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14-Year-Old Earned $200,000 Playing Fortnite on YouTube (dailyherald.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Washington Post:
Griffin Spikoski spends as much as 18 hours a day glued to his computer screen playing the wildly popular, multiplayer video game "Fortnite." His YouTube channel -- where he regularly uploads videos of himself playing the online game -- has nearly 1.2 million subscribers and more than 71 million views; figures that have netted him advertisers, sponsorships and a steady stream of income. Last year, that income totaled nearly $200,000... "It's kind of like my job," Griffin told ABC affiliate WABC-TV, noting he plays about eight hours a day in his Long Island home...
His big break came last year when Spikoski beat a well-known Fortnite player and uploaded a video of the battle to YouTube, quickly resulting in 7.5 million views, according to WABC-TV. It didn't take long, the station reported, for the teenager to make his first $100 from Twitch. Not long after, his father, Chris said, everything changed. "Two months went by and we were like, 'Alright, we're going to need to get an accountant and get a financial adviser,'" he said.
Spikoski's parents told filmmakers that they decided to remove their son from high school as his dedication to gaming deepened... Spikoski's parents said their son had been pushing them to allow him to pursue online schooling. With his success growing, they eventually relented. "It's been his dream to be a gamer, to be in e-sports, just to be in this field since he was a kid," Spikoski said, noting that his son began playing video games at age three. "We don't really see that you need a 9-to-5 job to get by in life and you can actually have fun with a career and enjoy your love and do what you love and make a living out of it," he added.
His big break came last year when Spikoski beat a well-known Fortnite player and uploaded a video of the battle to YouTube, quickly resulting in 7.5 million views, according to WABC-TV. It didn't take long, the station reported, for the teenager to make his first $100 from Twitch. Not long after, his father, Chris said, everything changed. "Two months went by and we were like, 'Alright, we're going to need to get an accountant and get a financial adviser,'" he said.
Spikoski's parents told filmmakers that they decided to remove their son from high school as his dedication to gaming deepened... Spikoski's parents said their son had been pushing them to allow him to pursue online schooling. With his success growing, they eventually relented. "It's been his dream to be a gamer, to be in e-sports, just to be in this field since he was a kid," Spikoski said, noting that his son began playing video games at age three. "We don't really see that you need a 9-to-5 job to get by in life and you can actually have fun with a career and enjoy your love and do what you love and make a living out of it," he added.
He wants to learn how to best save it, and then works hard enough to learn how to do everything he wants to do.
Worst case, he purchases and insures something.
That's awesome the kid is making some good money this year.
It sounds like his parents may be foolishly thinking it's going to last forever.
My bachelor's and master's degrees, in a field I really enjoy, will cost me a total of about $19,000 and form the foundation of a very solid income for life. This kid can easily afford to set himself up in a solid career that he'll enjoy. If his parents aren't stupid and think a video game is going to be his permanent job forever.
... the future of work. Paid to play, paid to watch.
Hire a financial advisor. Let your kid to what they want. Life teaches you the hard lessons regardless, so regardless of your morals, you're going to learn that most people want friends and partners that are honest. Teach your kid how to use the tools around them to maximize profits right?
--
Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity. - Herbert Hoover
If you can get a million people to give you a dollar, you're a millionaire.
My bachelor's and master's degrees, in a field I really enjoy, will cost me a total of about $19,000
Yes but how much would that cost now?
Anywhere a bachelor and masters degree of any value is going to cost way over 200k.
Meanwhile this kid can easily keep making 200k a year (or more) as his skill grows. Maybe that doesn't last forever, maybe that only lasts five years... about how long a bachelors + masters might take.
Only that theoretical guy spending five years on school comes out $200-300k in the whole, debt that will take a decade or more to clear.
In that same five years, that kid will have a million plus in the bank. He's only fourteen so why would he even move out until he's 18 right? So almost all of that money can be saved with perhaps a few extravagant purchases here and there.... a million in the bank, now THAT is the foundation for "a very solid income for life.", not the hope you can slowly milk it out of giant companies on a regular basis.
With around a million dollars, he truly has the freedom to decide what to do if games grow tiring, to live a far more interesting life than most people.
So don't listen to the normals trying to take you down kid, to try and drag you into the maze life that others assume is so normal they enforce the notation that everyone must follow it. Fly and be free my friend.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yep, being a professional gamer is certainly a dream job. And do you know what else is a dream job? Being a financial advisor to someone with a crapload of money and a 9th grade education (yeah yeah, he's going to continue by taking online courses ..I'm sure that will work well in the priority list along side his 18 hours per day of fortnite)
Does youtube, etc, send you a w2? At what point is this considered a job in which you need to pay payroll tax, etc.
It's really just a terrible media event. Regardless of how this boy's future pans out, the publicity of all of this encourages more young people to abandon practical study and try to become "professional video gamers" themselves. It's okay to dream, and to have fun gaming. It's bad news to become deluded to the point of discarding your education.
yeah yeah, he's going to continue by taking online courses ..I'm sure that will work well in the priority list along side his 18 hours per day of fortnite
How then would he be any less well off than everyone else that went to college and took a lot of courses that never stuck and they cannot remember, or were essentially trivia related to what they do for a living?
It's not hard to imagine he could take online economics courses and take away the same basic highlights everyone actually remembers from college courses, even while spending 18 hours/day on fort nite. Or probably remembering much more since he has real money to apply lessons to unlike students which work with nothing real...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well, yeah, while this family should be treating this as the equivalent of winning the lottery, they are instead treating it as sustainable.
Good luck with that. Everyone in this story is fucked and the only one I feel bad for is the kid who does not know better.
I once had the misfortune of having to train a bunch of high school kids to pass a standardized test. When I who was going to college after like 2 out of 30 raised their hand. This one "alpha" dipshit sitting in the back (who looked about 25 to be honest) started talking about "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and how college is a waste of time. I was like good luck with that. If you can barely read, you think you're going to be able to do the mountains of paperwork involved in being a major landlord? Then again at least "Rich Dad Poor Dad" is a book, not a blog, or youtube channel, so he had to be at least somewhat literate...
If at first you succeed try try again, wait is that the right one? Or is it something else?
Good job, lowtax, but you got banned on twitter and lied to your customer base.
If you have that much money you pay lawyers to handle all the paperwork.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
> Yes but how much would that cost now?
US News and World Report does probably the best-known ratings of universities. Here are the ratings for engineering programs at Georgia Tech:
#2 in Aerospace /Aeronautical / Astronautical
#3 in Biomedical
#2 in Chemical
#2 in Civil
#5 in Computer
#4 in Electrical / Electronic / Communications
#4 in Environmental / Environmental Health
For out-of-state students, the tuition for a Georgia Tech master's degree which he can do online (he'd probably like that) is $5,100. Here's the master's in computer science, as one example:
https://www.omscs.gatech.edu/p...
You CAN pay $12 for a cup of coffee, or $1. You can pay $21 for a Sekai-ichi apple, or take your pick of many delicious apples for 25 cents at your nearest grocery store. College is the same - if you totally ignore costs, spend like money is meaningless, you can radically overpay. You can spend $70K on an advanced degree in women's studies or Inuit history. Or you can spend your money like - it's your money. Shop for a good value.
In my case, I (recently) did a bachelor's degree program in which many of the courses were tied to industry certifications. For example, for a networking course the final exam was the Cisco CCNA. Because of that, half way through school I had already achieved multiple respected certifications, which doubled my income even before I finished my degree. I graduated with more money in the bank than I had when I started - the exact opposite of piling up student loan debt.
There are car dealers who will gladly charge you $30K for the same car you can buy elsewhere for $8K. Universities are no different.
> If he can get $500,000 in earnings invested conservatively and not touch it for ten years
After taxes. That's a very big if. He's hot this year. Great. We'll see about next year. Also you need to account for inflation - you need about a million bucks to be financially independent, living comfortably off the earnings. A LOT of people slowly save up a million - it's simple and most anyone in tech can do it, it's not at all easy.
Investing is a VERY good idea. Very, very good. And one of the very best investments you can make is a WISE choice of school, like investing a total of $5,100 to get a master's degree from one of the best engineering schools in the country:
https://slashdot.org/comments....
If you can barely read, you think you're going to be able to do the mountains of paperwork involved in being a major landlord?
That never stopped Donald Trump from being a landlord — or POTUS.
we uploaded a few home videos to pornhub. One of them went viral and she ended up quitting her job to focus on that. In the beginning, we did the fucking and editing together but it got to be too much so now she has a professional firm do video work and an assistant to find new dick for her to ride. I get the sloppy seconds though :)
we funnel money from many retards to fewer and fewer other retards for no reason
Download all the RRB Answer Key at https://rrbanswerkey.com/
See subject & good for him! He's making lots of money doing something he loves.
Find something you're good at & can make money from while you've got the chance. I wish I'd done something like this instead of making my life revolve around Slashdot.
I wrote a glorified string sorting program & spend my days spamming about it like I'm God's gift to Slashdot. I own my own house but only because my dad gave it to me as a $1 gift. My greatest days were in college playing lacrosse & living the life. Now my life is just empty.
* Give him credit, he loves what he does & is making a great living. Would you say the same about LeBron James going to the NBA after high school? He has more money than you or I ever will.
Your post shows such jealousy. I'm jealous too that he has success while I've wasted my life on being a spammer with a 14k line string sorting program. But I'll admit that's just me regretting all of my failures. I'm usually angry & don't want to admit that, but I took my meds today & have a bit of clarity.
Give the kid a break. Be happy for him. Put aside your jealousy.
APK
P.S.=> Maybe there's hope that it's never too late to turn things around. Perhaps we should stop being jealous and get inspired instead... apk
what? 8 million? how many kidneys have you got?
If you have that much money! But a renowned and highly respected Slashdot contributor and moderator only made $2.12 playing Fortnite and publishing a video of him playing on his YouTube channel.
Sad, so sad, it seems like not everybody is born to be rich.
Is that really such a bad thing?
I know people with college degrees who can't function in the real world. And people who left school in the 7th grade who know more about subjects than people who got a degree in the closest related field, particularly automotive engineering.
Being a scientist, engineering, or just a sage/true academic is a lifelong pursuit of a passion. Getting the correct ethos and passionately studying, whether by book, teacher, or practical experience will do far more for you than the conformity mills we have from k-20(I'm including up to a Doctorate there.)
This COULD fuck up this kid, or others who follow his example without understanding this, but in the REAL world, the people who get ahead in life aren't the ones who dutifully go to school at the expense of all else, it's the ones who find a passion whether as a result of work as a child laborer (usually family business, but there are lots of other ways people get there, whether summer job or otherwise), parental pressure to do a hobby/follow a career, or simply following their passions where it leads them.
If you want to become successful in America today, it helps a lot to start at it earlier, if you have the talent. That big break might make itself, but unless your live is exceptionally lucky, like in a movie, you have to make those breaks for yourself, and the more chances you have to succeed and fail the better your odds of being there by the time you hit your mid 20s or 30s and get the oppotunity you can capitalize to become one of the titans rather than one of the plebs.
At the end, this is no different from the previous "you too can leave school and become a musician, athlete, etc."
How much time is spent by prepubescent gymnasts or tennis players training?
And in a year or so when Fortnite is no longer the flava o tha month. We'll find out he's working fries at McDonalds and still living at home.
You can barely write a legible post though.
I've heard there are some young people who are "professional runners around a field kicking a ball".
And they get some money too!
Commercialism of any kind is avoidable nowadays. What did they say in the old days? That's what we want
Perhaps, perhaps not. For all we know, his parants expect that the internet famous might last another year or so, and let the kid pull in another 200K. If he's doing online school (read as assisted home school) he won't be that far behind if any and he'll have a nice no strings $400,000 scholarship ready for him.
The gov't will take half of it in taxes, so he'll only be at $200K if YouTube doesn't demonetize his channel. Still, not bad for a 14yo.
You sure do not need a 9-to-5 job to be successful. But your body and mind have limits, and when you routinely push past those limits, you do damage. Once you've burned out, you don't recover quickly. So go ahead, eat that seed corn! Just make sure you're not spending much, and set the rest aside, because you'll eventually need it.
Wow. Messed the fuck up. I bet he'd like to go back a few years. Do they really break down the taxes so specifically? Good night!
...would be more fun.
Why does AOC like lightning?
.
She thinks someone is taking her picture.
Why did it take AOC an hour to eat breakfast?
Because the orange juice carton instructions said Concentrate ! !
What do you do if AOC throws a grenade at you?
Pull the pin and throw it back at her
How did AOC fall on the floor?
She tripped over the cordless phone.
Why did AOC climb the glass wall ?
To see what was on the other side!
Why did AOC go to the airport turn around and go home?
Because she saw the sign that said “Airport Left”.
Why can’t AOC dial 911?
She can’t find the 11 on the phone!
What kind of name is Griffin?
He sounds like an intelligent, well-behaved and mature 14-year old. He is viewing this professionally and his parents seem to be quite reasonable.
If you have a video game version of Justin Beiber on your hands, you don't just throw it away.
All of us would have loved it to have something like this to happen to us when we were kids.
You sound poor.
If he invested the majority of that money (assuming the income only lasts a couple more years) he could still be set for life.
But of course, he:
A) Won't do that
and
B) Will want to live like he's making 200k a year
Too bad. If I had his money I'd be able to retire this year.
While the future may be different, the current standings are entirely different. Professional sports net players in the order of millions of dollars per year where as professional esports players are making in the tens of thousands (except for the very few exceptional cases). Baseball careers can easily be 20 years. Football is usually in the 5-10 year range. esports players usually last about 2 years, that's it.
It sucks saying this, too, because i'm a huge esports fan. but the money just isn't anywhere near the same caliber yet.
Really? But... I thought the rich weren't taxed?
The likely way -- the kid is as fucked over as an other exploited child star with early earning power...
The less likely way -- the parents are good stewards of the income, hire tutors and legitimately home school, all while enabling and fostering a healthy balance of their sons activity/career with life. It can be done...
The fact that at 14 they refer to him in the past tense as a "kid" isn't a good start... nor is spending 18 hours a day playing games.
This kid is on the fast track to burn out, but hey maybe there's FA out there who is actually protecting the kids assets (which of course is in their interest... spent money earns them no fee...)
well, at least 'professional video gamer' is a step up from 'professional shill and filter-abuser' on instagram or snapchat.
all of this encourages more young people to abandon practical study and try to become "professional video gamers" themselves.
This is one of the many reasons that UBI is such a bad idea.
Depends on his parents.
If they're saying, "Ok, $200k means you can have your choice of top gaming peripherals and an extra $20/week pocket money, we'll invest the rest" then he'll be fine.
If they're saying, "Did you want a Ferrari or a Maserati for your 15th birthday?" then yeah, he's fucked.
"Rich Dad" owned multiple companies. Ask the kids what is the purpose of a business. If their answer isn't something like "to provide useful products and services to customers at a profit", they are in trouble.
College is simply overpriced for the value given, *at this time*. This can change. The author of "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" himself graduated from the merchant marines. That is not "uneducated".
227-3517
If he's doing online school (read as assisted home school) he won't be that far behind if any and he'll have a nice no strings $400,000 scholarship ready for him.
On what basis? Doubtful that he'd get a full ride for scholastic achievement, and if he can brag about a $200K income he'll almost certainly fail any means-based test.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Q. What's this? Twisted Sister?? What are you gonna do the rest of your life??
A. I wanna rock!
...who depends on skimming off of other people's money. Any good financial person can take their own money and grow it.
It's more like a dread- head straight from de islands won a pro NFL contract
The $400,000 is the "scholarship".
$200k a year isnâ(TM)t rich.
ORANGE MAN BAD
Paradox. All technological societies develop immersive gaming at which point all further out-of-game development stops.
And just in case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
$200k a year isnâ(TM)t rich.
It does if you keep it up for enough years.
But this kid is no better off than so many of the pro NFL players who maintain fame only so long as they can devote every waking hour to the game. Once the Fortnite fad fades, this boy is destined to be a gas station attendant.
Everyone acts like this is some new phenomenon. But it's just a child celebrity with a computer. How did this work out for those child stars?
Duh....this is what happens when I post early in the morning before I'm fully awake.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
You only had one job!
As others mentioned, it's possible to have great reflexes even as you age - especially so if you exercise them.
But even with that aside you are utterly ignoring the strategic knowledge that comes from a long time playing a game. You are ignoring the innate understanding of strength and stats of weapons, of tactics for building that are effective (and mandatory) in a high level fort nite battle.
I personally suck at Fortnite but I can see that with a lot of time put into it a person could become amazingly good even without the fastest reflexes... I think that's one of the reasons it's fairly popular, there are a lot of vectors to success.
Bravo I say to the kid who put in the time and in now reaping the rewards. You can go to school any time, but if you find yourself as a master of a hot field then you owe it to yourself to make use of that until you need (or want) to change.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Per year: $28,368 in -state; $48,964 out-of state fro freshen then goes up to $31,080 $51,676 for in-state and out-of-state respectively for undergrad attendance.
So, for an out of state student that's hitting $200K - not including book$, room and board, and every other expense.
Oh, and the online course mean shit. Online learning is still considered a joke: it's too easy to cheat.
How is this different than hockey or even most olympic sports or ballet, orchestra where family spends fortunes snow plowing their kids?
If only I was a terrible parent, my kids may be rich.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Valid points, to be sure. But we already have this phenomenon in regards to professional sports.. The odds are what? 10,000-1 that someone will end up being paid to play a professional sport? Some kids try that route, others are more grounded in reality and hit the books..
Really? But... I thought the rich weren't taxed?
I know this is a joke, but seriously, this kid has probably at this point incorporated his game-playing at least into an S-corp, so he can now deduct all his gaming equipment, software, networking, "home office" maintenance and even any gaming-related travel as tax-deductible business expenses. While $200K a year isn't really "rich" by modern US wealth disparity standards (he's a couple orders of magnitude off getting hit by any of the "rich tax" proposals), it is enough to be able to find some flexibility in the tax law.
CROFLOL! another creimer sock pocket detected. Real Data Collection, CDR backward, you are such a genius Chris!
I gave some surprising news for you. If you're not studying, you still need to eat, have a place to live, etc. So counting the cost of food, housing, etc as the cost of school is ... well that's just stupid.
Just for fun, just because you want to, let's play the stupid game. Let's pretend that the cost of rent, food etc, is the cost of school. You're paying those things today. If you're paying "the cost of school" and not collecting your degree, that would be pretty stupid, wouldn't it?
So as soon as you go down that road you have your choice of two kinds of moronic.
>. Oh, and the online course mean shit.
Personally, I *like* having an annual salary equal to the cost of a 2,000 square foot house. (Meaning I could buy house every year with cash if I didn't have other expenses.) I being able to go to Disneyland and Jamaica with my kid, having a salary that can afford those things. It may not mean anything to you, but I like it.
Given that I was going to get a master's from a top 5 ranked school (top 3 in my field), I didn't have any need for a brand name on my bachelor's. Net cost after tax credit for my bachelor's was $13,500 from WGU. After graduating WGU and before starting my masters my salary was well into six digits. Of course I picked a field that's in demand, not TSTV history.
# Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Perhaps the problem isn't them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
One difference: football is football, Rugby is Rugby, hockey is hockey. Sure there's minor rule tweaks but the game from 5 years ago is still largely the same, and they'll probably be much the same 5 years in the future.
New video games are like mushrooms after a rainstorm. How much are those skills & knowledge (and fame, brand, call it what you will) transferable from one to the next hot thing?
Pop music or "reality" TV is probably a closer analogy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If this boy is wise, you will use that money to purchase a conservatively sized home with a decent size yard and no homeowners association bindings, and put the rest in a trust will invest that money and use it to pay the yearly taxes. He could exit the economy early, and live most of his life following his passions, only needing to work here and there to cover his expenses,. Allowing him to work or create because he wants to in a field he is passionate about and finds the work rewarding independent of the financial return.
That's $400k before taxes, 4% in NY + 24% Fed if his parents are filing jointly, leaving him ~$288k. Still not a bad start, but if I was his parent, I'd be watching for it to start trailing off, and get him back into school, and I'd be having him tutored while out.
Just another day in Paradise
u IMPERSONATE me & also ADMIT u have a /. acct & STALK me by UNIDENTIFIABLE ac https://hardware.slashdot.org/... - YOU got ISSUES.
That's the "best ya got"?
u WISH u were ME (as ur POOR imitation = the sincerest form of flattery) & waste ur life STALKING me by UNIDENTIFIABLE anon OR IMPERSONATING me?
Make a Wheel https://isc.sans.edu/forums/di... as I did giving users more speed/security/reliability & anonymity NATIVELY doing more for less vs. ANY single 'solution' via the best hosts file multiplatform!
APK
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Hey "Cederic" homo-name? Tell you what: How about we get your REAL FULL NAME & ADDRESS - I'll come visit you in person to discuss what you said - ok??
APK
P.S.=> Come on pusscake... apk
You're demanding Cederic give his name and address, and for what exactly? He made a post that the 14 year old's parents made a wise decision obtaining the services of a professional financial adviser to manage the $200k. Cederic wasn't talking about you at all, but about the subject of the story. In response, you became enraged and demanded he post his name and address so you can visit him, an implied of violence. This is absolutely not reasonable behavior and you owe Cederic a sincere apology. You also need to refrain from posting any violent threats, implied or explicit, in the future. Frankly, if I were Cederic, I'd place a call to the Syracuse police department and alert them that you threatened him.
Seek professional help. You need to be institutionalized before you commit actual violent acts.
Maybe I should also spend less time on studying, start using https://studymoose.com/how-to-write-an-analysis-paper and pay more attention to playing videogames xD
I am APK the great "LORD of HOSTS", a.k.a. AlecStaar from ArsTechnica or Alexander Peter Kowalski.
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I am the godlike creator of various GUI front-ends for other people's configuration files.
Watch as I claim I am world class and a winner but in reality I am a fucking loser.
You must be conspiring with the Jews and Soros if you disagree with me.
Mistaking mockery and parody for impersonation is how I think people flatter me because I can't possibly understand that I am detestable.
When presented with facts I rebut them with wild speculations, false support, and out of context quotes
Bask in my debilitating mental illness
Witness my descent into madness
APK
Sure, you can paint it as his innate skill bringing in big bucks, but his skill only got him noticed. From hereon out, it's HIM as a person that's being sold for the entertainment of others. Personalities, performers, athletes-- they are all entertainers feeding the non-stop intrigue of ever more scrutinizing masses.
I hope the parents are putting aside significant portions of this kids' earnings for therapy, remedial education, legal protection, and history erasing so that when this all blows over (and it will... this kind of stuff always does), he'll have a safety net to catch him.
The only issue I see with this is that he'll be fine so long as he can play and Fortnite doesn't go away. Also playing for 18 hours a day isn't healthy. No sane person works that many hours at any job even if you love it because it will most definitely hurt your health in time.