Anastasia Radzinskaya is an unlikely media star. Born in southern Russia with cerebral palsy, her doctors feared she would never be able to speak. To document her development through treatments, her parents posted videos of her on YouTube so friends and relatives could see the progress.
The videos are typical kid stuff, playdates with dad, jumping around on an inflatable castle and playing with her cat, each video accompanied by catchy jingles and voice-over giggles. She soon gained followers around the world.
Her biggest hit was a 2018 trip to the petting zoo with her father Yuri that featured the two dancing to child favorite “Baby Shark,” milking a pretend cow and eating ice cream. That video has garnered 767 million views, the top draw for a growing media business that has funneled $18 million to the Radzinskayas between June 1, 2018, and June 1, 2019.
What has helped her videos grow in popularity is a majority of them rely on sounds instead of words, appealing to a broader audience. The videos also are translated into seven different languages for the minimal amount of words spoken.
This has helped the youngster garner an astounding $18 million in just one year with 107 subscribers total across all platforms.
She also has six-figure sponsorship deals with both Dannon and Legoland, according to Forbes, helping the child further cash in on her popularity from her fledgling YouTube career.
Videos with children in them average almost three times as many views as other types of videos from high-subscriber channels, according to a Pew Research Center study done this year. Another Pew study revealed that 81% of parents with children 11 or younger let their kids watch YouTube.
However, Ryan Kaji, 8, is still the top-earning Youtuber with $426 million a year
