How US teen Makenna Kelly amassed 1.1 million YouTube subscribers

SHE’S barely out of primary school — but Makenna Kelly is already making a fortune thanks to a very bizarre online craze.

MAKENNA Kelly has 1.1 million YouTube subscribers, 460,000 Instagram followers and has made more than most adults do in a year in just a few months.

And she’s done it all at the age of 13 thanks to a bizarre online trend taking over YouTube.

The US teen has become the darling of the ASMR world thanks to her YouTube channel, Life with MaK, which stands for “Meaning, Acceptance and Kindness” as well as being a nod to her name.

For the uninitiated, autonomous sensory meridian response — or ASMR — is a relaxing, tingling sensation supposedly triggered by certain soothing sounds, such as whispering or repetitive, gentle brushing.

The popularity of YouTube videos designed to spark ASMR have exploded in recent years — and Makenna is one of the community’s rising stars, with fans constantly referring to her as their “queen”.

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She’s built up a cult-like following thanks to scores of ASMR clips of herself whispering, eating, unwrapping packaging and blowing bubbles and balloons — all popular ASMR triggers.

The video which made her a tearaway success — titled “ASMR ~ Eating Raw Honeycomb│EXTREMELY Sticky Mouth Sounds!” — was uploaded earlier this year, and has been viewed nearly 12 million times in just a few short months.

Since then, the Year 8 student, who lives in America’s south, has seen both her subscriber base and entire profile soar — along with her now very healthy bank balance.

According to news and entertainment website naibuzz.com, Makenna has “generated an estimated net worth of $US150,000” ($A211,822), with Life with Mak raking in a daily revenue of $US900 ($A1270) from advertising.

Meanwhile, Social Blade, a site dedicated to tracking YouTube statistics, estimates Makenna’s channel to be even more lucrative, predicting a monthly earning of up to $US104,100 ($A147,000).

And with 460,000 followers on Instagram and thousands more across other social media sites, it’s likely the teen could be earning far more through advertising and sponsored posts.

Comments on Makenna’s YouTube channel and Instagram account are overwhelmingly positive, with fans heaping praise on her fashion sense, makeup skills and ASMR-triggering powers.

“You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” one Instagram follower gushes, while countless others call her an “icon” and a “legend”.

However, Makenna has also sparked controversy during her short fame thanks to a number of “role playing” ASMR videos shared on YouTube.

In the most divisive clip, Makenna poses as a police officer for an “ASMR sassy cop role play” — and while the video itself is innocent and just one of many role-playing ASMR clips on YouTube, many fans criticised it for being “inappropriate” and “sexual”.

The actual seven-minute video shows Makenna, who is dressed as a police officer, tapping her phone, knocking on a car window and whispering.

But in an accompanying Instagram photo promoting the footage, Makenna is pictured leaning against a car with her legs crossed, holding handcuffs and wearing a short skirt — a picture many slammed as being “provocative” and even an example of “porn”.

Of course, Makenna is not the first YouTuber to cash in on the ASMR craze.

There are thousands of videos with that tag online, and last month, news.com.au reported on the growing popularity of “dandruff scraping” videos — clips which show people suffering from serious cases of flaky scalp scratching and scraping the dandruff free.

While many find those videos “repulsive”, others claim the scraping sound triggers ASMR — and with channels like ScratchingMyScalpOff attracting millions of views, it seems the trend is showing no signs of slowing.

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