Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Ask just about any stranger on the street who Felix Kjellberg is and you’ll likely get a blank stare. Identify him as PewDiePie, his name on YouTube—where he’s got almost 40 million subscribers—and you’ll get a few more positive responses.

The 25-year-old Swede is the top-earning YouTube star on the planet, pulling in $12 million pretax over the past year, all for providing expletive-heavy commentary as he plays videogames. Thanks to the millions of fans who make up his “bro army,” advertisers are willing to pay a pretty penny to have their products featured in his videos.

In our first-ever ranking of the top-paid YouTube stars, we have uncovered the 10 channels that have managed to earn the most from their Internet aspirations. The minimum to make the list? $2.5 million in pretax earnings in the year ending June 1, 2015....