The Londoner chose to spend his YouTube fortune paying off his parents’ £40,000 of debt from two busts off-licenses

Arjun Yogan has taken full advantage of the surge in the popularity of anime

A millennial YouTuber who used to struggle to make ends meet now earns £30,000–

a week from his videos.

Straight after graduating from university in 2017, Arjun Yogan worked for Direct Line in his

 boyhood bedroom at his parent’s house in Ilford, London.

He had to give up half of his modest salary to help pay off his parents’ £40,000 worth of debt after two of their corner shops went bankrupt.

The 27-year-old data analyst had “no money” and saw no way out of poverty for both him and his parents – that was until he began uploading videos more frequently to his anime YouTube account.

Arjun Yogan was earning a modest salary at Direct Line before he hit the big time.

“I didn’t have any big ambition to create a YouTube channel that would make me rich at that point,” he said.

“It was just about getting £ 600 a month off it, so I could afford to rent a box room in Bromley.

“By that point, my mother was ill and my dad was her carer, so neither of them could work and I needed to support them. They were on benefits and life was hard.

“I couldn’t see the point in working constantly but still having no money, so I knew I had to find alternative revenue streams.

“I’ve loved anime since I was a kid after I got hooked on Dragon Ball Z when I was seven and I used to draw my favourite characters.

Yogan said he started the channel at university where it remained fairly dormant.

“Initially, I used to give these to friends and family but I set up a YouTube channel at university and kept it ticking over in the background.

“It wasn’t really making me any money but I knew there was a huge appetite for anime and I thought I’d try and cash in on that.”

Once he finished uni, he spent much of his free time focussing on the channel, slogging away until 2 am every day creating content and seeing his following grow to 130,000 subscribers.

By that point, he was earning the same amount as at his job at Direct Line so he quit.

He can now afford lavish holidays and drives a new BMW “It was exhausting and I was burning the candle at both ends with no guarantee it would pay off,” he said.

“But I have always had a passion for anime and so in some ways, it didn’t feel like work. It was more of a release from the rat race.

Since leaving the job in December 2018, Arjun has cleared his parents’ debts entirely and gone on to build an even larger following with his channel attracting more than 30 million views in two years.

He has also swapped the boxroom for a two-bed penthouse apartment in south London and even drives a £50,000 BMW, thanks to his 800,000 subscribers.

“I am earning currently in excess of £ 120,000 a month now from YouTube, sponsors, and Patreon earnings combined,” he said.

“Even though I could be living a lavish lifestyle and jet-setting all over the world, a lot of that doesn’t interest me.

“I just see it as superficial and fickle.

“Instead I have been saving and investing the large majority of it.

“I might spend it one day but I can’t see the point of wasting it on things that mean nothing.”