A consequence of Friendlyjordies’ interest in John Barilaro is that the popular Australian YouTuber has been spending quite a bit of time and money on lawyers lately.
Friendlyjordies — real name Jordan Shanks — is currently being sued by the deputy NSW premier for defamation and his producer was arrested for allegedly stalking him.
Shanks says the law firm Xenophon Davis is representing him, his producer and also his producer’s mother in a claim that police assaulted her during her son’s arrest.
During a video depicting his producer’s arrest, Shanks made a plea for his viewers to chip in to help fund these legal costs.
The income and fundraising efforts of Shanks, who didn’t respond to questions from Crikey for this article, will be crucial to pay for what will likely be expensive legal costs and a potential defamation payout.
How much has he made?
Friendlyjordies’ interest in John Barilaro has been a lucrative one for the YouTuber. While the videos he’s made about the deputy premier haven’t reached the peaks of popularity like some of his other content, his focus has been rewarded in other ways.
Shanks released his “bruz” video about John Barilaro on September 14, 2020. With 675,000 views, it’s more popular than an average video for him but doesn’t crack his top 10. (His top three videos are, in order: a Trump impersonation; a video about Clive Palmer; and a parody of the television series RBT.)
Similarly, he saw a larger than normal but overall modest bump in YouTube subscribers and Facebook followers in September.
What did change was the number of Friendlyjordies fans who were willing to directly financially support Shanks’ work — showing the benefit of not just having scale, but also a willing audience happy to pay for what he does.
Shanks has a Patreon account, where users can sign up as members at different tiers, with high levels enjoying more perks, including early access to videos or no ads.
In August 2020, 1672 people had signed up at some level, according to Patreon analytics tool Graphtreon.
By the end of September, when he released “bruz”, Friendlyjordies’ Patreon membership had more than doubled to 3716, and has stayed roughly around that level since.
Shanks is also monetising his focus on Barilaro in other ways. He’s selling merchandise, including a set comprising a keychain and shirt with a cartoon of Barilaro’s face wearing a Mario Bros hat atop a set of testicles. That will cost you $50 plus shipping.
How much does he earn?
So, how much is Shanks earning from his ventures all up? It’s impossible to know exactly but publicly available information can shed some light on his income.
The Friendlyjordies main Patreon account has made 39 video posts since the “bruz” video. Members are charged somewhere between $1 and $20 per video post, although users can set a monthly maximum. At 3500 subscribers, this means Shanks would have netted at least US$136,500 if every member was paying the lowest tier for every video, before Patreon service and currency fees were taken into account.
The number of subscribers at each tier isn’t public but this amount would obviously increase if the average member is paying more than the lowest tier. At an average of $3 per member, Shanks would have earned more than US$400,000 in the past nine months.
Shanks also receives revenue directly from YouTube for advertisements played over his videos on the platform. The amount of money per ad played varies widely and isn’t public, but social media analytics tool Social Blade estimates his monthly advertising income somewhere between US$1000 and US$16,000 per month.
Shanks also runs a Friendlyjordies podcast with a similar Patreon subscription service that charges members US$1-US$10 per podcast.
The show, which Shanks hosts with two others, had 880 subscribers in January (at which point the subscriber number metric was made private).
At 800 subscribers, Shanks would have netted a minimum of US$49,600 from 62 episodes of the podcast since the “bruz” video came out, assuming everyone pays the lowest amount. It would likely be significantly more than that.
Taken together, it’s safe to assume that Shanks has earned a minimum of US$200,000 from his Patreon and YouTube accounts since “bruz” came out and likely significantly more than that.
Shanks also makes money from his merchandise, tickets to his live shows, and he also charges for access to recordings of all his old shows.
His income, likely among the top creators in Australia, is the culmination of years of work by his team. Shanks is a prolific YouTuber and podcaster who has grown a large audience over years who are willing to pay him directly for what he’s done.
Shanks’ digital output also has costs. His co-hosts, producers and editors, as well as production costs and equipment, would not be cheap. Plus, of course, there are his legal costs.
The media strategy
The release of news about the arrest of Friendlyjordies producer Kristo Langker was a carefully choreographed affair to maximise political pressure and raise money.
On Monday morning, a public holiday, a media release was sent out by Blackwattle Media on behalf of Xenophon Davis about the arrest, which had happened more than a week before.
Shanks also coordinated a release of a YouTube video with a call to action for his audience: donate.
“There’s a link to our legal fund in the description,” Shanks says to the camera. “Donate if you can because this has gone from a legal spectacle that exposes limits of free speech to exposing the confines of your civil liberties, which are a lot smaller than you thought.”
The strategy has worked. The arrest was covered by media outlets and other creators, been widely condemned, and the legal fund web page has been shared more than 2000 times on Facebook.
The amount of money donated to Shanks isn’t public but not long after the video was posted, thousands of dollars had been pledged as donations by dozens of people on social media. One Twitter user, who said he was a retiree, donated $1000 in support saying: “This is as much as I can do for now.”
Shanks and his team are the David in the legal proceedings against their various Goliaths. But thanks to a very healthy income and the willingness of his fans to chip in to help out, the “little guy” in this legal fight may be surprisingly well-funded.
Update: This article was updated to include that Patreon members can set monthly limits on their donations.
This again misses the mark. The big issue is not how much Jordies makes.
It’s how much John Barilaro has made from years of corruption.
Calculating (having a guess at?) Friendly Jordies gross revenue and attributing it as pure profit is the sort of thing News Corp would do. For example I assume his producer is at least paid something?
I’m sure crikey’s income would lookimpressive too if we just multiply the number of subscribers by the cost of subscriptions.
Even with numbers like $200k-400k BEFORE EXPENSES you cast doubt on whether he is “the little guy”?
What does Barilaro earn per year? What about other news media/journalists? It reads like sour grapes- Mr Bradley’s article was insightful and informative I should add – I would have thought you wouldn’t have to stoop to something like this.
Hey, not sure if you had a chance to read the article but included is:
> Shanks’ digital output also has costs. His co-hosts, producers and editors, as well as production costs and equipment, would not be cheap. Plus, of course, there are his legal costs.
Yes, you do say that. You don’t draw the obvious conclusion though, namely that you don’t know his income at all.
Big revenue minus totally unknown cost equals totally unknown income.
But despite acknolwedging that you don’t know his cost, and hence don’t know his income, you claim his income were “very healthy” anyway. That makes the previous acknowledgement just meaningless.
Maybe he has a really healthy income. Maybe he’s one step away from bankruptcy. How would any of us know? Not from the numbers presented in this piece.
Fray is quite sure he’s actually a behemoth, styling him ‘Friendlyjordie$’ in the headline in the exact same manner as someone talking about Microsoft might do. Of course, after the asshat of the year fiasco and yesterday’s Wilson piece on how Cringe his fans are in Minecraft there is no way to know where Crikey is going with this. Talking truth to 6 figgies of raw power!
Of course he read it.
“you cast doubt on whether he is “the little guy”.
LeoDiG, that nails the intent of this article beautifully i reckon.
In this case, Barilaro (and the flying police squad who are clearly at his beck and call) is totally the big guy here.
Assuming Shanks has made a reasonable yearly income from his efforts (and why should that be even questioned as a bad thing?), all that money will be gone in the blink of an eye, once the legal bills come in. Then he’ll back where he started.
It’ll be a different story with Barilaro I bet.
I’m not a big fan of Shanks – he’s a bit one sided and amateur – but I don’t think he has the money or the clout to take his critics to the courts, or to have people arrested and carted away in an unmarked car for simply annoying him. That is some scary shit, and an example of where true power lies.
Shouldn’t Cky acknowledge its own role in supplying jordies with funds? I mean that award last year as “A—hat of the Year”?
It certainly alerted me to Shank’s prolific output. I’m not in his target demographic and hadn’t heard off him til then. Though I haven’t paid for anything of his I’ve watched and listened to since, I’ve become quite a fan and I am very grateful to Cky for filling me in about the left wing comedian. (And I’ll I just note in passing that I have now, at Shank’s own suggestion, let my 10-year-old Cky sub lapse).
That award wasn’t meant to be a compliment – normally it goes to people we virtuous leftie progressives love to hate… Shanks has upset someone, and they accused him of racism. so that was apparently enough for Cky. He’s an a—-hat! He’s white, he’s male, he must be! But it was a bizarre decision by Cky, who admitted that jordies’ supporters had “played” them. So why didn’t they just declare the poll result invalid?
And Cky must have known that FJ would respond. Every time he feels attacked Jordie responds by going ballistic. While his incendiary attacks on most other media (The SMH, News Corp, The Brag, Vice, the ABC, Junkee, Joe Hilderbrand at the Tele and on and on) may be “entertaining” (if you like you undisciplined tirades laced with savage wit), that does mean he will have few friends in the media – now that he needs them.
Hopefully Cky will be big enough to “take it on the chin”. and support a free media. If it does, I might even renew my sub…
Some of Jordy’s obsessive followers don’t like balance in reporting as well..He has had issues with his own staff leaving his platform..It’s called investigative reporting..he’s not perfect..sorry to burst your bubble mate.
For example?
He’s not perfect. Who is?
Yes..we are only human..No hate but that’s decent journalism ..I still love his work but balance is required.
I’m an old bloke who doesn’t enjoy some of Jordies’ harsher rants. But he’s a polemicists. From the very beginning of political polemics when Jordies’ equivalents printed and distributed pamphlets “balance” has not been a “requirement” for polemicists. It’s a requirement for news reporting and comment from such organisations as the ABC which does it well, Seven, Nine and Ten, which at least attempt to appear as if they’re trying to be balanced, and News Corp which often makes a point of not being balanced.
Mud is cheap, evidence is more valuable.
Thanks for the comment and the info. Previously not really across FJ’s work but just had a look at his YouTube offering on his response to his ‘A-hat of the Year’ Award from Crikey. Well worth the effort.
On the basis of this alone, I would make a contribution to cover his current legal costs.
Oh, Amber, watch it and weep…..
It was this site’s petulance which alerted me to FJ – probably the best value I’ve had from it for too, too long.
If I remember correctly, Arsehat of the year is actually a peoples vote – so Jordan had the most votes. I’m pretty sure he made videos telling his followers to go onto Crikey and vote for him though, which is probably why he ended up winning it, to be honest.
He has an obsessive fan base..just like Taylor Swift..it’s cute.
516,000 obsessives? Really?
Jordies “Arsehat of the Year” video actually covers everything he did to win.
Two of Australia’s most principled and effective media outlets calling out corruption and hypocrisy in high places are Crikey and Friendly Jordies. Both are highly entertaining also. Bonus.
Why one would choose to belittle the other was a mystery at the time and remains a disappointment today.
Time for reconciliation.
You forgot Michael West as well.
Has FJ ever given you a serve one of his videos? If so, shouldn’t you disclose that. Otherwise people might think you’ve got something to hide and an ax to grind?
I’m pretty sure he has – he’s certainly mocked some of Cam-Cam’s tweets.