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10 Years Later, ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ Video Bought Private School Education And Two More Children

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 06:49 PST, May 29, 2017

If you’re wondering how many million dollars comes from having 850 million views on YouTube, ask brothers Charlie and Harry, the Internet sensation from the 2007 viral video Charlie Bit My Finger.

Charlie and Harry, stars of the hilarious Charlie Bit My Finger YouTube video that was once the most watched clip on the video streaming platform, have had a lot of growing up to do since biting each other’s fingers 10 years ago.

Ten years ago, proud dad Howard Davies-Carr uploaded footage of his two sons on YouTube to share it with family members, but much to his surprise, the video went viral in no time and raked in nearly $2 million in royalties, according to News Australia.

Although the British family is pretty secretive about sharing how much they have really earned for having Charlie Bit My Finger among the most watched videos on YouTube, estimations by News Australia indicate that the hilarious finger biting clip has brought in roughly $1.74 million in royalties.

All the proud dad and mom say about their financial well-being, which was spurred by Charlie Bit My Finger, is that thanks to the viral video they were able to expand their family with two more adorable kids and send all four of them to private schools.

So with the average school now costing £14,102 (more than $18,000) per year in the U.K., that’s quite a big achievement, especially considering that no investments were made – all the parents needed to do was to hit the record button and upload the cute video to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM

Dad Howard reveals that the video Charlie Bit My Finger never actually intended to go public. He explained that back in 2007, sharing a 50-megabyte video was “hard,” as such a sizable video was too big to send over email, and YouTube “stood out as a great vehicle to share videos.”

As soon as all family members watched the hilarious interaction between Charlie and Harry, Howard went to YouTube to delete the video, but he saw the video boasting an impressive amount of views and changed his mind. In fact, Howard says the views kept doubling almost every 24 hours!

Meaning: if it wasn’t the year 2007, the family of Charlie and Harry would have never raked in a whopping nearly $2 million for just sharing a video on YouTube.

By the end of 2009, Charlie Bit My Finger had become YouTube’s most watched video, boasting nearly 130 million views. The video remained on the top for 171 days before it was beaten by Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance music video.

Interestingly though, fast forward to 2017 – Charlie Bit My Finger has more views than Bad Romance, 850 million vs. 825 million.

Today, neither Charlie Bit My Finger not Bad Romance have squeezed into YouTube’s 80 most viewed videos ever, with Psy’s Gangnam Style video still leading the pack with nearly 2.9 billion views.

In addition to raking in nearly $2 million in royalties, the stars of the Charlie Bit My Finger viral video also landed numerous TV appearances, mostly in ads. Some of the most prominent brands Charlie and Harry have appeared in ads for are Renault, EE, Delta Air Lines, Ragu, and Gerber.

Even though the family, which by the way still uploads videos to their YouTube channel, has earned such an impressive sum of money thanks to Charlie Bit My Finger‘s success, they haven’t spent it on luxury cars or a mansion.

The family members still live in their Thames Valley home, and they haven’t even changed that sofa seen in Charlie Bit My Finger.

[Featured Image by Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock]

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