HOUSTON – YouTube. Every day, millions of videos are uploaded to the platform and billions of views occur. Among its users are people making actual money, including Michael Groth.
He is a native Texan, a senior at Rice University and what you might consider YouTube famous.
“It first started back, summer after eight grade in 2009. Saw a bunch of other big YouTubers and wanted to be YouTube famous myself,” Groth said.
For four years, he and his brother kept making videos that received few or no views. Then in July of 2013, he posted a video with the subject "How old is Ash Ketchum?".
“It got a million views over the course of my first semester of college and so that was the video that made me think… I should just start focusing on pokemon content,” Groth said.
MandJTV Pokevids was born. The channel has just shy of a half-million subscribers.
“I absolutely love being a YouTuber, I love making content that I can entertain people with and it’s financially lucrative as well,” says Michael.
How lucrative, you ask? So did we.
“I can tell you that I’m currently making more than an entry level engineering job,” says Groth.
According to payscale.com an entry-level mechanical engineering job pays on average $64,000 a year.
The point is, in about a mouth Michael will graduate from Rice with just such a degree and then devote himself full time to YouTube.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen but going full time, doing what I love, making a good living off of it and giving me a chance to explore other things is what’s really made me want to do it,” says Michael.
In addition to how his YouTube life began and its future, Michael told KPRC reporter Chip Brewster how making money through YouTube works, along with some tips for aspiring YouTubers. He has put their full interview on his Facebook page - KPRC2 Chip Brewster.
As for what his parents think about all this: They are "nervous but supportive," Groth says.