Shane Dawson is a famous YouTube personality from California. He began as a YouTuber in 2008 and was one of the first people to turn YouTube into a full-time career. Over the last decade he has propelled himself into stardom and is now considered a well-known comedian, songwriter, singer, actor, film director, podcaster and author. Shane’s childhood was rough as he was often abused by his father. He was also teased for being overweight and poor. However, Shane has come a long way since then and in 2021 is estimated to have a net worth of $12 million.
Dawson was just nineteen years old when he started his YouTube channel ShaneDawsonTV in 2008. By 2010, in two years, the videos on his channel managed to garner over 500,000,000 views. Also, in 2010 Forbes magazine named Dawson the 25th most famous web celebrity in the world. His early videos consisted of Dawson making fun of popular culture by impersonating celebrities and playing different characters. Around this time, he also entered the music industry, making parodies of popular music videos and releasing his own original content. In 2013, Dawson started a podcast because he was inspired by the work of American personality Howard Stern. The podcast named Shane and Friends was active for four years and produced 140 episodes. The next year in 2014, Dawson released his first and sole original feature film called Not Cool. It appeared alongside a docuseries called The Chair which lasted ten episodes.
In 2015, Dawson initiated a video series about conspiracy theories on YouTube. In an entertaining way he analysed and went in-depth for a variety of conspiracy theories. These videos are some of the most-viewed on his channel. Last year Dawson released a documentary series on YouTube where he rekindles the relationship with his former abusive father. The format of the series was very new, and the website Polygon described it as the “new era of entertainment.” The most popular of his docuseries content are on Tanacon and Jeffree Star.
Shane Dawson also makes money outside of YouTube, releasing two books which become New York Times best sellers. The books titles are I Hate Myselfie and It Gets Worse. As of now all his YouTube Channels together have amassed at least 5 billion views. Now he only has one active channel called shane. It is in the top 100 most subscribed channels on the YouTube platform, with around 18 million subscribers and over 4 billion views. Currently Dawson is focusing on docuseries and conspiracy videos as they have the potential to generate the most revenue.
Dawson has recently created content and collaborated with other Youtubers such as his boyfriend Ryland Adams, Garrett Watts, James Charles, Trisha Paytas and Bunny Meyers. With these other Youtubers he’s created many vlogs, conspiracy theory videos and documentary style series. The docuseries he did in September of this year (2018) about internet celebrity Jake Paul is arguably the most interesting piece of content he has done is his career. The first episode of the series is titled The Mind of Jake Paul. The episode managed to harness 7 million views in less than 10 hours. YouTubers typically earn $2-$5 for every 1,000 views, that Jake Paul video alone has made him somewhere between $44,000 to $100,000 which is crazy!
Over the last year the “King of YouTube” has suffered a huge fall from grace. Dawson was involved in a scandal that has put his YouTube career on hold. An old video emerged online showing Shane joking about race, pedophilia, bestiality and mocking disabled people. Since then, the YouTubers channel has been dormant leaving fans curious about if he will return.
