonding experience together.
So decided just take him to the store,
and then just ask him what toy do you wanna play with?
And that's just how it got started.
- I think it's really cool.
'Cause most times parents are like,
look, you're only allowed...
I mean, most parents like me,
you're only allowed so much time on the internet.
I'm just like, there's a select
amount of time that you have.
But I love that you found a way to make it family.
Like your whole family is involved.
Well, Shion and Loann,
why do you think Ryan has the right stuff
to make bank on social media?
Why do you think he's so good at it?
'Cause my kids watch a ton of YouTube channels
with a lot of different kids.
So why do you think he's connecting,
more so than other kids?
- Well, we believe the primary reason
was Ryan's authenticity and his ability
to articulate himself so well.
So a lot of stuff that we film
for ourselves is not scripted.
So what Ryan is saying in the video
is straight coming from his own ideas.
So he was able to communicate
and connect with his fans directly.
I think that really provided the 100%
relative to his audience.
- No, it's almost like the movie "Big".
It's like, let the kids decide what the toys shall be.
'Cause they're the ones playing with them anyway.
It's very smart.
Well, Ryan, I heard you pranked your dad,
and it's pretty good, you wanna tell everybody what you did?
- So from the sink, I put water into a cup.
And then I put the water from the cup
into another cup that had polymers.
So then the polymer absorb the water.
And then I put the cup that already absorbed the water
on him on top of his head with a card.
And then I took the card out.
And he thought a bunch of water was gonna splash on him.
But it was just absorbed water, so it didn't splash around.
- I love that, I love that you're getting edge-
I love how you were prepping, by the way, Shion.
You were like, put the phone away.
But I love that it's educational as well.
It's fun, but it's also like teaching kids,
like little things about science,
which I think is super important.
So it's cool you're doing that, man.
Well, Shion and Loann, as a family,
how do you stay close and help Ryan maintain balance?
Because he's also a little kid
that goes to school, right, so?
- Yes.
- Right, for our family, the most important thing
is to make sure Ryan have fun in the video.
And by us involving in the video,
and supporting him behind the scene,
we can maintain his balance
between his personal life and YouTube activities.
- Yeah, we wanna make sure that he knows
that education to us is the most important thing.
So we always try to make sure
that he finishes schoolwork before we even film.
And we kept filming to a minimum,
around three to four hours a week.
- I love that you're still making sure
he's well rounded and getting to experience
also things with like other kids, it's so fun.
And the thing I think kids are missing out
on most right now because of the pandemic.
So we're gonna get back to there, guys.
But Ryan, this is pretty cool.
You're nine years old, and you have your own toys.
How does it feel to have your face on a toy?
Asking for a friend.
- Well, it's funny that I can see myself in real life
and see myself on the toy.
- I think it's pretty rad.
And you get to help pick out those toys, obviously, right?
- Yeah. - That's so fun!
That's so cool.
Well, Ryan has good news
for everyone in the house seats.
All right, well you are all
some of the first to get the brand new
Ryan's World World Tour hot air balloon
and mystery micro figure two-pack.
(mimics air horn) You're welcome.
That's looks cool, actually, man, great job.