Vietnam's first YouTube channel to receive the Ruby Play Button.

A Vietnamese YouTube channel has received the Ruby Play Button. Photo: YouTube .

YouTube content creator Ben Eagle, whose real name is Trinh Cong Tuan, recently updated his personal page that his channel has reached the milestone of 45 million subscribers and is aiming for YouTube's Ruby Play Button, which recognizes 50 million subscribers.

Previously, Ben Eagle was considered the fastest-growing channel with the most followers on the platform in the Vietnamese market. However, according to the latest data from Social Blade, a social media data analytics platform, Ben Eagle is now ranked second. The first place belongs to an account named ToRung, with nearly 58 million followers.

Ben Eagle achieved impressive numbers, with over 9 billion views and 20 million subscribers in just its first three years. A screenshot from the platform a year ago shows that in the Vietnamese market, Ben Eagle still ranks first, while the ToRung channel doesn't even appear on the rankings.

Rankings as of July 31, 2025 compared to one year prior. Photo: Social Blade.

The surprising thing isn't its leading position, but the fact that almost no one knew about this channel. ToRung has no brand ambassador, no media presence, and no personal branding strategy like Ben Eagle did.

According to YouTube, ToRung was founded in October 2017. The channel posted longer content for five years before completely switching to short clips (shorts) about two years ago. One theory suggests that the channel relocated to an overseas region before achieving high viewership and subscriber numbers, and then moved back to Vietnam.

The channel operates on an "in-house studio" model. Instead of focusing on personalized content, ToRung produces a series of short videos with a formula for quick, easily shareable entertainment. However, the content in the clips appears to target young children, while lacking any real value and potentially impacting their development. The number of interactions, such as likes and comments, is significantly disproportionate to the number of followers. Almost all comments on the page come from foreigners, indicating that the main audience is not domestic.

ToRung's channel has a huge number of followers. Photo: YouTube.

Users can change location settings in YouTube Studio by selecting Basic Info. YouTube also states that this factor primarily affects local restrictions, such as taxes, payment methods, or other regional features, and does not directly control the recommendation algorithm.

With nearly 58 million subscribers and over 37 billion views, the ToRung channel has earned the YouTube Ruby Play Button (required to reach 50 million subscribers). This is the first YouTube channel in Vietnam to achieve this.

Furthermore, ToRung is also continuing its rapid growth. ToRung is rated A+, ranking 94th globally across all content categories. In the past month, the channel gained approximately 0.87% (500,000) new subscribers and 3.9% (1.4 billion) new views, according to Social Blade data.

ToRung ranked 60th in subscribers and 68th in global views. The channel ranked first for both factors in Vietnam. However, the account owner did not share or celebrate this memorable milestone on their personal pages.

Source: https://znews.vn/kenh-youtube-dau-tien-cua-viet-nam-dat-nut-ruby-post1573155.html