24-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, recently became the most subscribed YouTuber, with 112 million subscribers, beating his idol, YouTuber PewDiePie, who has 111 million subscribers.
Nov 18, 2022
By: eetika.kapoor@timesinternet.in
Credit: MrBeast Shop
He uploaded his first video in 2013 at thirteen years of age under the name “MrBeast6000”, with a subscriber base of only 240. He started courting fame with his “worst intro” videos in 2015-16. However, he first went viral in 2017, for his ‘counting to 100,000’ video.
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Today, he is one of the highest paid Youtubers. He earned $54 million in 2021. He has four other Youtube channels with a minimum of 16 million subscribers each. Forbes said his income last year was more than BTS, Billie Eilish, Angelina Jolie and Kim Kardashian.
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From 2017 to 2020, he started uploading exhaustive stunts, engaging with influencers and other YouTubers, and stunts for charity, which led to a rise in his popularity. MrBeast’s stunts hook audiences - watching paint dry for one hour, giving iPhones instead of candies in Halloween or a real-life enactment of the popular K-drama Squid Game are some examples.
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He dropped out of his college midway to become a full time YouTuber in 2016, a decision which did not go down well with his family. Later, he left his home to create videos.
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Donaldson was born in the city of Kansas, USA and has an older brother Charles Donaldson. His brother is also a YouTuber. His father is a businessman and his mother, a housewife.
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Jimmy is suffering from Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune condition in which the healthy cells in the body start to attack themselves. He could not complete a stunt of going underwater for 24 hours due to this.
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By 2018, MrBeast earned the title of YouTube’s biggest philanthropist, after giving away $1 million through his outlandish contests and stunts . He recently gave away an island to his 100th million subscriber on YouTube and also has a channel Beast Philanthropy on YouTube, with 10 million subscribers.
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He has also been known for environmental preservation efforts through his YouTube channel. Pairing up with former NASA engineer Mark Roger, he helped raise $23.89 million in donations for the Arbor Day Foundation to plant trees through a collaborative fundraising challenge event called #TeamTrees. He even received donations from Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey.
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He has built his fortune by reacting to the most viral clips from TikTok and Instagram. The YouTuber has a separate channel called Beast Reacts primarily for this purpose.
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He has been accused of abusing his coworkers and creating a toxic work environment. Alongside, he was also accused of creating counterfeit money.
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Apart from his MrBeast channel, he has four other channels on the social media platform-Beast Philanthropy, MrBeast Gaming, BeastReacts and MrBeast2. He also has his own chocolate brand called MrBeastBars, a gaming app and a soon to be launched virtual restaurant.
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