MrBeast

Jimmy Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), better known online as MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, businessman, and philanthropist. He has been credited with pioneering a genre of YouTube videos that center on expensive stunts. He is also the founder of MrBeast Burger and the co-creator of Team Trees, a fundraiser for the Arbor Day Foundation, which has raised over $22 million. He is managed by the Dallas-based talent management company Night Media.
Donaldson began posting videos to YouTube in early 2012 at the age of 13, under the handle "MrBeast6000"; his early content ranged from Let's Plays to "videos estimating the wealth of other YouTubers". He went viral in 2017 after his "counting to 100,000" video earned tens of thousands of views in just a few days, and has become increasingly popular ever since, each of his videos gaining tens of millions of views. Over time, his style of content diversified to include challenge and donation videos that reward thousands of dollars, videos either with arduous tasks or survival, and original vlogging videos. Once his channel took off, Donaldson hired several of his childhood friends to help him run the growing brand. The MrBeast team is currently made up of 30 people. 
As of May 2021, Donaldson's main YouTube channel MrBeast has 61.5 million subscribers and 10.5 billion views. It is the 13th most-subscribed channel on YouTube, as well as the second most subscribed channel owned by a YouTuber, and the most subscribed owned by a YouTuber from the United States. Aside from his main channel, Donaldson has several other YouTube channels, including MrBeast Shorts and MrBeast Gaming, the latter reaching over 10 million subscribers in less than one year. Across his seven channels, Donaldson has 95.87 million combined subscribers, and 13.4 billion combined views across six of these channels (one of them has no uploads).
In 2019, Donaldson won the Breakout Creator by "Streamy Awards". At the "12th Annual Shorty Awards" in 2020, he won YouTuber of the Year. He was also one of the top 10 highest-paid YouTubers of 2020, alongside other famous YouTubers such as Markiplier, Ryan's World and Blippi.
Early life.
Donaldson was born on May 7, 1998 in the state of Kansas. Donaldson was mainly raised alongside his brother CJ in Greenville, North Carolina. Donaldson would graduate from Greenville Christian School, a private secondary school in the area, in 2016.
YouTube career.
Early career (2012–2017).
Donaldson would upload his first ever YouTube video in February 2012, at the age of 13 years old, under the handle "MrBeast6000"; his early content ranged from Let's Plays (mainly focused on Minecraft and Call of duty), videos estimating the wealth of other YouTubers, videos that offered tips to upcoming YouTube creators, and commentary on YouTube drama. During this early period of his channel, Donaldson himself made few appearances in his videos. In 2015 and 2016, Donaldson began to gain popularity on the platform due to his “worst intros” series of videos, which rounded up and poked fun at YouTuber introductions he discovered on the site. By mid-2016, Donaldson had around 30,000 subscribers. In fall 2016, Donaldson dropped out of college (which Donaldson said occurred after only two weeks of being there) in order to pursue a full-time career as a YouTuber. As a result, his mother made him move out of his family home.
Rise to fame (2017–present).
On January 2017, Donaldson published an almost day-long video of himself counting to 100,000. The stunt took him 40 hours, with some parts sped up to "keep it under 24 hours". A subsequent video titled "Counting to 200,000 (Road to a Mil)" was uploaded the next month, although, according to Donaldson, it too, had to be sped up because the full fifty-five hours of counting exceeded YouTube's upload limit. Donaldson also gained popularity during this period with stunts, such as attempting to break glass using a hundred megaphones, watching paint dry for an hour, attempting to stay underwater for 24 hours (which ended up failing due to health issues), and an unsuccessful attempt to spin a fidget spinner for a day. By 2018 Donaldson had given out $1 million through his outlandish stunts, which earned him the title of “YouTube’s biggest philanthropist”.
During PewDiePie vs T-Series in 2018, a competition to become the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, Donaldson bought billboards, numerous ads and radio advertisements to help PewDiePie gain more subscribers than T-Series; at the Super Bowl LIII, he bought multiple seats for him and his team whose shirts spelled out, "Sub 2 PewDiePie". Donaldson has stated that he runs the main channel at a loss.
In March 2019, Donaldson organized and filmed a real-life battle royale competition in Los Angeles with a prize of $200,000 (2 games were played, making game earnings of $100,000 for each game) in collaboration with "Apex Legends". The event and prize pool was sponsored by "Apex Legends" publisher Electronic Arts.
Donaldson was accused of using counterfeit money in a November 2019 video. He later explained that he used fake money to mitigate the potential safety and security risks caused by a rush of people clamoring to get the free money, and claimed that he exchanged the counterfeit bills for a real check for everyone afterwards.
In April 2020, Donaldson created a rock, paper, scissors competition stream that featured 32 influencers and a grand prize of $250,000, which at the time became YouTube's most-watched live Original event with 662 thousand Concurrent Viewers. The event was ultimately won by Nadeshot.
In October 2020, Donaldson created another influencer tournament featuring 24 competitors, thought this time it a trivia tournament and it had a grand prize of $300,000 influencer trivia tournament. This time the tournament had a peak viewership of 1 Million Concurrent Viewers. The tournament was ultimately won by the D’Amelio family, which caused mild controversy due to claims that that they had an unfair advantage in the early rounds by having 4 participants where as the other competitors only had one or two. Other viewers also brought up footage that appeared to show the D'Amelios looking off-camera and offscreen before answering questions. It was also pointed out by other viewers that Heidi D'Amelio had her phone out behind Charli and Dixie's backs before a question was answered, and that Marc D'Amelio appeared to say something to someone offscreen before suggesting an answer to Dixie. Donaldson later responded by saying that the tournament was just for fun and was meant to bring the YouTube community together and that if there was anybody to get mad at it would be him since made the decision. 
On January 1, 2021, Donaldson released the video " Rewind 2020, Thank God It's Over". He previously announced in November 2020 that he would be making a Rewind days after YouTube announced they wouldn't be making one. In Donaldson's video, he explains that he had always believed that YouTubers "should get more say in Rewind", and with this in mind, he decided to call "hundreds of YouTubers". At the end of the video, Donaldson gives a shoutout to PewDiePie, citing him and his 2018 Rewind as the inspiration for Donaldson's Rewind (both Rewinds featuring the editors FlyingKitty, Dolan Dark, and Grandayy, and a song by Party In Backyard).
In February 2021, Donaldson made a guest appearance on the Clubhouse app causing it to crash.
In March 2021, Donaldson signed a deal with Jellysmack which allows the company to exclusively manage distribution of his video content on Snapchat and Facebook.
Content and style.
Donaldson's videos typically feature attention-grabbing stunts. He often makes videos where he donates large amounts of money to individuals, with many of these videos being sponsored by various companies. He also sometimes hosts competitions in games, such as Minecraft, for big money prizes which includes donating a house in one of his gaming videos.
A typical video involves Donaldson giving away large sums of money, such as giving $100,000 worth of items to homeless shelters in December 2018, donating $32,000 to the Veterans Army Wounded Warrior Program, $70,000 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and $10,000 to a local animal shelter in Los Angeles. His expensive YouTube videos are mostly funded and sponsored through large-scale brand deals that appear as in-video ads on his videos. In 2021, Donaldson claimed that he runs his main channel at a loss.
MrBeast has been credited with launch a new style of high cost stunt videos on YouTube, where creators pull off elaborate challenges and large-scale sponsored giveaways.
As his channel has grown Donaldson was able to hire four of his childhood friends – Chris, Chandler, Garrett and Jake – to work for him and the channel, which has lead to them being regularly shown in his videos.
Business ventures.
MrBeast has been called an early form of future creator-entrepreneurs.
Finger on the App.
In June 2020, Donaldson, in collaboration with Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, released a one-time multiplayer mobile game titled "Finger on the App" which tasked players to hold a finger to their phone screen in the app, with the last person to take it off winning $25,000. In the end, four people ended up winning $20,000 each after keeping their finger on the app for over 70 hours. The game was reportedly so successful that a sequel titled “Finger on the App 2” was planned to originally launch in December 2020. However, the game was postponed to February and then further delayed to March 2021 due to a flood of downloads, causing the game to crash and requiring the game's developers to upgrade their servers. This time, the game featured a grand prize of $100,000. The game was ultimately won by a 19 year old man who went under the username Swagbacon123 on Twitter after around 51 hours of competition. The second place finisher also received a prize of $20,000.
MrBeast Burger.
Will Hyde, a producer for the MrBeast channel, announced in a November 2020 article with "The Wake Weekly" that Donaldson would launch a virtual restaurant called MrBeast Burger in December 2020. Hyde said his team worked with Virtual Dining Concepts during the development of the restaurant concept. MrBeast Burger will sell franchise rights to serve the burgers to restaurants across the US and customers will be able to order the burgers via online delivery services.
Investments and partnerships.
Donaldson is an investor of tech startup Backbone which produces the Backbone One, a controller that makes smartphones appear more similar to Nintendo Switch controllers, and the Backbone app, a content creation and social tools app for its users.
In March 2021, Donaldson patterned with Creative Juice financial network to introduce Juice Funds, a $2 million investment fund that offers creators up to $250,000 in exchange for equity in their YouTube channels.
In April 2021, Donaldson became a long-term investor and partner Financial technology company Current. The same month, Donaldson received backlash after fans lost large amounts of money in a cryptocurrency scheme that Donaldson had invested in and promoted.
Philanthropy.
Team Trees.
On October 25, 2019 at 19:00 UTC, Donaldson and former NASA engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober organized a collaborative fundraising challenge event on YouTube called #TeamTrees. The goal of this project was to raise $20 million for the Arbor Day Foundation by January 1, 2020 and plant trees "no later than December 2022". Every donation goes to the Arbor Day Foundation which pledges to plant one tree for every dollar. Notable YouTubers such as Rhett & Link, Marshmello, iJustine, Marques Brownlee, The Slow Mo Guys, Ninja, Simone Giertz, Jacksepticeye, and Smarter Every Day brought attention to this idea. Trees began to be planted in October 2019 in national parks of the United States. On December 19 of that year, the $20,000,000 goal was surpassed, and as of May 27, 2020, the project reached over 22 million dollars. The project has also received large donations from corporate executives Jack Dorsey, Susan Wojcicki, Elon Musk, and Tobias Lütke. Companies such as Discovery, Verizon and Plants vs. Zombies have also pitched in to help.
Beast Philanthropy.
On September 17, 2020, the YouTube channel Beast Philanthropy was created. On March 26, 2021, the channel posted its first video titled "I Opened My Own Charity!" where Donaldson announced the charity, food bank and Darren from previous videos as Executive Director.
Personal life.
Donaldson suffers from Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition. In a 2019 post on Instagram it was revealed that Donaldson was dating Instagram model and social media influencer Maddy Spidell. 
Public image.
Opinion polls have shown that Donaldson as one of the most well liked YouTubers on the platform with a 2021 SurveyMonkey poll showing that 70% of respondents have a favorable view of him, compared to 12% who had an unfavorable view. 
In May 2018, Donaldson was criticized by Taylor Lorenz of "The Atlantic" for tweets that contained homophobic slurs like "fag" and "gay". He responded by stating that "I'm not offensive in the slightest bit in anything I do." During a Clubhouse room in February 2021, Donaldson booted entrepreneur Farokh Sarmad after he said he could not pronounce his name, a move that Sarmad later said was racist sparking backlash from YouTube's commentary community and other Clubhouse users who were present at the call who argued against Sarmad's claims claiming that MrBeast removed him along with others to make room for women on the stage in order to be more inclusive. And also argued that MrBeast was known to be bad at names and was troubled in pronouncing them properly.
Allegations of workplace bullying.
In a May 2021 "The New York Times" article, Matt Turner, an editor for Donaldson from February 2018 to September 2019, was quoted claiming that Donaldson berated him almost daily, including using a slur that insults individuals with mental disabilities. Turner also reported that he was regularly not credited for his work. Reporting by "Insider" showed that Turner previously posted a video in 2018 explaining his allegations and in October 2019 released a deleted Twitter thread which stated that he was "yelled at, bullied, called mentally r--- and replaceable by MrBeast every single day." Also in 2019, Turner released a now deleted YouTube video saying Donaldson deleted a project file for a video he was editing for him because a compilation of clips of his philanthropy did not equal the $500,000 figure mentioned in the title of the video. Nate Anderson quit after working for Donaldson for a week in 2018 over what he said were unreasonable demands and called Donaldson a perfectionist. After he released a video describing his experience working with Donaldson, he reportedly received death threats and hateful comments from Mr. Beast's fans. Nine other employees who worked for Donaldson also stated while Donaldson was sometimes generous, his demeanor would change when cameras were off of him. They described a difficult work environment while working under him.