Shane Dawson’s docuseries on Jake Paul is getting more viewers than major Netflix shows

Calum Patterson

The ongoing docuseries created by Shane Dawson focused on Jake Paul is smashing viewing records – and not just on YouTube, but in the mainstream too.

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Shane Dawson is a YouTuber with over 17 million subscribers, and recently has done a number of documentary style videos focused on other creators.

His eight part series about Jake Paul is Dawson’s biggest undertaking yet, with each episode lasting over 40 minutes, and focusing on different facets of Jake Paul’s life and personality.

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The professional editing style and length of each episode has drawn comparisons to professional TV documentaries – but the numbers show that Dawson’s videos are actually outperforming the biggest mainstream equivalents.

YouTuber, comedian and rapper Elijah Daniel, compared the numbers of Dawson’s Jake Paul series to that of Netflix’s ‘Making a Murderer.’

According to Daniel, Dawson is getting the same number of views per episode as the entire Making a Murderer series, and in less time too.

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Daniel also compared it to the immensely popular ‘Stranger Things’ series, which had a budget of $8 million, and yet couldn’t accrue anywhere near the viewership figures of Dawson’s series.

To compare, the episode ‘The Family of Jake Paul’, has over 12 million views in only two days, a figure which Stranger Things almost never managed for an episode after a whole week.

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It is not an entirely fair comparison however, as the shows Daniels mentions require service subscriptions to Netflix, which are costly, whereas watching Dawson’s YouTube series requires nothing more than an internet connection.

Regardless, the level of interest and general fanfare around Dawson’s series, proves that YouTube and other user created online is no longer playing catch up to huge budget productions of TV and Film.

Another YouTuber, Daniel ‘KEEMSTAR’ Keem, also boasts about the viewing figures that his $20,000 budget Fortnite tournament would achieve, beating out a major production like AMC’s The Walking Dead.

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The latest episode of Shane Dawson’s series, ‘The Enemies of Jake Paul’, has accrued over 9 million views in less than 24 hours.

With three episodes still remaining, the total view count will easily hit over 100 million. At the time of writing, the series has over 72 million total views, after only five episodes.

About The Author

Calum is Dexerto's Managing Editor, based in Scotland. Joining Dexerto in 2017, Calum has years of experience covering esports, gaming and online entertainment, and now leads the team to deliver the best coverage in these areas. An expert on all things Twitch and gaming influencers, he's also an expert in popular shooters like Apex Legends, CS2 and Call of Duty. You can contact Calum at calum.patterson@dexerto.com.