Media awards
YouTube Creator Awards
, commonly known as
YouTube Play Buttons
or
YouTube Plaques
, are a series of awards from the American video platform
YouTube
that aim to recognize its most popular channels. They are based on a channel's subscriber count but are offered at the sole discretion of YouTube. Each channel is reviewed before an award is issued, to ensure that the channel follows the YouTube community guidelines.
[1]
YouTube reserves the right to refuse to hand out a Creator Award, which it has done for channels featuring horror or extremist political content.
[2]
[3]
Awards
When a YouTube channel reaches a specific milestone and is deemed eligible for a YouTube Creator Reward,
[1]
they are awarded a relatively flat trophy in a metal casing with a YouTube play button symbol. The trophies are of different sizes: each button and plaque gets progressively bigger with the channel's subscriber count.
[4]
The Gold Creator Award was introduced at
VidCon 2012
,
[5]
alongside the Silver Creator Award at VidCon 2013
[6]
and the Diamond Creator Award at VidCon 2015.
[7]
The Creator Awards are made by the New York firm
Society Awards
.
[8]
Prior to March 2021, YouTube featured three additional benefit levels. These are not eligible for Creator Rewards, but they do offer several preliminary benefits:
- Graphite was for channels with 1 to 999 subscribers.
[9]
- Opal was for channels with 1,000 to 9,999 subscribers.
[10]
This is the minimum subscriber count required for the YouTube Partner Program, which also requires a minimum of 4,000 total viewer watch hours in the past 12 months, plus a manual review of the channel's content to determine compliance with the program guidelines.
[11]
- Bronze was for channels with 10,000 to 99,999 subscribers.
[12]
The YouTube NextUp program is exclusive to channels meeting this threshold and other program criteria. This is also the minimum subscriber count required for a
Spreadshop
[13]
or
Teespring
merchandise shelf.
[14]
There are currently three regular Creator Awards tiers,
[1]
plus a fourth and fifth that have been awarded a few times:
Silver, Gold, and Diamond Creator Awards
-
Example of a Silver Creator Award
-
Left: Jan Zimmermann, Silver award
Right: Tim Lehmann, Gold award
-
Salvadoran YouTuber
Fernanfloo
holding his Diamond Creator Award
Silver Creator Award
Awarded to the channels that reach or surpass 100,000 subscribers. The old version was made of
nickel
-plated
cupronickel
alloy.
[15]
The new version (as of March 1, 2017) is 92% nickel, 5% carbon and 2.5% zinc, with traces of other metals.
[16]
In March 2018, the look of the Silver Play Button was updated from a metal button housed within a window box with the channel's name printed on the front glass pane to a cleaner-looking flat designed metal plaque award featuring the channel's name embossed on it.
[17]
[18]
Channels at this level are also eligible to apply for a digital verification badge.
[19]
Gold Creator Award
Awarded to the channels that reach or surpass 1,000,000 subscribers. It is made of
gold plated
brass.
[15]
In March 2018, the look of the Gold Play Button was updated from a metal button housed within a window box with the channel's name printed on the front glass pane to a cleaner-looking flat designed metal plaque award featuring the channel's name embossed on it.
[17]
[20]
[21]
Diamond Creator Award
Awarded to channels that reach or surpass 10 million subscribers. It is made of silver-plated metal inset with a large piece of colorless
crystal
in the shape of a play button triangle.
[22]
[23]
When introduced during VidCon 2015, 35 channels qualified for the award.
[24]
As of March 23, 2024, there are 995 channels have reached this level.
[25]
Custom Creator Award
| This section needs to be
updated
.
Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.
(
August 2023
)
|
Formerly awarded to channels that reach or surpass 50 million subscribers. Since September 1, 2020, it is the sole award to be missing from the Creator Awards FAQ.
[26]
However, it continued to be granted at YouTube's discretion after this date. PewDiePie gave the nickname of Ruby Creator Award to this award, as he received a ruby-colored award in the shape of his channel's logo. The color can vary per creator, however: for example, T-Series received a colorless award, while Blackpink received a black award on top of a pink base. Channels with a hash tag (#) symbol have presented their Custom Creator Award to the public. As of January 4, 2021
[update]
, 17 channels have reached this level:
[25]
- PewDiePie
# (December 8, 2016)
[27]
[28]
- T-Series
# (June 27, 2018)
[29]
- 5-Minute Crafts
(February 21, 2019)
- Cocomelon
(June 7, 2019)
- SET India
(June 20, 2019)
- Canal Kondzilla
# (June 21, 2019)
[30]
- WWE
(October 24, 2019)
- Justin Bieber
(February 3, 2020)
- Zee Music Company
(February 7, 2020)
- Like Nastya Vlog
(March 13, 2020)
- Dude Perfect
# (March 24, 2020)
[31]
- Kids Diana Show
(March 30, 2020)
- Vlad and Niki
(August 18, 2020)
- Zee TV
(September 2, 2020)
- Blackpink
# (October 4, 2020)
[32]
[
unreliable source?
]
- Marshmello
(November 22, 2020)
- MrBeast
(January 4, 2021)
[33]
[a]
Red Diamond Creator Award
Awarded to channels that reach or surpass 100 million subscribers. Inspired by the Diamond Creator Award, it features a play button triangle with a large dark red crystal. It was added to the Creator Awards FAQ by September 1, 2020.
[26]
There are currently ten channels that have reached this level:
- T-Series
(May 29, 2019)
[34]
[35]
- PewDiePie
(August 25, 2019)
[36]
[37]
[35]
- Cocomelon
(December 12, 2020)
[38]
- SET India
(March 28, 2021)
[39]
- MrBeast
(July 28, 2022)
[40]
- Kids Diana Show
(August 16, 2022)
- Like Nastya
(August 25, 2022)
- Vlad and Niki
(August 13, 2023)
- Zee Music Company
(September 24, 2023)
- WWE
(March 8, 2024)
Notes
- ^
While MrBeast's Custom Creator Award has not been verified to have come from YouTube directly, it is listed on the
Society Awards
website.
References
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a
b
c
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- ^
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.
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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- ^
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.
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.
- ^
a
b
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.
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.
Archived
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.
- ^
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.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
a
b
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.
SocialBlade.com
.
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.
- ^
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.
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.
Archived
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.
- ^
McPhie, Jonathan (September 19, 2019).
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.
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.
Archived
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.
- ^
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.
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.
Archived
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.
- ^
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.
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.
Archived
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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.
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- ^
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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.
- ^
a
b
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.
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- ^
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– via
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
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(
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.
- ^
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[KondZilla celebrates 50 million subscribers].
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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(
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"
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.
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