Meet the pint-sized toy reviewers making king-sized money
SAN BRUNO, Calif -- With Christmas approaching, brothers Gabe and Garrett have plenty of work to do. Their YouTube channel with videos of them trying out new toys have tens of millions of views.
"Let's open this thing!" cry the boys in one video as they prepare to crack out a new toy and try it out.
The duo, 6 and 8, are likely to influence what shows up under many trees this Christmas. Gabe and Garrett's dad, Brian, shoots and edits the videos. Mom, Laurie, is in charge of set decoration. It's a true family business.
"We all have our part in it," said Laurie.
Pint-sized reviewers are increasingly popular on YouTube, where searches for "toy videos" have grown 170 percent over the last two years.
"Kids are really good at this because it's authentic," said April Anderson, who sells advertising for Google, YouTube's parent company. "They tell it like it is."
Authenticity has proven to pay off. Anderson said they have hundreds of thousands of content creators who make over six figures.
Gabe and Garret are no exception. What started with a father chasing his two sons around with a camera has turned into a profitable operation.
"It's gone beyond all of our wildest expectations," Brian said. "And now, we get like a million views a day."
For each thousand views they collect a couple bucks, Brian told us.
We did the math: at a conservative $2 per thousand views, Brian gets a check for about $2,000 a day. That's around $730,000 for a year.
"It's crazy," Laurie said, describing what it was like when the checks started coming in.
Gabe and Garrett's toy reviews may help make many kids happy this Christmas, but nowhere will they bring more happiness than in their own home.
