The Rise of Contract Clippers in the Attention Economy

Photo Credit: Jill Marv

Paid groups of clippers are boosting internet celebrities like MrBeast behind the scenes, like billboards and commercials of the modern era.

The biggest content creators on the internet are paying the equivalent of a call center’s worth of employees to clip their content to post as Shorts and Reels across social media. This content steers potential fans to the creators’ YouTube or TikTok channels, further boosting their online presence.

It might come as no surprise to the terminally online that internet fame isn’t as organic as one might be led to believe. In fact, the most popular YouTubers like MrBeast have help from an army of fans—and paid employees—turning their content into bite-sized viral moments.

Recently, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, had his team pay independent editors, employed by a startup called Clipping, $50 for every 100,000 views that clips of his content received on social media. The trick is to identify a potentially viral moment and embellish it with funny slogans and editing panache before feeding it to social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

“People used to buy commercials on TV, billboards, radio time slots,” said Anthony Fujiwara, the 23-year-old founder of marketing service Clipping, in a statement to Bloomberg. “Clipping is that for the modern era. It’s buying space and time on people’s phones while they scroll.”

The brilliant part is that these clips look like they could have come from any random superfan, which makes their appearance on your feed seem more organic. In the early days of the internet, moments and videos that seemed spontaneous or unusual naturally became instant topics of discussion—but now they’re highly orchestrated marketing efforts.

Fujiwara’s Clipping pays out $300 to $1,500 for every million views a clip gets across all social platforms, according to data shared on Discord, where the company operates. Those clips are created by a gaggle of 23,300 contract editors.

One clipper, a 23-year-old in Pakistan, said he earned $600 making clips for MrBeast, and that he even hired two sub-contractors, who received a percentage of his payout for their contributions. Fujiwara specifically declined to comment on his business with MrBeast, who has since launched his own clipping operation called Vyro.

When Fujiwara first started editing YouTube videos, he was 16 years old and still in high school. A child of immigrants, he says his parents pushed him to make money from a young age.

Content creators whose videos Fujiwara edited went from zero followers to 100,000 in a month, he said. Word of his successful edits spread quickly, and he began receiving inquiries from celebrity gamers and Fortnite players.

This year, Clipping has generated around $7.7 million in sales, a lot of which comes in the form of cryptocurrency. Reportedly, clients like the managers of YouTube personalities, record labels, and podcasters are starting to allocate more and more money, sometimes over $10,000 a month, for contracted clippers.

Beverly Hills-based United Talent Agency works with Clipping to boost its clients’ social media presence and direct potential fans through short-form videos to their talents’ YouTube, Spotify, or Twitch profiles to encourage them to follow.

A recent campaign for streamer Adin Ross, best known for his content with rapper Drake, resulted in 430 million views across 11,000 videos, created by a corral of 520 clippers. Ross’ YouTube channel boasts 4.57 million subscribers, while his Kick streaming account has 1.82 million followers.

Ultimately, everyone you’ve heard of online is probably benefitting from Clipping, or a similar service. That’s not just internet celebrities like Adin Ross, MrBeast, or Jake Paul, but also musicians like rappers Ice Spice and Offset.

“My main goal is that if you want to go viral, you have to go through me,” said Fujiwara, who still edits videos himself for certain top YouTubers. For most, however, he outsources clipping to his contractors, and this year he even incorporated the company.

Fujiwara has declined interest from people and companies who want partial ownership of Clipping. He says he “took a bunch of meetings with management companies,” listened to their advice, “and then just did it all myself.”

Even industry executives, like Dante Smith, senior vice president at Capitol Music Group and head of Motown Digital, see the dollar signs in Fujiwara’s growing empire. Smith said that next year, he’ll try to run clipping campaigns for back-catalog music, as well as new singles.

Smith credits Fujiwara with building out “infrastructure for how things are moving in the digital space today, with the fluidity to adapt.” Soon, every major company looking to catch valuable consumer attention on social apps will be utilizing contract clippers, either through Fujiwara’s company or something similar.