Möt den 11-åriga ukrainska youtubern som lagt grunden till ett medieimperium

Diana Kydysiuks karriär började i Kyiv när hon var ett år, med en video där hon sitter i en barnvagn och försöker äta ett löv. Hennes föräldrar, som jobbade med programmering och reklam, insåg snart potentialen i hemmavideorna och började filma när Diana öppnade presentförpackningar.

Kanalen ”Kids Diana Show” blev snabbt en succé och är i dag den sjätte största på Youtube med över 135 miljoner följare. Familjen bor numera i Dubai och har byggt ett globalt medieimperium.

Föräldrarna kommenterar inte sin ekonomi, men enligt The Economist tjänar de troligen omkring 10 miljoner dollar per år på huvudkanalen. Diana, nu 11 år, säger att det kan vara tufft att vara kändis:

– Det kan vara svårt att behålla tålamodet, men jag måste fortsätta le och säga hej till alla.

From Monday to Friday, Diana Kydysiuk’s life looks much like that of any other 11-year-old, with her time taken up by school, gymnastics and judo practice. But at weekends Diana becomes the star of home-made videos that are viewed billions of times by people around the world. “Yeah,” she says shyly, “it’s weird.”

She is technically too young to watch YouTube without parental supervision, but Diana is the face of its sixth-most followed channel. “Kids Diana Show” has more than 135m subscribers, placing it behind only MrBeast (who does elaborate stunts and competitions), two Bollywood brands and a couple of other children’s shows. Add in 20 sister channels, in languages from Arabic to Vietnamese, and Diana’s YouTube empire claims to clock more than 10bn views per month. Few people in the world are as watched.

Her story is a case study in the curious world of online superstardom. Diana is a celebrity among pre-schoolers while being broadly unknown to anyone else. Her setup combines a professional media business with a home-made approach. And it exemplifies how, in the new media economy, children are not just big consumers of content but suppliers too.

Diana’s entertainment career began in Kyiv when she was one year old. The first video on her channel shows her sitting in a buggy, trying to eat a leaf, as her mother, Olena, gently dissuades her in Russian. (It has been viewed nearly 2m times.) Olena and Volodymyr, Diana’s father, started using YouTube to share home videos with friends and family. Soon they began aiming at a wider audience, filming toy “unboxing” videos—catnip for pre-schoolers—and adding jolly soundtracks and graphics. The parents’ backgrounds in computer programming and marketing proved a useful foundation.

As their channel grew in popularity, the family made it a full-time job. In 2018 they switched the main language from Russian to English and left Ukraine, first for Miami and then for Dubai, where they have lived for the past five years. “I used to do really bad with English, but now it’s the opposite…sometimes I even forget Russian words,” says Diana, who doubles up as her mother’s translator while speaking to The Economist.

Being made famous by algorithm is a strangely uneven experience. Diana’s fame is concentrated among young children, who are also by far the most intensive consumers of so-called user-generated content. Children under 15—who have come to be known as Generation Alpha—spend nearly twice as much time on video-sharing platforms as they do on subscription streamers like Netflix, and three times more than on live television, according to a recent study in Britain. Hollywood studios, chasing adult subscribers to their streaming services, seem to be losing the battle for young children’s attention.

Diana has mixed feelings about growing up in her parents’ viewfinder. She has travelled the world and tested more toys than most children will see in all their Christmases. But, she admits, “when I get noticed, it’s kind of uncomfortable for me.” At meet-and-greets up to 5,000 people line up for a picture. “It can be hard to stay patient, but I have to keep smiling and saying hi to everyone,” she says.

The rise of “kidfluencers” has raised questions about their legal status. Over decades the entertainment industry has come up with rules to protect child performers (not always effectively). Children on YouTube, whose clips are often recorded and uploaded by their parents, are in a grey area. Several American states have passed laws to protect child social-media stars, following high-profile cases of exploitation. One of the latest such laws, in Utah, compels parents who make more than $150,000 a year from such content to set aside 15% in trust for the child, who also gets the right to delete any footage once he or she turns 18.

At 11, Diana is dealing with the same confusing transitions as other children her age. “I like horror movies and movies that are for adults. But then there’s also shows like ‘My Little Pony’ that I like. So it’s complicated,” she says. For the family, Diana’s looming teenage years also present a business conundrum, as she outgrows her core audience. She is cutting down on filming to make room for schoolwork and hobbies.

Fortunately for the family business, Diana’s brothers—aged 12, four and two—are taking part in videos too. At weekends, the children film on a rotating schedule to keep the content flowing. If one child is unavailable, says Olena, “we simply switch to another kid. That’s how our system works.”

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