Viral video ‘Charlie bit my finger’ earned £120,000 in YouTube earnings

If the words “Charlie bit my finger” mean nothing to you – you probably haven’t been near a computer in the past 4 years. The video of one year old Charlie biting his older brother’s finger went viral, and has accumulated almost 400 million hits.

In the past, this video might have earned Charlie’s parents a tidy little sum of money by submitting the video to a TV show a la America’s Funniest Home Videos and that would have been that.

In the age of the Internet, home videos have taken on a life of their own on YouTube, where contributors can find far bigger audiences, and a lot more money to be made. In the case of Charlie and his dad, Howard Davies-Carr, the 56 second video has received hundreds of millions of hits, and even earned itself a Wikipedia entry, turning the Davies-Carr boys into mini-celebrities, who even get asked to sign autographs. It has also earned them around £120,000 ($190,000), and they’re not alone.

Thanks to advertising on the video sharing site, through the YouTube Partner program, home videos can earn themselves anywhere from £8,000 ($12,000) to a whopping £100,000 ($160,000), if the video is an instant hit. There are several different payment schemes available on YouTube partners. You can get paid 60p ($0.95) per 1,000 views, or get paid each time someone actually clicks on an ad.

If you want to start making money off of your home videos, you will have to adhere to some of YouTube’s requirements, which include creating original content and that you “regularly regularly upload videos that are viewed by thousands of YouTube users, or you publish popular or commercially successful videos in other ways.”

Aside from making yourself a bit of extra cash on the side, you also get to access YouTube’s analytic tools and benefit from YouTube’s promotion.

With YouTube videos often going from the computer screen to network TV and guest appearances on popular talk shows like Ellen, YouTube’s potential for money and fame certainly isn’t something to be scoffed at.

Simply Zesty does make an important point, breaking down how much Charlie’s bite earned per hit – and it comes down to £0.001. While this is a minuscule figure at best, it is still money for nothing.

If you’re wondering what Charlie and his older brother Harry have been up to, along with younger brother Jasper, check out one of their latest home videos below: