To be fair the landscape of social influencing was not what it is today. Would be interesting to see how he did if it were. Maybe someone can adjust for inflation and the boom aspect of that field exploding.
Whatsapp, tiktok, instagram, linkedin, twitter / X, did not exist at the time or were very small. Same for FB and YT, both have grown immensely and so have the incomes of succesful influencers