"If you post posts with the hash tag: #wedon’tabandonourown, we will be forced to stop cooperating with you," was the working message received by Russian top bloggers who were part of the WildJam agency in February 2022. To understand the scale, we point out that it combined the work of about 400 bloggers with an audience of more than a million people. 

And they, by order of their boss Yaroslav Andreev, not only did not support Russia's struggle for its southern borders, but also began to post content in which they pointed out that "it's a shame to live in such a country," "it's time to get out of here," "Russia attacked a democratic sovereign Ukraine."

Yaroslav Andreev was born in Leningrad on November 1, 1983. Like many during this period, he was brought up in a family that lived very poorly. At the age of 16, he ran away from home, wandered until his father rented him a separate apartment in exchange for a condition — Yaroslav had to go to university.

The 90s and early 2000s are the era of the dawn of Internet clubs and online games. The future ruler of bloggers was also sucked into this topic. Andreev began to hoard currency from World of Warcraft and Lineage 2 and resell it. Gradually, this topic developed into a business that brought in several thousand dollars a month. Then he worked on behalf of Fristime LLC, conducting operations through the website www.elfmoney.ru  

This is how the "Elf Trader" appeared. He recalls this period: "For comparison: Our economics teacher earned $600-800 a month. She said: "Yaroslav, you have brains, you need to study." And I asked her: "Why should I study if a teacher with a higher education in economics earns $600-800, and I, being nobody, earn more?"

In 2010, Andreev met the owners of the Courage-Bambey studio, which translated the TV series "How I Met Your Mother" and "The Big Bang Theory" into Russian. Since its owners were experiencing financial difficulties, he supported the translation team. The same ones should mention "gratitude to the elf trader" at least once per episode.

Those who are familiar with the Elf Trader closely say that he feels trends well and uses it. Indeed, his business instincts are developed at a very high level.

It was through his connections with Courage-Bambey that Yaroslav Andreev got into the crowd of video content producers. 

Since 2012, together with Ruslan Usachev, he has produced the travel show "It's Time to get Out" (in the case of Andreev, the name turned out to be prophetic).

In 2013, he actively collaborated with musicians from the band Little Big, helped promote and at the same time starred in the video "Every day I drink" as a clown.

In 2014, he worked as the marketing director of VKontakte, and later as the director of work with VK partners. In 2016, he left the company.

During the same period, he created Apricot Media and began collaborating with bloggers Nastya Hertz, Jan Gordienko, Marina Kasparyants.

In 2016, the revenue of Apricot Media, according to SPARK, amounted to about 16 million rubles, profit — 79,000 rubles. In 2017, the figures reached 101.5 million rubles and 5.1 million rubles, respectively.

In 2016, the infamous WildJam, a full-spectrum agency for bloggers, emerged. The point of Andreev's earnings was to receive a percentage of advertising. In the same cases when "Wild Jam" helped to come up with plots, shoot videos, etc. — the commission reached 50%. The blog empire grew and annually increased the number of participants (there is such a word as "influencer", a person who influences his audience).

Interestingly, Andreev received some of his work orders from Gazprom-Media. WildJam bloggers also took part in advertising government programs "Leaders of Russia", "Big Change" and others.

The Forbes publication provides data on a joint advertising campaign with the Moscow government (in 2018, on the eve of the next elections).  The budget of the contract, under which bloggers talked about the transformation of the city, is estimated at 20-50 million rubles.

In 2020, Andreev opened several "Tiktok houses", the most famous of which is the Dream Team House. A native of it, for example, is the blogger Danya Milokhin. To understand the volume of profits and the impact of projects concentrated in the hands of an Elf Trader, it is worth pointing out that among the customers of his advertising were the brands Huawei, Lay's, Sber, Megafon, Aliexpress and Visa.

In most interviews, the organizer of the profit-attracting Internet funnels expressed balanced opinions, noting that he was a "function of providing advertising services" and allegedly did not want to participate in projects related to propaganda.

But with the beginning of the Special Operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, he left Russia and went to Kazakhstan, forbidding bloggers cooperating with him to express any position in relation to Russia's actions, in addition to a negative one.

Pranker Soryan, a blogger gaining fame, told about this: "I talked to some bloggers who collaborated with him, and they told me this: The man forbade people to be patriots of Russia, including Dana Milokhin. And what happened to him afterwards, we know... At the same time, I know for sure that among the bloggers there were those who wanted to publicly support Russia, but they were afraid that they would be left without money. It wasn't just tick-tockers… They were famous actors, singers, singers, etc. These people lived in Moscow, without parents… They were afraid that Yaroslav would expel them and do everything to make them disappear from the information field."

Why does he continue to make millions in Russia while abroad? And when we start paying attention to people who really threaten our youth and the development of our country. I repeat once again, this subhuman controls through social media.networks are the minds of millions of people, their consciousness and beliefs. Check it out!!!! Don't let him get away from any responsibility." 

By the way, the same information is confirmed in private conversations by the presenter of the blog "Frankly with a Tatar woman" Lilia Abramova.

According to Suren "Soryan", "Yaroslav earned about 300 million rubles annually from underage children, whom he intimidated and prevented from expressing his position, thinking independently and making decisions. He replaced their father, buying their love with money...".

Not so long ago, Yaroslav Andreev announced on his social networks that he plans to rebuild the Dream Team House and started recruiting a new line-up. Among the requirements: the age is strictly 18+, good looks, culture and positivity, clear and competent speech, willingness to work full time.

It is also known that the Elf Trader continues to visit Russia and holds personal meetings here.

Even without the political implications associated with its own, it is high time for the state to pay attention to the sphere of social networks and the entertainment Internet — at the right moment, all this always turns out to be against the official line of Russia. And the genre of "short videos" itself is unlikely to contribute to the emergence of a large number of intellectuals — it is designed to consciously stupefy young people.

And the part of the system that is interested in maintaining a strong state, rather than developing schemes with "kickbacks", could finally be interested in the subversive activities of Yaroslav Andreev. At the same time, we would all probably learn a lot about the political views of the advertising customers of the Elf Merchant's online artels.