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| “ | Welcome to Ryan's Toys Review! | ” |
―Ryan's World | ||
Ryan Haruto Guan[1] (born: October 6, 2011), better known online as Ryan Kaji, is an American child YouTuber currently living in Honolulu, Hawaii.[2] He mainly stars in videos on various toys on the family's ten channels (mainly Ryan's World). The Verge has described the channel as a mash-up of personal vlogs, unboxings, innocent childhood antics, and relentless, often overwhelming consumerism. His videos often feature his mother (Kieu-Loan Guan), father (Shion Guan), and twin sisters (Emma Guan and Kate Guan). All of the toys featured in Ryan's World go to charity.
Videos on his YouTube channel are uploaded once every two days. The channel is the 91st most subscribed, and the sixth most viewed YouTube channel of all time. The channel has gained over $50 million in revenue in 2020 and it is likely to grow as Ryan's World progresses. That makes the channel one of the most financially successful YouTube channels of all time.
He has gained much media attention for his influence on young children, especially preschoolers when it comes to his toy reviews, and his parents have gained infamy for a theory that the parents are exploiting their children as laborers.
Ryan's World was nominated for the 2020 tenth annual Streamy Awards in the Kids & Family category, and won the award.
Channels[]
- Kaji Family (formerly Ryan's Family Review)
- Gus the Gummy Gator
- VTubers
- Combo Panda
- Princess ToysReview
- The Studio Space
- EK Doodles
- Stick with Kaji - Podcast
- Elemon
History[]
Background[]
Kieu-Loan Guan was born Nguyen Thi Kieu-Loan on April 28, 1984. She was a Vietnamese immigrant who was raised in a refugee camp in Bidong Island, Malaysia.[3] Shion Guan was born on September 13, 1987, in Tokyo, Japan.
On June 28, 2002, Loan was caught stealing 6 items of clothing near her house at a JCPenney department store near her home. She was fined $150 and was placed on 6 months probation. Loan breached the probation order and served 30 days in prison. In 2007, Shion emigrated to Texas to attend Texas Tech University. Shion and Loan met each other in November 2009 and got married. Their son, Ryan Haruto Guan, was born on October 6, 2011.
Rise of YouTube Career (2015-2019)[]
The parents stated in a 2019 CBS News interview Ryan asked his mother, "How come I'm not on YouTube when all the other kids are?", when Ryan watched YouTube family channels. A theory states that Loan and Shion allegedly created their YouTube channel Ryan ToysReview to exploit the vulnerabilities of their children online, this theory doesn't have enough evidence to prove it through. Ryan's mother quit her job as a high school chemistry teacher to work on the YouTube channel full-time, as she mentioned in an interview. His mother took him to a store and bought him his first toy, a Lego train set, a moment that Loan recorded and uploaded to the channel as their first video. Another claimed reason that Ryan's father has mentioned is that he had a large family born outside of the United States. So, they thought that YouTube was a great way to share Ryan's childhood memories with them.
Ryan's first video was published on March 16, 2015, when he was 3 years old. The video is titled, "Kid playing with toys Lego Duplo Number Train". In the video, he appears in a store and chooses a toy, returns it home then takes it out from the box and plays with it. The first intro was introduced in the third video, a picture of Ryan and Lego Hulk doing the same pose, with Disney/Pixar's Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater at the side. In 2016, Ryan's channel became the most-subscribed YouTuber in the United States, and his sisters Emma Guan and Kate Guan were born, who some believe were born to be replacements for Ryan when he hits puberty, which today is likely false because Ryan is very much at puberty now and still makes videos as usual.
pocket.watch[]
In 2017, Ryan's parents signed a deal with pocket.watch, a startup children's media company that was founded in 2016 by Chris Williams and Albie Hecht, in order to further capitalize the channel. pocket.watch does the marketing and merchandise for Ryan's YouTube channels. In 2018, Ryan ToysReview, in cooperation with pocket.watch and WildWorks, created an app called Tag with Ryan for iOS and Android devices. As of 2020, the family had 80 deals through pocket.watch.
Ryan's World Toys[]
At the Toy Fair 2018 in New York, Ryan ToysReview announced a line of toys, branded as Ryan's World, in cooperation with pocket.watch and Bonkers Toys. The toys that were first released exclusively at Walmart on August 6, 2018. The toys were later released at Target and on Amazon.
The Ryan's World bright-colored slime is sold for $4 per inch, $9 per Ryan's action figure, and French fry shaped squishy toys for $18. Likewise, his other toys like Shiney Silver, Glitter Gold, and Molten Orange cost $5 per piece. His Aladdin themed Ali and Abu Build A Bear cost around $60.
On May 7, 2021, Ryan set up his own Twitter account from which his mother and father send tweets on his behalf. It was later suspended, likely because of his age at the time.
Ryan's Mystery Playdate[]
In 2019, the Guans and pocket.watch produced a 20-episode television series for preschoolers titled Ryan's Mystery Playdate. The show was acquired by Nick Jr. for a premiere date of April 19, 2019, in the United States. In an attempt by pocket.watch to match the YouTube channel's style, all of the show's dialogue is improvised, and the only scripted segments are scene transitions and explanations of the challenges.
The series focuses on Ryan, his parents, and two animated characters named Gus the Gummy Gator and Combo Panda. Episodes show a selection of physical challenges and unboxing puzzles. The show has a run time of 24 minutes.
On April 24, 2019, the series was renewed for a second season of 20 episodes. It has a total of four seasons and 90 episodes.[4]
Controversies[]
Allegations of child exploitation[]
According to Cale Clarke of Relevant Radio, Shion Guan realized the massive number of videos with preschool audiences, and they decided on making content that centers on Ryan to hope that their target audience (2-6 years old) would stumble on their channel, intentionally exploiting Ryan and the underdeveloped minds of their audience. Shion created the Ryan's World franchise by establishing a partnership with pocket.watch, further securing the financial future of Ryan, Emma, and Kate Guan. [5] [6][7]
Ryan getting older[]
Ryan's World has recently come under criticism again in 2024. Ryan, being 13 as of November 2024, is believed to be too old to be making the type of content the channel hosts. Some are accusing his parents of the aforementioned child exploitation allegations, and others believe that he should abandon Ryan's World and try his own thing. It has gained attention from commentary YouTubers (most notably Engween[8]) and a change.org petition was even started to try and let Ryan do his own thing.[9]
Violation of COPPA[]
On August 28, 2019, a complaint was filed by Truth in Advertising and the Federal Trade Commission due to its sponsored videos not being properly disclosed. Truth in Advertising has claimed that "Nearly 90 percent of the Ryan ToysReview videos have included at least one paid product recommendation aimed at preschoolers, a group too young to distinguish between a commercial and a review." This complaint ultimately led to the FTC fining YouTube and Google for violating COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) in September 2019. As a result, YouTube created new rules and restrictions on children's content which started to be enforced on January 6, 2020. However, Ryan's parents continue to make money through their merch.[10]
Trivia[]
- They have their own production company called Sunlight Entertainment, which has it's own YouTube Channel, which was created to help streamline the workflow of the channels and has a 30-person team of professional workers to help produce live action and animated content, releasing about 25 videos a week.[11]
- Ryan's mother used to be a high school chemistry teacher but quit to operate the channel.
- Comments on the channel were turned off after an incident with pedophiles on YouTube commenting on kids channels as well as to avoid violating COPPA.
- He is of Vietnamese Japanese descent.
- Ryan's mother, Loan Guan (then Nguyen Thi Kieu-Loan) was once arrested in 2002 for shoplifting at a JCPenney. The police insisted she pay $135 fine for stealing, as well as do community service, but she ultimately didn't, resulting in her being in prison for about two months. Considering she was a grown adult when she did this, the police said there was something wrong with her mental health.
- Loan's alleged greed may be connected to the intent of the creation of the Ryan's World channel because as said before, there is an unconfirmed theory that Ryan's World, owned by his parents, was created to capitalize on the vulnerabilities of young children.
Channel milestones[]
Note: The following dates are according to Social Blade. Dates may vary by one or two days due to differences in time zones.
Subscriber milestones[]
- 1 million subscribers: January 4, 2016
- 2 million subscribers: March 17, 2016
- 3 million subscribers: June 2, 2016
- 4 million subscribers: August 26, 2016
- 5 million subscribers: November 11, 2016
- 6 million subscribers: January 18, 2017
- 7 million subscribers: March 24, 2017
- 8 million subscribers: June 9, 2017
- 9 million subscribers: September 11, 2017
- 10 million subscribers: December 4, 2017
- 11 million subscribers: January 13, 2018
- 12 million subscribers: February 2, 2018
- 13 million subscribers: March 26, 2018
- 14 million subscribers: May 29, 2018
- 15 million subscribers: July 17, 2018
- 16 million subscribers: September 3, 2018
- 17 million subscribers: November 10, 2018
- 18 million subscribers: January 27, 2019
- 19 million subscribers: April 17, 2019
- 20 million subscribers: July 7, 2019
- 21 million subscribers: August 2, 2019
- 22 million subscribers: October 13, 2019
- 23 million subscribers: December 20, 2019
- 24 million subscribers: February 14, 2020
- 25 million subscribers: May 10, 2020
- 26 million subscribers: July 27, 2020
- 27 million subscribers: October 30, 2020
- 28 million subscribers: January 10, 2021
- 29 million subscribers: March 23, 2021
- 30 million subscribers: July 3, 2021
- 31 million subscribers: November 24, 2021
- 32 million subscribers: March 8, 2022
- 35 million subscribers: November 30, 2023
Video view milestones[]
- 1 billion views: November 25, 2015
- 2 billion views: January 22, 2016
- 3 billion views: March 7, 2016
- 4 billion views: April 25, 2016
- 5 billion views: June 12, 2016
- 6 billion views: August 2, 2016
- 7 billion views: September 30, 2016
- 8 billion views: November 17, 2016
- 9 billion views: December 30, 2016
- 10 billion views: February 11, 2017
- 11 billion views: March 22, 2017
- 12 billion views: May 1, 2017
- 13 billion views: June 5, 2017
- 14 billion views: July 12, 2017
- 15 billion views: August 21, 2017
- 16 billion views: October 2, 2017
- 17 billion views: November 14, 2017
- 18 billion views: January 13, 2018
- 19 billion views: February 14, 2018
- 20 billion views: March 17, 2018
- 21 billion views: April 20, 2018
- 22 billion views: June 1, 2018
- 23 billion views: July 13, 2018
- 24 billion views: August 19, 2018
- 25 billion views: September 29, 2018
- 26 billion views: December 7, 2018
- 27 billion views: January 25, 2019
- 28 billion views: March 12, 2019
- 29 billion views: April 29, 2019
- 30 billion views: June 19, 2019
- 31 billion views: July 27, 2019
- 32 billion views: September 13, 2019
- 33 billion views: October 20, 2019
- 34 billion views: November 23, 2019
- 35 billion views: December 31, 2019
- 36 billion views: January 31, 2020
- 37 billion views: March 6, 2020
- 38 billion views: April 15, 2020
- 39 billion views: May 22, 2020
- 40 billion views: July 5, 2020
- 41 billion views: August 17, 2020
- 42 billion views: October 4, 2020
- 43 billion views: November 18, 2020
- 44 billion views: December 25, 2020
- 45 billion views: January 17, 2021
- 46 billion views: March 19, 2021
- 47 billion views: May 16, 2021
- 48 billion views: July 22, 2021
- 49 billion views: December 8, 2021
- 50 billion views: January 31, 2022
- 51 billion views: April 3, 2022
- 56 billion views: November 30, 2023
References[]
- ↑ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7452803/Mom-Ryan-Kaji-star-Ryan-ToysReview-jailed-shoplifting.html
- ↑ Ryan's World: How a kid in Hawaii became a YouTube millionaire
- ↑ I was raised in a Refugee Camp Before Coming To America!
- ↑ List of Ryan's Mystery Playdate episodes
- ↑ https://pogikonjo.wordpress.com/2021/07/13/child-exploitation-ryans-world-ryan-toysreview/
- ↑ https://www.34st.com/article/2021/11/influencer-youtube-family-vlog-mommy-bloggers-child-abuse-exploitation-neglect
- ↑ https://omny.fm/shows/the-cale-clarke-show-todays-issues-from-a-catholic/the-mystery-of-ryans-play-date-kids-celebrity-and
- ↑ https://youtu.be/sbvukEzyIAI?si=Wl0SQKr9anj4zb92
- ↑ https://www.change.org/letryanretire
- ↑ https://time.com/6116624/ryan-kaji-youtube/
- ↑ About - Ryan's World
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/well/family/Youtube-children-junk-food-child-obesity.html