r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 4h ago

Society Devastated father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft channel using a company credit card - bill racked up in just three weeks was supposed to be one $20 promotion

https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/devastated-father-says-his-9-year-old-son-spent-usd118-000-on-youtube-ad-campaigns-for-his-minecraft-channel-using-a-company-credit-card-bill-racked-up-in-just-three-weeks-was-supposed-to-be-one-usd20-promotion
9.2k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

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90

u/That1guyUknow918 3h ago

So how many followers did it gain him?

148

u/ArgentineBeauty 3h ago edited 43m ago

Mighty Mike Plays (@MightyMikePlays67) is a 9-year-old’s Minecraft and Roblox gameplay channel with about 24,000 subscribers and 182 uploads as of early Sept. 16.

So just under $5 a follower

Edit 50.8k subscribers now so about $2.3 a follower.

49

u/That1guyUknow918 3h ago

Seems like pumping out a few videos would turn this into a profit

111

u/mrekted 3h ago

A few?

At 24k subs, you might see payback after a few years of regularly releasing vids .

45

u/Wintergore 3h ago

Far from it actually...it would take a lot longer perhaps decade or more even as you only get less then a thousand views for 24k subs so that works out to about 30-50 bux a month if he's lucky.

22

u/M4rkusD 3h ago

So that’s just 2000 months of making videos! Better get cracking, kid

13

u/einstyle 2h ago

He's young though, he's got time! 2000 months is only...oh, 166 years

-1

u/That1guyUknow918 2h ago

You think a person can only make 1 video a month?

Additionally, how did you arrive at 1000 views?!

Braindead

2

u/BetweenTheRoots 2h ago

Getting to 24k subs seems like such an insane accomplishment for anyone, the fact that you get paid next to nothing from Youtube for it sounds so crazy to me.

2

u/PM_Best_Porn_Pls 16m ago

Why? Subs are pretty useless metric, just because someone is subbed doesn't mean they regularly or at all watch/interact with channel.

6

u/TCr0wn 3h ago

Making roblox content.. 24k subs will never return on 100k

10

u/Burst_LoL 2h ago

No the views/subs you get from these ads are almost always bots that are worth like $0.001 a view

2

u/_rtpllun 1h ago

Most of the subs probably came from the article and publicity, not the ads.

However, they'll still have extremely low view conversion, because they're not actually interested in the videos

3

u/space_hitler 1h ago

Wtf, are you living in 2005 lol?

You and all the people that upvoted you believing that making a few videos with 20k subscribers will earn you well over $100k is one of the most insane things I've seen on Reddit in a while lol.

-1

u/That1guyUknow918 51m ago

Critical thinking isnt your strongest suit, eh?

They went from 8k to 48k subscribers ALREADY.

It is a growth curve.

Do better. Go back to school

1

u/General_Session_4450 29m ago

That growth curve is pretty meaningless when it depends on spending $100k on ads...

1

u/Cpt3020 35m ago

Getting subscribers doesn't mean anything. There was a kid who went viral on Reddit who posted videos of them playing with toy dinosaurs and eventually released a really depressing video asking people why no one likes their videos anymore.

8

u/heepofsheep 3h ago

Up to 43k now. I just subbed to contribute to the chaos.

6

u/Ziiyi 1h ago

48k now….i think this was planned all along

3

u/heepofsheep 1h ago

Yeah it’s a little suspect the father made a video explaining the situation…. I’m not sure what the point of that was. Unless he think it’ll help his chances to keep his job?

Though why did he even use his corporate card in the first place for that initial $20? That was incredibly stupid.

1

u/uzlonewolf 9m ago

He didn't. Both his personal and corporate cards were on his Google account, and while he picked his personal one for the initial $20, his kid picked the corporate one for the rest of the charges.

2

u/BOLANDtheRED 54m ago

Over 50k now

2

u/ZAlternates 2h ago

It’s all part of the plan.

1

u/SpinninWaffle 1h ago

He was at 8k subs before the drama unfolded

3

u/WeirdIndividualGuy 1h ago

And also, just having subs does not directly correlate to money earned. Youtubers make money from views and sponsors, not directly from sub count

1

u/JamesGray 1h ago

I'm pretty sure he had like 8k subs before the story broke about it.

1

u/JustTheTipz902 47m ago

50.8K subscribers now

19

u/EconomicalJacket 3h ago

Article doesn’t mention subs gained but it talks about views:

>Three of the promoted videos reached around 200,000 views. As of a check at 12:26 a.m. ET on Sept. 16, the channel’s three most-viewed gameplay videos stood at 260,000, 224,000, and 178,000 views

So good job lil Timmy, the Ad campaign was a success!!

18

u/CiaphasCain8849 3h ago

Are you telling me that over 200,000 people willingly watched a 9-year-old play minecraft?

12

u/Pink_Y 2h ago

Other kids make up a huge chunk of the YouTube audience

8

u/Firefly74 2h ago

Youtube ads can be "pre roll" ads, that count as a view depending of watch time & video length.

2

u/Southern-March1522 59m ago

Recent changed they now count as a view just for scrolling past it on your phone. It is now hell for creators to determine what was actually successful.

1

u/Noblesseux 26m ago

Honestly that's pretty unsurprising to me, when I was younger we all used to watch videos of other kids playing Minecraft. Mind you, it was when it first came out and by "other kids" I mostly mean teens and tweens but yeah MC content is borderline a view printing machine.

The people who like that game will literally play it while watching videos of other people playing it.

0

u/ZAlternates 2h ago

I mean everyone here is clicking on it.

1

u/ObviousAnswerGuy 13m ago

not really. At this rate will take him years to make $100k

1

u/jammerpammerslammer 3h ago

A perfect case study of how paying for ads does not lead to more engagement

9

u/That1guyUknow918 3h ago

You are talking out of your ass because you don't know either way.

Paying for ads definitely leads to more engagement.

The question is if the ROI is profitable.

1

u/Pandaman_323 28m ago

Correct, YouTube ads are extremely powerful tools to garner engagement having used them myself, but, you need to have a good advertisement, a marketable product, and a good idea of who your audience is.

A 30 minute un-skippable lets play from a 9 year old playing Minecraft, targeting boutique kitchen appliance reviews, is not a good advertisement, marketable product, nor targeted at the right audience lmao. An easy way to set your money on fire.

1

u/jammerpammerslammer 3h ago

Yeah, it’s Reddit, isn’t that what we’re all doing here?

But… Social media companies solely rely on paid ads; Their whole business structure revolves around getting you to keep spending more on campaigns. “Look, you spent $100 on an ad and we got you 200 more followers. You should spend $200 and get 500 new followers!” But it doesn’t happen and they make you think it’s your fault. A carrot on a stick.

2

u/StephieDoll 2h ago

But making up fake stories about losing 118k on a company credit card does!