The deal has more than paid off over time
Some stories have rather unexpected origins, and one of the internet’s YouTube musicians had his beginnings in a place you might not expect.
There was an abundance of excitement surrounding the release of Apple‘s first iPhone, as the tech giant was taking a delayed yet innovative step into the smartphone market that other key companies regrettably didn’t take as seriously as they should have.
Understandably, this excitement led people to start queuing up for hours outside their nearest phone shop, and camped in front of an AT&T in Dallas, Texas was none other than an 18-year-old named Marc Rebillet.
Interviewed at the time by Fox 4, Rebillet reveals that he’d be sat in his deck chair waiting for the iPhone’s release since six o’clock in the morning, and thus his spot in the line was worth 12 hours of his time.
Marc Rebillet now (Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
It also then turns out that time is indeed money too, as one other impatient customer posed a question to Rebillet: How much would it take for you to sacrifice your spot in line?
Waiting with $100,000 in hand so that she could buy as many iPhones as possible, one woman was willing to fork up the cash to simply enter the store before anyone else, and only Rebillet was in her way.
In the end they settled on an $800 sum for his place in line, which works out at $66.66 per hour for the time that he had been waiting – or the entire price of a new iPhone with at least $300 to spare.
Unfortunately for the woman in question, it was quickly revealed to her that this particular store had a one-per-customer rule for iPhones, and Rebillet managed to pick one up anyway as his two other friends sat behind him in line only wanted one between the two of them.
Marc Rebillet reportedly now earns over $780,000 through social media alone, making that initial $800 trade more than worth it (Tomas Tkacik/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Now aged 36, Rebillet has come a long way since that iPhone queue interview and $800 cash payment.
He has managed to have an incredibly successful career on YouTube and TikTok and in the music industry nearly two decades later, as reported by UNILAD.
Rebillet has amassed over 2.42 million subscribers on YouTube where he posts various live streams, music videos, and comedic shorts, and he’s also played a number of high-profile gigs and festivals across the world.
Rebillet has also made roughly 98,000% more than the initial $800 price for his spot in line in the last year alone, according to social media income tracking platform Hafi.
18 years ago, this guy sold his spot in line for $800 for the first iPhone release and got a hell of a deal
pic.twitter.com/e3SksUt06I
— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) March 31, 2025
Across an overall audience of around 8.5 million users, Hafi estimates that Rebillet’s earnings over the last year are anywhere between $784,819 and $1,041,264.
That doesn’t even include money earned outside of the internet, so he’s likely to have a bit more saved away.
If you position that original Fox 4 interview back in 2007 as the genesis of his fame, that now-measly $800 has certainly gone a long way, and was more than worth the effort of sitting in line for 12 hours.
Outside of music, Rebillet got involved in the 2024 US presidential election.
Backing then Vice President Kamala Harris, he wrote on Instagram: “If you don’t vote for Kamala I’m going to dismember you and feed you into a wood shredder.”
