Ray William Johnson

Ray William Johnson is an American internet celebrity best known for his eponymous YouTube channel and his web series on that channel, Equals Three.

Johnson was born and raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and attended Norman North High School, where he graduated in 1999.

He later attended the Columbia University School of General Studies, where he studied history, but did not graduate.

His goal was to later earn a Juris Doctor degree after completing his undergraduate studies.

He began posting videos on YouTube during college.

These videos were video blogs that Johnson published on a now-deleted channel.

These early videos garnered a following of around thirty people.

Johnson began posting videos to his "Ray William Johnson" channel in April 2009.

In 2011, the channel became YouTube's first to reach five million subscribers.

The channel had also attained nearly two billion total views.

Originally, Johnson produced videos out of his New York City apartment, but, in 2011, he signed a deal with Maker Studios to produce videos on set in Culver City, California.

While at Maker Studios, Johnson produced a Spanish-language version of the series, Igual a Tres, and also produced a series of comedic animated music videos on a side channel called "Your Favorite Martian."

In October 2012, Johnson announced that he would be leaving Maker Studios, contending that they had been pressuring him to sign a new contract that limited his access to his AdSense account and would reportedly take 40% of his earnings from the series.

The contract also would have required Johnson to give up 50% of his intellectual property rights to the show and his other animated web project, Your Favorite Martian.

In November 2012, Johnson founded his own production studio, Equals Three Studios (then known as Runaway Planet), and continued producing Equals Three.

Your Favorite Martian series was ended that same month.

In 2013, the channel surpassed 10 million subscribers and had over 2 billion views, making it one of the most watched and subscribed to channels at the time.

His first scripted web series, Riley Rewind, premiered on Facebook in 2013.

He created a television concept that was purchased by FX the same year.

In December 2013, Johnson announced that he would be ending Equals Three in the near future to focus on other projects.

In December 2013, Johnson debuted his first scripted series, Riley Rewind, which was originally released on Facebook before migrating to YouTube.

The series revolved around a teenager with a special time-shifting power.

It was released in 5 parts and cumulatively totaled about 50 minutes.

Earlier in 2013, Johnson was in talks with FX Networks about a scripted series based on his life.

The network gave Johnson a script commitment.

The script was to be written by Mike Gagerman and Andrew Waller.

Since his departure from Equals Three, Johnson has continued producing comedic series for his main "Ray William Johnson" channel.

These series included Booze Lightyear, Top 6, and Comedians On.

Booze Lightyear was a scripted sketch comedy web series that featured a variety of different actors often in comedic situations.

Johnson left the series in March 2014 but continued to produce it and other web series like Booze Lightyear, Comedians On, and Top 6, the first two of which were later cancelled.

Toward the end of his tenure at Equals Three, Johnson began branching out into other mediums.

His last show as host (titled "THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING") was published on March 12, 2014, and was around 14 minutes long.

The channel had over 10 million subscribers and 2.6 billion total views at the time of Johnson's departure.

The show returned in July 2014 with Robby Motz as host.

He made his live-action acting debut in the indie road film Who's Driving Doug alongside former Breaking Bad star RJ Mitte, who portrayed Walter White Jr. In 2015 his production company, Mom & Pop Empire, was reported to be co-producing a documentary with Supergravity Pictures about monopolies in the cable television industry.

Motz would depart in July 2015, at which point Kaja Martin, one of Johnson's frequent collaborators, took over as host, but Martin was subsequently replaced by Carlos Santos in December 2015.

In 2015, Johnson sued Jukin Media for requesting the removal of 40 Equals Three videos which sampled their content.

The case was later settled.

The series featured numerous celebrity guests, including Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Gabriel Iglesias, John Cho, and Jason Biggs.

In 2015, Johnson reported the series had received 10 million views on Facebook.