The Why Files YouTube Stats

@thewhyfiles · Science & Education · Updated Nov 6, 2026

The Why Files channel overview

The Why Files (@thewhyfiles) is a YouTube channel in the Science & Education niche created in 2020. It has 6M subscribers and 1.3B total views across 532 videos, an average of 2.5M views per video over its lifetime.

Its last 30 uploads averaged 1.4M views, and a typical video (the median) gets 1.4M views. Over the last 12 months, The Why Files published 54 videos (35% Shorts), and 2 of them (4%) reached at least 3× the channel's typical views.

Subscriber growth

Over the last 20 days, The Why Files gained 30K subscribers and 21M views, about 1.1M views a day.

How much does The Why Files make?

Returbe estimates The Why Files's YouTube ad revenue at $130K – $447K per month. The estimate uses an RPM (revenue per 1,000 views, after YouTube's share) of $3.34 to $11.44, typically $6.2, based on the channel's niche, audience language and the share of its views coming from Shorts. At that rate, 1 million long-form views earn about $6.2K.

Ad revenue is only part of the picture: sponsorships, affiliate links, memberships and merch often pay more than ads. Learn how RPM varies by niche in how much YouTubers make per 1,000 views, or check any channel with the free monetization checker.

Upload schedule

The Why Files publishes about 8.7 videos a month. Based on its last 53 uploads, its most common upload day is Monday (34% of uploads), usually around 16:00 UTC. The last video went out on Nov 2, 2026.

The Why Files's best outlier videos

An outlier is a video that beats the channel's own typical views. These are The Why Files's biggest hits relative to its normal, the ideas its audience responded to most. What is an outlier video?

• Aug 12th!! SECRET DOCUMENT REVEALS EARTH'S GRAVITY WILL STOP! #shorts799K views · Aug 10, 202610.1× typical views
• How could Socrates know about AI?500K views · Aug 25, 20266.3× typical views
• Prophecy of the Popes | Saint Malachy's Countdown4M views · Jul 18, 20262.8× typical views
• Aliens in the Ocean, and a War for Earth | The Friendship Case3.7M views · Sep 12, 20262.6× typical views
• NASA & CIA Investigate UFO Contactee: His Crohn's Was Cured! #shorts191K views · Oct 6, 20262.4× typical views
• The Ship at the Bottom of the Atlantic Isn't the Titanic3.3M views · Oct 9, 20262.3× typical views
• Nuclear Missile Down | The Cover-Up America Tried to Bury3.1M views · Sep 5, 20262.2× typical views
• The Last Sign: 3I/ATLAS and the Hopi Blue Star3M views · Oct 30, 20262.1× typical views

Latest videos

10 of The Why Files's last 30 uploads did at least 1.5× the channel's typical views.

• The Basement: Brad Olsen | Antarctica’s Forbidden Zones1.3M views · Nov 2, 20260.9× typical views
• The Last Sign: 3I/ATLAS and the Hopi Blue Star3M views · Oct 30, 20262.1× typical views
• The Basement: William Shatner | Beyond the Final Frontier: Life, Death, and What Comes After811K views · Oct 26, 20260.6× typical views
• Inside the Most Violent Haunted Houses1.6M views · Oct 23, 20261.1× typical views
• The Basement: Jeffrey Kripal | Inside the Archives of the Impossible702K views · Oct 19, 20260.5× typical views
• The Basement: Michael Salla | The Galactic Federation and the New Race for Space1.2M views · Oct 12, 20260.9× typical views
• A Titanic fraud…84K views · Oct 10, 20261.1× typical views
• The Ship at the Bottom of the Atlantic Isn't the Titanic3.3M views · Oct 9, 20262.3× typical views
• NASA & CIA Investigate UFO Contactee: His Crohn's Was Cured! #shorts191K views · Oct 6, 20262.4× typical views
• The Basement: Ed Barnhart | Lost Cities, Botflies, and a Magic Number937K views · Oct 5, 20260.7× typical views

The Science & Education niche on YouTube

In the last 30 days, Returbe tracked 2.2K videos from 322 channels in this niche. 10.8% of them reached 3× their channel's typical views, and a typical long video got 9.1K views. Estimated RPM for the niche: $3.5 to $12.

Smaller channels breaking out in this niche right now: Wonderism HQ (51K subs, best video 400.5×), ClipPodcast (29K subs, best video 25×), Past the Blue (34K subs, best video 19.1×), The Scale Room (1.3K subs, best video 278×), The Why Side (47K subs, best video 194.6×), MrCappuccino Shorts (293K subs, best video 69.9×).

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Frequently asked questions

Data from Returbe's index of YouTube channels, collected from public YouTube data. Earnings are estimates from views and RPM benchmarks, not figures from the channel. Returbe is not affiliated with The Why Files or YouTube.