There is a woman who calls herself "Ms. Hands" (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV6P5rRVmiTL637byUZBTrQ) and I can only assume she's a billionaire given how often I hear her awful voice as she pops toys out of Play Doh "eggs". I find the whole genre depressing as hell because I can't help but think of kids watching the videos who have 0 hope of ever actually playing with those toys.

OTOH, I've been thinking off and on about how to start a channel since it's clearly a great way to pay for kids' toys based on the one show we watched where a kid and his dad assembled a gigantic Spider-Man drivable car.

> I find the whole genre depressing as hell because I can't help but think of kids watching the videos who have 0 hope of ever actually playing with those toys.

To be completely fair, I subscribe to more than a few blacksmithing, metalworking, machining, woodworking, and other heavy-duty crafty channels, and there's little-to-no chance that I'll ever get a lathe or a mill.

> I've been thinking off and on about how to start a channel since it's clearly a great way to pay for kids' toys based on the one show we watched where a kid and his dad assembled a gigantic Spider-Man drivable car.

There's your self-licking ice cream clone. I wonder why it's so pleasurable to watch these kind of unboxing vids. Mirror neurons?

I think watching people play with toys ~= playing with toys,

It's not all unboxing though, whole stories get acted out with toys and different camera angles and lots of editing. There's a lot of elaborate music video reenactments too, like the songs from Frozen.

Over 17 million views on...this. Wow. Good on her. Thanks for clueing me in to the genre.