YouTube Creator Awards and How You Can Get Them
The popularity of YouTube as a content creation platform has grown since its humble beginnings in 2005. Due to the drastic increase in popularity of the site, the biggest creators have amassed serious followings over the years. With more creators achieving what was once considered impossible milestones, YouTube developed a commendable system to directly reward those who amassed different levels of subscribers on the site. These reward system comes in levels and based on number of subscribers achieved over time. While there are many awards that most will be familiar with, there are some at the higher-end that may surprise even the most dedicated fans.
The Silver Play Button
The Silver Play Button is the first YouTube Creator Award a YouTuber can achieve although that is not to say that it is any easy feat. To be eligible for this award YouTubers will have to reach a highly respectable 100,000 subscribers on a channel for a Silver Play Button, which will come engraved with their channel name and include a signed letter from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. Although smaller than the other play buttons, the Silver Play Button’s prestige is still more than present, as evidenced in it being made of 92% nickel. The Silver Play Button was first created in 2013, and over 300,000 have been given out to this day, further establishing the massive scale of the YouTube platform.
It is pertinent to note that YouTube will still analyse the content of any channel that has reached the required number of subscribers before approving the channel for any award. This is because there are certain contents that are not eligible for awards especially channels with contents that go against YouTube community guidelines, channels without original contents but filled with compilations of existing contents, among others. Once a channel passes YouTube assessment it is approved for the award level it is eligible for.
The Gold Play Button
The Gold Play Button is the second tier of YouTube Creator Awards. This is not an easy feat to achieve at all. Being quite a big step above the aforementioned Silver, the Gold Play Button requires a creator to amass over 1,000,000 subscribers. To further convey this massive achievement, the Gold Play Button is significantly larger than its Silver counterpart, and is made of gold-plated brass. The Gold Play Button was the first Creator Award to be implemented, being introduced originally in 2012. Despite the one million subscriber-mark required to get to this level there are about 30,000 channels that meet the Gold requirements, though a significantly lower figure than that of Silver eligibility. It means that more and more content creators are working hard in the YouTube space with quality contents.
The Diamond Play Button
The Diamond Play Button is a very special award to achieve and YouTube creators who get to this level must have been used to working hard to produce quality and unique contents. In order to be eligible for this award, a channel must surpass a staggering 10,000,000 subscribers, significantly expanding upon the pre-requisites of the Gold Play Button.
Simply being in the shape of a giant Play Button without the surrounding plaque that the aforementioned tiers possess, the Diamond Play Button is made out of a silver-plated metal inset, with the Play Button triangle being made of clear crystal. First appearing in 2015, there are currently just over 1,000 channels that meet the Diamond requirements.
Custom Creator Award
The Custom Creator Award was launched in 2016. This is a seriously difficult achievement to reach, and is by its very nature the most unique of all YouTube Creator Awards. An extremely exclusive award, the Custom Creator Award is completely customized to the recipients channel, and thus each one is entirely unique.
For you to be eligible for a Custom Creator Award, a channel has to reach a massive 50,000,000 subscribers in total. Due to this huge number, there are currently only 17 channels across the entire platform that have earned a Custom Creator Award.
Red Diamond Play Button
There is a level for exceptional achievers in the YouTube space. Without a doubt, the single-most exclusive YouTube Creator Award is the legendary Red Diamond Play Button. First awarded in 2019, the Red Diamond Play Button is for the select few channels that culminate an incomprehensible 100,000,000 total subscribers.
There is aesthetic similarity between The Red Diamond Play Button the Diamond Awards, but instead features deep red crystal as opposed to the clear crystal of standard Diamond. There are very few YouTube channels that are eligible for this extremely prestigious award and they are PewDiePie, T-Series, Cocomelon, and SET India. With how rapidly the platform is still growing, YouTube may have to release an even higher tier of award in the near future. So don’t be surprised to hear that a new award level has been created for higher achievers in the YouTube space.
Finally!
With hard work and consistency a content creator can achieve these levels of award and earn good money from the popularity achieved. Although YouTube does not attach any financial reward to the awards, content creators who achieve these feats can earn much more from the visibility they get from the awards. Higher award is attained with more subscribers and more subscribers means potential financial gains from the contents.
