S28: Just How Famous Are They?

[Lingo]

So I should preface this post by saying I’m not here to worship, praise, condone, criticize, condemn, or insult this season’s crop of racers. This is meant as a neutral bit of research. I am merely curious about the fame level of these racers — especially compared to each other.  E.g. who is the most “Internet-famous” racer? Exactly how much more famous is Tyler Oakley than the Instagram models? (I miss FameTracker!)

This research was prompted by this parade.com article (http://parade.com/452080/joshwigler/the-amazing-race-see-the-full-cast-for-season-28/), in which each racer was asked how many followers they each have over all forms of social media. That’s a good first approximation of their fame level, but it depends on the racers’ own reports. Not only that, but the racers probably calculated their total followers by summing the followers they have on each platform, which assumes that they are all distinct followers, when more likely there is significant (if not complete) overlap. The same goes for teammates: the followers of each teammate probably follow the other teammate as well.

So I decided to collect my own social media statistics and rank the racers according to what I found. These stats were collected on Feb 15-16. I looked at YouTube, Vine, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I could have looked at Google Plus and Snapchat too, but I wasn’t sure all the racers have accounts on these, and anyway I got bored.

Note that in each case, I only report the MAXIMUM number I find between the two teammates (rather than the total, for example). E.g. for YouTube subscribers, I only report the subscribers for the teammate who has the most subscribers. And if a racer has, say, more than one YouTube channel, I only report the number for the most popular channel.

Teams Burnie & Ashley (RoosterTeeth) and Erin & Joslyn (ClevverMedia) were scrutinized more carefully. With all the other teams, their fame is pretty much their own doing — they star in all their own videos, their faces are the primary public faces of their brands, and they’re pretty much solo (or 2-people) operations, or at least they’re presented as such. But Burnie & Ashley and Erin & Josyln are just a few of several public faces of the larger companies they represent. So it’s hard to ascertain how much of their followers really belong to them rather than the company itself — i.e. how much of the popularity of their channels can be ascribed to them.  With Burnie, I feel more comfortable giving him full credit for the popularity of RoosterTeeth, because he’s a cofounder of the company and apparently kind of a big deal (judging by that airport scene). With Erin & Joslyn, it’s harder to say: it’s not clear whether they are a creative force behind the scenes of Clevver, or just presenters.

So, for these teams, I actually present separate statistics (when I could find them) for both the team itself and the larger company they represent. I.e. I have separate lines in my tables for Burnie & Ashley and for RoosterTeeth, and for Erin & Joslyn and for ClevverMedia (which has 6 different YouTube channels, etc). So my tables actually have 13 lines! It’s a little confusing but I felt it was for the best.

Now the stats!

 

1. TOTAL FOLLOWERS AS REPORTED IN PARADE

I start with the self-reported estimated numbers from Parade. As mentioned above, I only report the highest numbers:

1. Tyler & Korey: 21,505,520
2. Zach & Rachel: 19,000,000
3. RoosterTeeth:  18,000,000
4. Burnie & Ashley: 15,900,000
5(t). ClevverMedia: 8,000,000
5(t). Dana & Matt: 8,000,000
7. Sheri & Cole:  7,500,000
8. Kurt & Brodie: 5,000,000
9. Scott & Blair: 3,475,000
10. Cameron & Darius: 3,000,000
11(t). Erin & Joslyn: 100,000
11(t). Jessica & Brittany: 100,000
13. Marty & Hagan: 10,000

It’s no surprise to me that Tyler Oakley comes out on top, but a bit surprising that “magician” Zach claims even more followers than RoosterTeeth. Dancers Dana & Matt are nearly as popular as ClevverMedia as a whole. Note that Erin & Joslyn admit having a small number of personal followers relative to ClevverMedia, while Burnie (understandably) takes credit for most of the followers of RoosterTeeth.

Next post: YouTube.

[Lingo]

YouTube!

 

2. TOTAL YOUTUBE CHANNEL SUBSCRIBERS (maximum among all channels)
1. RoosterTeeth: 8,480,573
2. Tyler & Korey: 7,978,040
3. Dana & Matt: 3,052,774
4. Clevver: 2,301,327
5. Scott & Blair: 1,754,359
6. Kurt & Brodie: 1,344,619
7. Zach & Rachel: 1,073,083
8. Cameron & Darius: 138,824
9. Sheri & Cole: 28,980
10. Erin & Joslyn: 8,784
11. Marty & Hagan: 7,545
12. Jessica & Brittany: 146
13. Burnie & Ashley: -*

 

 

RoosterTeeth has the biggest channel here; note that I could not find individual YouTube channels for Burnie or Ashley separate from RT. Tyler is almost as big as RT. The dancers have less than half of Tyler’s count, but that’s still more than the biggest Clevver channel.

 

 

3. TOTAL VIEWS (across all videos of a single channel)
1. RoosterTeeth: 4,240,936,271
2. Clevver: 1,505,508,867
3. Tyler & Korey: 550,773,653
4. Dana & Matt: 460,274,135
5. Scott & Blair: 270,538,479
6. Zach & Rachel: 209,495,228
7. Kurt & Brodie: 177,521,986
8. Marty & Hagan: 22,911,733
9. Cameron & Darius: 4,287,437
10. Sheri & Cole: 1,669,037
11. Erin & Joslyn: 70,189
12. Jessica & Brittany: 26,634
13. Burnie & Ashley: -

 

 

Yes, BILLIONS of views. Total views is perhaps more indicative of fame across a wider audience; many of us see the viral videos on YouTube but don’t end up subscribing to the channel. The order here is not too different though.

 

 

4. MAXIMUM VIEWS FOR A SINGLE VIDEO
1. Clevver: 52,599,556
2. Dana & Matt: 42,365,336
3. Zach & Rachel: 34,373,762
4. Kurt & Brodie: 30,094,909
5. RoosterTeeth: 25,303,550
6. Marty & Hagan: 22,247,771
7. Tyler & Korey: 10,751,635
8. Scott & Blair: 4,047,279
9. Sheri & Cole: 1,447,343
10. Cameron & Darius: 725,895
11. Erin & Joslyn: 28,406
12. Jessica & Brittany: 7,495
13. Burnie & Ashley: -

 

 

Which team has the most “viral” video, or at least the most viewed one? Here ClevverMedia actually comes out on top. (I didn’t watch it, but it had something to do with Transformers 3. I don’t know if Erin & Joslyn were in it.) This is the list in which Marty  shines brightest with her humorous flight attendant safety instruction video (the only thing this team is known for). Note that Tyler actually ranks pretty far down on this list.  Making “viral” videos is not really his bag; his thing is … well actually I’m not really sure what he does. Slice-of-life videos? Well anyway the point is that his viewership is more stable than a single video.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Lingo

[Lingo]

VINE:
5. TOTAL FOLLOWERS (best account):

1. Sheri & Cole: 6,600,000
2. Zach & Rachel: 3,800,000
3. Cameron & Darius: 3,000,000
4. Kurt & Brodie: 1,700,000

 

Vine, with its jokey 6-second video format, is not for everyone — I could only find accounts for 4 teams. But Vine is the primary claim to fame of teams like Cameron & Darius, so it seemed appropriate to include it.  Here, Cole is the surprising king of the hill, having many more subscribers than even magician Zach. C&D only come in third, and the frisbee throwers last.

 

 

6. TOTAL LOOPS (across all videos for a single account):

1. Sheri & Cole: 3,056,073,132
2. Cameron & Darius: 1,635,175,789
3. Zach & Rachel: 1,291,637,404
4. Kurt & Brodie: 513,212,796

 

Yes, again we’re talking about billions of views (to be fair, these are 6-second videos that loop continuously). Cole is again on top, but somehow Darius comes out on top of Zach on this list.

 

I also wanted to rank the teams by their most “viral” vine, just as I did with YouTube, but I couldn’t figure out how to sort the videos in any way, e.g. by view count. And I wasn’t gonna do it by hand. I couldn’t even find Cameron’s Obama impersonation vine, which I’m sure I’ve seen before somewhere.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Lingo

[Lingo]

7. TOTAL TWITTER FOLLOWERS (single account):
1. Tyler & Korey: 5,020,000
2. RoosterTeeth: 698,000
3. Scott & Blair: 625,000
4. Burnie & Ashley: 432,000
5. Kurt & Brodie: 387,856
6. Clevver: 193,000
7. Dana & Matt: 152,000
8. Zach & Rachel: 121,000
9. Sheri & Cole: 117,000
10. Cameron & Darius: 48,700
11. Erin & Joslyn: 34,700
12. Jessica & Brittany: 17,300
13. Marty & Hagan: 2,893

 

Almost all the racers have Twitter accounts. Of course they do. I think even Scott has one. Anyway, Tyler comes out on top by a HUGE margin, having more than 7 times as many followers as the official RoosterTeeth account. (Note here that Burnie’s account is comparable in size to the RT account.) Blair comes in a surprising 3rd (she also had a good many YouTube subscribers). The teams that are more known for their visual styles (frisbee, dancers, zach, cole, models) fall lower on this list of course.

 

8. FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS OR LIKES (single page):
1. Tyler & Korey: 2,913,140
2. Dana & Matt:  1,819,670
3. RoosterTeeth: 856,428
4. Clevver:  479,711
5. Kurt & Brodie: 378,678
6. Cameron & Darius: 204,943
7. Scott & Blair: 185,217
8. Zach & Rachel: 147,791
9. Sheri & Cole: 31,304
10. Burnie & Ashley: 14,709
11. Jessica & Brittany: 12,263
12. Erin & Joslyn: 5,110
13. Marty & Hagan: 1,696

 

FaceBook is of course unhip, not terribly popular with the younger crowd. Tyler still comes out on top, though. Some FB pages had “likes” and some had “followers”; I’m not sure what the difference is, but I wrote down whatever number I could find here.

 

9. INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS (single account):
1. Zach & Rachel: 11,800,000
2. Tyler & Korey: 6,000,000
3. Dana & Matt: 863,000
4. Sheri & Cole: 679,000
5. Kurt & Brodie: 551,000
6. Scott & Blair: 272,000
7. Cameron & Darius: 256,000
8. RoosterTeeth: 103,000
9. Erin & Joslyn: 87,900
10. Jessica & Brittany: 83,700
11. Clevver: 63,800
12. Burnie & Ashley: 46,900
13. Marty & Hagan: 6,257

 

Finally, we have Instagram, which is definitely the medium I’m least familiar with, having maybe almost never used it before this week. So I was a little surprised to find every team represented here. This is apparently Zach’s killer app, where his 6-second Vine videos have even more followers than they do on Vine for some reason. Note that Jessica & Brittany, the so-called “Instagram Models”, who have ranked in the bottom 3 on every other list, hardly do better even here, though they do beat out ClevverMedia. The other company RoosterTeeth also ranks pretty low here.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Lingo

[Anati]

Thanks for this, super interesting.

 

And its also a good insight on who is most likely to be recognised by/get help from locals, which may well be a factor. 

[Lingo]

OVERALL:

 

So, how do we compare these across platforms? There’s really no obvious fair way to compare them, but I tried anyway. First I tried just averaging their ranks across the 5 websites. Ignoring the Parade data, I gave each website equal weight (which is probably unfair to the YouTube stars). To get the overall Youtube rank, I calculated the mean rank across the 3 YT lists. Similarly for Vine (giving a rank of 9 to those teams not on Vine). Then I averaged across the 5 websites. Here’s what I get:

 

1. Tyler & Korey: 3.4
2. Dana & Matt:  4.8
3. RoosterTeeth: 4.87
4. Kurt & Brodie: 4.93
5. Zach & Rachel: 4.97
6. Scott & Blair: 6.2
7(t). Sheri & Cole: 6.47
7(t). Clevver:  6.47
9. Cameron & Darius: 6.9
10. Burnie & Ashley: 9.6
11. Erin & Joslyn: 10.33
12. Jessica & Brittany: 10.8
13. Marty & Hagan: 11.27

 

However, mere rankings don’t really take into account just how much more popular one team is compared to the next team in the ranking (e.g. how Tyler has 7 times more twitter followers then the next highest team). So for my final ranking, I calculated for each list a score which is the fraction of the maximum number in that list (so e.g. Tyler gets a 1.0 on the Twitter list, while 2nd-place RoosterTeeth only gets 0.14 for having 14% of the followers). Then I calculated the average percentage across all 5 websites using the same procedure as above (dropping Parade, average across the 3 YT lists, etc.).  This produces these “final” scores:

 

1. Tyler & Korey: 0.5867
2. Zach & Rachel: 0.3701
3. RoosterTeeth: 0.2538
4. Dana & Matt:  0.2305
5. Sheri & Cole: 0.2204
6. Clevver:  0.1501
7. Kurt & Brodie: 0.1448
8. Cameron & Darius: 0.1214
9. Scott & Blair: 0.0654
10. Marty & Hagan: 0.0290
11. Burnie & Ashley: 0.0190
12. Erin & Joslyn: 0.0033
13. Jessica & Brittany: 0.0030

 

… which suggests that Tyler Oakley is approximately 198 times more famous than the Instagram Models (probably an under-estimation). Whatever the case, we end up with a list that is … pretty close to the Parade list that we started with, actually!

Edited February 20, 2016 by Lingo

[Lingo]

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES:

 

For most of the teams, there's one member who's obviously more famous than the other, and their numbers were higher than their partners across the board: Tyler, Matt, Brodie, Zach, Blair, and Cole, obviously. Burnie is definitely the most famous one on his team, though I think Ashley has more Instagram followers. With the Clevver girls, Joslyn had bigger numbers than Erin in every category. Interestingly, it's Darius rather than Obama impersonator Cameron who has most of the followers. It was a mix with Jessica and Brittany (though I think Brittany usually had more) and even with Marty (viral flight-attendant video on YouTube) and Hagan (young and pretty, active on Twitter and Instagram).

 

It's probably fair to say that Burnie and Ashley are a good deal more famous than their final ranking above indicates. Putting them in at #3 may be a fair assessment. At any rate their fans seemed to be the loudest during the live Facebook feed of the first leg. With Erin and Joslyn I'm not so certain. What's clear, though, is that the "Instagram Models" were clearly just another excuse for the producers to once again have a "hot girl" team with no other apparent interesting qualities, just like they have every season (they're probably much more famous on the pageant circuit than on the internet). And that overall, the producers really had to dig deep to find 3 girl-girl teams that they could justify putting on this season of the race.  Although, I bet a whole lot of you are more familiar with Marty's flight-attendant video than with any other team!

 

Maybe I'll actually get around to watching some of those videos now.

Edited February 20, 2016 by Lingo

[Lingo]

ABOUT THE POLL: You may not know them by name, but if you remember ever seeing one of their videos at some point, then that counts as "familiarity". As for me, I've definitely hear of Tyler Oakley though I may have never watched one of his videos completely (he shows up in the "Best of YouTube" video at the end of every year). I've definitely seen Marty's flight video, some of Zach's trick videos, and probably at least one trick-frisbee shot video. I've never heard of "RoosterTeeth" but I think I've heard of the "Red vs. Blue" series they became famous for, and lately on TV I'm seeing commercials for their new "Lazer Team" series. I feel like I've seen that Vine of Cole egging his mother before, but I'm not sure. Pretty sure I saw Cameron's Obama impression too.

[Christina]

Lingo - The first step is admitting you have a problem...

 

Just kidding. I fall into these rabbit holes all the time, usually to the frustration of my friends and family.  Unlike them, I appreciate the work and effort you put forth here. I've never heard of any of them. I didn't see the flight attendant video, but have heard that same, or very similar, spiel while flying many times in the past. The chances of it being from her are pretty slim, though. 

[NewDigs]

I don't know any of these people.

Do their poll nicknames reflect their social media presence?

[zizzy]

Great analysis! I do have to question how you dealt with Burnie and Ashley though. You seem willing to give Burnie full credit for Rooster Teeth since he was a co-founder, but you only took into account the company's main YouTube channel. 

 

I suppose only the main channel makes sense if you're only looking at Burnie, since that's the channel he appears the most frequently on. But Ashley is a co-host of The Know and The Patch which are only on The Know's YouTube channel (781,664 subscribers), so it seems weird to exclude her/that channel's numbers. And Burnie also is part of the "Podcast Crew" on the company's Let's Play channel (3,519,694 subscribers)--he's not a huge part of the channel but a common enough occurrence that it might be worth noting.

 

Also, if you're more willing to just flat-out give Burnie full credit for all of Rooster Teeth, there's quite a few other channels that are under the company:

• The Slow Mo Guys (7,412,601 subscribers)
• Achievement Hunter (900,113 subscribers)
• Funhaus (868,546 subscribers) 
• GameFails (549,984 subscribers)
• Red vs. Blue (379,373 subscribers)
• AH Community (364,921 subscribers)
• Game Kids (85,032 subscribers) 

 

 

Technically ScrewAttack is also part of RT, but since they merged just recently and developed their own brand and following independently, it seems odd to include them.

 

It's all sort of a mess though. There's probably a good chunk of Slow Mo Guys subscribers who don't know what Rooster Teeth is, let alone who Burnie is. But the main host of the channel, Gavin, is Creative Director at Rooster Teeth and the channel only really sort of exists because he was trying to get a work visa to join RT. So it would be weird to count SMG subscribers, but it would also be sort of weird not to. 

 

And then you have to remember that RT has its own site and video player, which is where a lot of their views for Red vs. Blue and RWBY go because they release there anywhere from a week to a year earlier than on YouTube. And you have to realize that there's probably a lot of crossover between subscriber base for most of their channels. 

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that determining "fame" or success on the internet is weird. Burnie and Ashley have a lot of weird facets to consider, which makes me think everyone else on this cast does as well.

 

Still, really interesting, great work. Some of these people have bigger/smaller followings than I thought!

[Avocado]

The only one I've heard of prior to this season is Zach, who I follow on Instagram. I don't follow a lot of people I don't know, but his videos are very clever and creative. From what little you can tell from such short videos, he seems like a smart, good-natured guy. I'm rooting for him and Rachel.

[TheRabbi]

Interesting post for sure. I had honestly never heard of a single one of these contestants when the cast was announced, but I recognized some of those videos they showed of Zach in their intro, so I guess that answers it for me.

[Jobiska]

As I mentioned in the episode thread, I originally saw Tyler on The Fine Brothers' React series, "Youtubers React" (to various cultural phenomena, videos, etc.).  While I prefer Kids React, Teens React, and Seniors React, I enjoy the former as well and like Tyler on it.   There are links to the various featured YouTubers' original channels too.  Anyway, my point is, numbers/recognizability is upped from the above if they are regular guests/features on a different channel as well!

[Lingo]

Lingo - The first step is admitting you have a problem...

 

Just kidding. I fall into these rabbit holes all the time, usually to the frustration of my friends and family.  Unlike them, I appreciate the work and effort you put forth here. I've never heard of any of them. I didn't see the flight attendant video, but have heard that same, or very similar, spiel while flying many times in the past. The chances of it being from her are pretty slim, though. 

 

Thanks. You should have seen my spreadsheet back in TAR's prime....

 

Great analysis! I do have to question how you dealt with Burnie and Ashley though. You seem willing to give Burnie full credit for Rooster Teeth since he was a co-founder, but you only took into account the company's main YouTube channel. 

 

I suppose only the main channel makes sense if you're only looking at Burnie, since that's the channel he appears the most frequently on. But Ashley is a co-host of The Know and The Patch which are only on The Know's YouTube channel (781,664 subscribers), so it seems weird to exclude her/that channel's numbers. And Burnie also is part of the "Podcast Crew" on the company's Let's Play channel (3,519,694 subscribers)--he's not a huge part of the channel but a common enough occurrence that it might be worth noting.

 

Also, if you're more willing to just flat-out give Burnie full credit for all of Rooster Teeth, there's quite a few other channels that are under the company:

• The Slow Mo Guys (7,412,601 subscribers)
• Achievement Hunter (900,113 subscribers)
• Funhaus (868,546 subscribers) 
• GameFails (549,984 subscribers)
• Red vs. Blue (379,373 subscribers)
• AH Community (364,921 subscribers)
• Game Kids (85,032 subscribers) 

 

 

Technically ScrewAttack is also part of RT, but since they merged just recently and developed their own brand and following independently, it seems odd to include them.

 

It's all sort of a mess though. There's probably a good chunk of Slow Mo Guys subscribers who don't know what Rooster Teeth is, let alone who Burnie is. But the main host of the channel, Gavin, is Creative Director at Rooster Teeth and the channel only really sort of exists because he was trying to get a work visa to join RT. So it would be weird to count SMG subscribers, but it would also be sort of weird not to. 

 

And then you have to remember that RT has its own site and video player, which is where a lot of their views for Red vs. Blue and RWBY go because they release there anywhere from a week to a year earlier than on YouTube. And you have to realize that there's probably a lot of crossover between subscriber base for most of their channels. 

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that determining "fame" or success on the internet is weird. Burnie and Ashley have a lot of weird facets to consider, which makes me think everyone else on this cast does as well.

 

Still, really interesting, great work. Some of these people have bigger/smaller followings than I thought!

 

Thanks for the extra information. I can only plead ignorance. I started with the Parade article, which didn't mention any of the channels you linked to (except their main website roosterteeth.com, but I was limiting myself to public social media sites), and I didn't want to spend too much time trying to find all the relevant channels. But all the channels you mention have lower subscription numbers than the main RT channel, and as I said I went with the highest single channel. Though if you're saying I should have given Burnie and Ashley higher numbers as individuals, I can see that.

P.S. 27 out of 40 votes so far for "never heard of them"! Oh you guys, you make me feel so young! I will love you forever.

[Jersey Guy 87]

I've never heard of any of these guys but my 13 year old son knows of a few of them.  Not enough to draw him in to watching the whole season but he has a little more interest than usual.

[piequinn35]

I laughed when I saw this at the end: Never heard of any of them before! :))))

[StatMom]

ABOUT THE POLL: You may not know them by name, but if you remember ever seeing one of their videos at some point, then that counts as "familiarity". As for me, I've definitely hear of Tyler Oakley though I may have never watched one of his videos completely (he shows up in the "Best of YouTube" video at the end of every year). I've definitely seen Marty's flight video, some of Zach's trick videos, and probably at least one trick-frisbee shot video. I've never heard of "RoosterTeeth" but I think I've heard of the "Red vs. Blue" series they became famous for, and lately on TV I'm seeing commercials for their new "Lazer Team" series. I feel like I've seen that Vine of Cole egging his mother before, but I'm not sure. Pretty sure I saw Cameron's Obama impression too.

Thanks, Lingo! Awesome job putting this all together!

[Tee]

WOW! I find those numbers astounding! I never expected that. Personally, I find all of these people EXTREMELY annoying. I don't know if I will make it through this season because there really isn't anyone I am rooting for. They all just seem so self centered and full of themselves -- I guess that's the whole youtube generation thing, which I admittedly don't get.  The least annoying is the editor guy who posts all the special effects videos, because at least he has an actual talent/craft. But the rest of them? Ugh.  I don't get it. I just don't get it.  

[Lingo]

This video is interesting because it shows you how well the teams knew of each other before the Race began. To summarize, a lot of these teams weren't familiar to a lot of these other teams. So you don't have to feel bad about not recognizing them yourself!