MrBeast

Background

Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, is a creative genius on the YouTube scene. At the young age of 13, he had his first YouTube channel, “MrBeast6000,” with a 240 subscriber count. He started by posting video games focused mainly on “Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” and “Minecraft.” Donaldson graduated from Greenville Christian Academy and soon proceeded to college for only two weeks before dropping out.

His career as a Youtuber began to flourish when he started posting heartfelt videos such as “Giving a Random Homeless Man $10 000.” Donaldson currently has 92 million subscribers and 15 billion views in total on his YouTube channel. In 2017, he uploaded a long video of himself counting down to 100,000 subscribers, which he claimed took him 40 hours to attain.

Subsequently, he did another countdown to 200,000 subscribers. He quickly gained popularity around this period with other stunts he pulled, such as watching paint dry for one hour and an attempt to break glass using 100 megaphones. He got the title ‘YouTube Philanthropist’ for his beastly givings, giving out more than $1 million during that period. In 2019, Donaldson and Youtuber Mark Rober created “Team Trees,” a fundraising challenge where they raised more than $23 million to plant 20 million trees.

In 2020, his YouTube Live became YouTube’s most-watched Live, with 662 000 viewers who watched 32 influencers play “rock, paper, scissors” for a grand prize of $250,000. In 2021, he caused the Clubhouse app to crash when he appeared as a guest on it. That same year, he organized and uploaded a remake video of Netflix’s “Squid Game,” where 456 people competed for a grand prize of $456,000 without any violence involved. The video currently has 300 million views. His videos are strategically positioned to go viral as they always have elements of internet challenges, reaction videos, giveaways, and guest appearances.

Donaldson is an avid creator and entrepreneur with businesses such as Finger on the App, MrBeast Burger, and Feastables. He is currently struggling with Crohn’s disease. He is close to his mother, who has made appearances in some of his videos, including prank videos. Donaldson is a free spirit who is very generous with his money.