Meet Ryan, a seven-year-old kid who simply loves to play with his toys such as Legos, trains, cars.

He also earned US$22 million (S$30 million) over the past year and has more than 17 million YouTube followers.

Forbes has just released its list of highest-paid YouTube stars and the precocious first grader who fronts Ryan Toysreview topped the list.

“I’m entertaining and I’m funny,” Ryan, who wants to be a game developer when he grows up, recently told NBC. His extremely popular short videos – where he plays with and reviews his latest toys – have gained him nearly 26 billion views since he and his family launched the channel in March 2015. It was an unboxing video of 100 Cars toys that went viral that year that catapulted him to YouTube fame. His fans? Other primary school kids, of course.

Today, he also has a line of Ryan’s World toys and clothes, which are selling at Walmart. The toys he features often sell out in minutes. There are also plans for his videos to be repackaged and distributed through Amazon and Hulu.

So where did the money come from? Almost all had come from pre-roll ads that play before his videos (only US$1 million came from sponsored posts). Last year, he was No 8 on Forbes' list, according to Business Insider.

Other YouTubers who made the list are all in their 20s and 30s – many of which are gamers, like Vanoss Gaming from Canada (seventh), Markiplier from Hawaii (sixth). Online sensation Jake Paul placed second with US$21.5 million in earnings.

To come up with the list, Forbes measured pre-tax earnings between Jun 1, 2017, and Jun 1, 2018, minus fees for agents, managers and lawyers.

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