Evan Fong (born July 31, 1992), known by his YouTube username VanossGaming, is a Canadian video game commentator. His highly popular YouTube channel mainly consists of comedic gaming commentary. He has amassed more than 21 million subscribers and over 8 billion total video views in less than 6 years. These numbers continue to grow daily, as Fong is currently gaining more than 6,000 subscribers and 6 million views per day, averaging 7.6 million views a video. Vanoss has been compared to the most subscribed YouTuber, PewDiePie, as they both have a similar style of gaming.
Vanoss' channel logo consists of an owl head. He usually doesn't show his face unless it is for an important occasion. The first time Vanoss showed his face was for his one million subscribers thank you video in 2013. His owl head is the head he uses for many of the games he plays including GMOD and GTA V. He is known for the owl head as many love it which is one of the reasons why he is popular and stands out.
He reached his peak in 2014 where he gained 6 and a half million subscribers in that year alone, at one point gaining a million subscribers a month, more than any other channel except PewDiePie. In that year he would on occasion get more subscribers than any other YouTube channel.
In 2015, he was the second most subscribed gaming channel behind PewDiePie but since dropped to fifth behind PewDiePie, elrubiusOMG, Fernanfloo, and JuegaGerman.
Vanoss also experienced one span as the most subscribed Canadian channel on YouTube at that time period before being surpassed by JustinBieberVEVO. He is now the second most subscribed channel from Canada.
Without a YouTube network, Vanoss ranks at the fourth most subscribed channel, from 2014 to 2017, being the most subscribed person without a YouTube network. Also during that time period, his channel was the most subscribed gaming channel without a network until PewDiePie's well known contorversy with anti semetic jokes resulted in him being dropped by his network, Maker Studios in February 2017. His channel is now the second most subscribed gaming channel without a network.
Although other channels have gotten more momentum which along with his channel growing old has decreased his subscriber growth, he still remains one of most subscribed channels on YouTube, currently the 17th most subscribed channel and the 38th most viewed on the site.
Channel
Vanoss' content mainly includes funtages of him and his friends playing GTA V Online and Gmod. In fact, it is a rare occasion for him to post content without at least one of his friends in the video. His friends include but are not limited to: Moo Snuckel, I AM WILDCAT, Daithi De Nogla, Ohmwrecker, Lui Calibre,BasicallyIDoWrk, Mini Ladd, Terroriser, Mr Sark, fourzer0seven, BigJigglyPanda, and H2O Delirious, whom many say is Vanoss' best friend.
The channel sits as one of YouTube's most abundant in views and subscribers, due to is a mix of comedic banter with his friends and having some of the most highly accliamed edited videos on YouTube.
An interesting thing to note about his channel is that unlike the fanbases of other big YouTube channels like PewDiePie, Jenna Marbles, or Smosh, who are known to have a rather rabid fanbases as well as intense arguments in the comment section between haters & fans alike, the VanossGaming fanbase is one of the most, if not the most, positive fanbases on YouTube. Vanoss' comment sections are filled with positive and friendly feedback and discussions, with arguments rarely breaking out. This is extraordinarily unusual for a YouTube Channel exceeding 10 million subscribers, indicating that Vanoss does a good job of delivering a positive upbeat aura for his viewers as well as portraying a mischievous character in his videos.
Before Vanoss and the Impact of PewDiePie
Before Vanoss began posting his content on YouTube, here were great channels like speedyw03 (AKA Vanoss' idol), and kilplixism, who was friends with Criken the Great. They mainly posted Left 4 Dead content because in 2010, Left 4 Dead was at the peak of its popularity. StraightUpKnives was friends with Speedy, but unfortunately, they rarely play together anymore. However, when PewDiePie entered the scene, everything changed. They are still active, of course, but they were some of the most popular channels to watch back in the day. These channels are past their prime now, with VanossGaming being the most relevant and having the largest fanbase out of all of them. The PewDiePie impact, otherwise known as his staggering rate of getting many more views and subscribers than any other YouTube channel that happened in the beginning of 2014 was the reason why the channels died or became less popular. The PewPiePie impact started the time PewDiePie and YouTube Spotlight were battling it out for the #1 spot and in the middle of 2014. During this time, it brought most older channels to their knees as they tried to maintain their sub and view counts. The newer channels that started to produce videos in or after 2010 like Markiplier or Vanoss weren't affected as much, which is obviously shown by the rate at which they grown. They've helped to lessen PewDiePie's impact on YouTube, and now older channels aren't affected as much as they were meaning that PewDiePie has a lot of competition on YouTube.
Growth
According to SocialBlade, upon starting in September of 2011, Vanoss' channel didn't really start growing a fanbase until the start of 2012. By July of 2012, he was gaining approximately 18.9 thousand monthly subs. He started to become more and more popular, as approximately one year later, he was gaining around 361.3 thousand monthly subs. Vanoss' rapid growth didn't stop there, as he earned an incredible 1.1 million monthly subs by the start of 2014, the most subscribers he ever got in a single month, more than many channels like Smosh in January of 2014 as well. Vanoss hit his first billion views on July 19 of that year and hit his second billion views on January 28, the next year.
Since, Vanoss evolved to become one of the biggest contenders to knock off PewDiePie long with HolaSoyGerman and the great Smosh. However 2015 was the year his growth started to slow down. More channels were starting to gain more subscribers and views than him and some started to surpass him towards the end of that year and so forth. He did however, receive his 3 billionth video view around this time on September 25.
Vanoss still gained many new fans in 2016 but not as quickly as before. Despite this, Vanoss still remains however in one of the top 20 most subscribed channels at #17, peaking at #12 in both 2015 and 2017. He also gained the most views he ever had in the past year, receiving 4 billion views on his YouTube channel on February 2, 2016, 5 billion on June 8, and 6 billion on October 25 of that year. In early 2017, his channel hit 7 billion total video views and reached 8 billion on September 20.
List Of Subscriber Milestones
Evan hit 1 Million Subscribers On July 14, 2013.
Evan hit 2 Million Subscribers On October 25, 2013.
Evan hit 3 Million Subscribers On December 7, 2013.
Evan hit 4 Million Subscribers On January 7, 2014.
Evan hit 5 Million Subscribers On February 5, 2014.
Evan hit 6 Million Subscribers On March 5, 2014.
Evan hit 7 Million Subscribers On May 11, 2014.
Evan hit 8 Million Subscribers On July 24, 2014.
Evan hit 9 Million Subscribers On September 25, 2014.
Evan hit 10 Million Subscribers On December 10, 2014.
Evan hit 11 Million Subscribers On February 7, 2015.
Evan hit 12 Million Subscribers On April 14, 2015.
Evan hit 13 Million Subscribers On June 28, 2015.
Evan hit 14 Million Subscribers On September 4, 2015.
Evan hit 15 Million Subscribers On December 1, 2015.
Evan hit 16 Million Subscribers On Feburary 5, 2016.
Evan hit 17 Million Subscribers On May 4, 2016.
Evan hit 18 Million Subscribres On July 23, 2016.
Evan hit 19 Million Subscribers On November 3, 2016.
Evan hit 20 Million Subscribers On February 13, 2017.
Evan hit 21 Million Subscribers On July 19, 2017.
List Of Video View Milestones
Evan hit 1 Billion Video Views On July 19, 2014.
Evan hit 2 Billion Video Views On January 28, 2015.
Evan hit 3 Billion Video Views On September 25, 2015.
Evan hit 4 Billion Video Views On February 2, 2016.
Evan hit 5 Billion Video Views On June 8, 2016.
Evan hit 6 Billion Video Views On October 25, 2016.
Evan hit 7 Billion Video Views In Early 2017.
Evan hit 8 billion Video Views On September 20, 2017.
Quotes
- "Hey guys. Vanoss here." (Sometimes his intro if he wants to point something out before the video)
- "ALRIGHT!" (Starting of most of his newer videos)
- "♪Come on down to the Kame House and get your Dragon Balls♪" (Quote from Garry's Mod Guess Who)
- "What do you call a magic owl.... Hoodini" (Quote from GTA 5 Online Funny Moments - Comedy Club Fun!)
DEAD REALM
On July 25, 2015, Evan announced that he had been working on a game called Dead Realm with a few of his friends for "the last six or seven months" as a creative director. It seems to be similar to Gmod Hide-n-Seek, with the hiders being humans and the seeker being a ghost. If a hider gets caught, they become a spirit and help the ghost find the humans. If time runs out, the hiders win. If everyone is dead, the ghosts win. After six months working on the project as gaming directors, Vanoss, DaithiDeNogla, Moo Snuckel, Mini Ladd, Terroriser, TheSyndicateProject, and SeaNanners worked with 3BlackDot and released the Early Access version for PC on August 3, 2015. Patches were added to the game over time, adding new ghosts and maps. Four new game modes have been added since the game's release. Dead Realm officially left Early Access on May 24, 2017.
Personal life
Vanoss is half Korean and half Chinese and lives in Toronto, Canada. He has a love for hockey and used to play, stating that he wants to make quality hockey videos in the future. Vanoss only revealed his face in a few videos, but his GTA V character greatly resembles him in real life (though he mostly wears an owl mask). He is known to be a very calm guy as well as a great joker, but as much as he enjoys messing around, when Vanoss plays seriously, he is quite experienced.
He has recently helped create a game with other YouTubers called Dead Realm. Much like Garry's Mod game mode hide and seek. Vanoss has been on a web cartoon series called "Paranormal Action Squad." He voices a character based on his owl mask wearing persona from Grand Theft Auto Online. Paranormal Action Squad can be found on YouTube Red.
Trivia
- He was also Nominated for "Trending Gamer" in The Game Awards 2014.
- In one of his QnA videos, he said that he got the name Vanoss from his father who was into cars. The car that Evan states he got it from was a BMW car and which he got the name "VANOS" which was a part for the car.
- His Outro Song (Afterglow - Reaktor Productions) also caught attention after using it as an outro and the song is now the most famous Reaktor Productions track.
- He was featured in WatchMojo's "TopX" in the category of Top 10 Let's Play YouTube Channels taking the #2 spot, just beaten by PewDiePie.
- Some of his videos were deleted by Spam404, mostly old ones.
- Vanoss is from Canada and also of Korean decent from his father but is also half White due to his mother. In late 2016, he surpassed former most subscribed channel nigahiga to become the most subscribed YouTuber of Asian decent.
- VanossGaming is considered identical to Ryan Higa by some fans, with some confusing the two.
- Vanoss has his own dragon in the popular game Dragon City, called the Vanoss Dragon.
- Vanoss is much liked by children/teenagers and also adults. This is one of the reasons why sometimes a joke he makes in a video trends. An example include a joke he made in 2015 by "Hoodini".