James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), known professionally as MrBeast, is an American YouTuber, credited with pioneering a genre of YouTube videos that centers on expensive stunts and challenges, and giving away money. With over 206 million subscribers, he is the most-subscribed individual on the platform and the second-most-subscribed channel overall, and has ranked on the Forbes list for the highest paid YouTube creator in 2022.
Donaldson grew up in Greenville, North Carolina. He 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 he has become increasingly popular ever since, with most of his videos gaining tens of millions of views. His videos, typically involving challenges and giveaways, became increasingly grand and extravagant. Once his channel took off, Donaldson hired some of his childhood friends to co-run the brand. As of 2023, the MrBeast team is made up of over 250 people, including Donaldson himself. Other than MrBeast, Donaldson runs the YouTube channels Beast Reacts, MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast 2 (formerly MrBeast Shorts) and the philanthropy channel Beast Philanthropy. He formerly ran MrBeast 3 (initially MrBeast 2), which is now inactive. As of 2023, he is the highest paid YouTuber, and has an estimated net worth of $500 million.
Donaldson is the founder of MrBeast Burger and Feastables; and a co-creator of Team Trees, a fundraiser for the Arbor Day Foundation that has raised over $23 million; and Team Seas, a fundraiser for Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup that has raised over $30 million. Donaldson won the Creator of the Year award four times at the Streamy Awards in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023; he also won the Favorite Male Creator award twice at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in 2022 and 2023. In 2023, Time named him as one of the world's 100 most influential people.
Early life
James Stephen Donaldson was born on May 7, 1998 in Wichita, Kansas. He was mainly raised in Greenville, North Carolina with his brother CJ. He moved often and was under the care of au pairs due to his parents working long hours and serving in the military. His parents divorced in 2007. In 2016, Donaldson graduated from Greenville Christian Academy, a small private evangelical Christian high school in the area. He briefly attended East Carolina University before dropping out.
YouTube career
Early viral attempts (2012–2017) Donaldson uploaded his first YouTube video in February 2012, at the age of 13, under the name of "MrBeast6000". His early content ranged from Let's Plays, mainly focused on Minecraft and Call of Duty: Black Ops II, videos estimating the wealth of other YouTubers, videos that offered tips to upcoming YouTube creators and commentary on YouTube drama. Donaldson appeared infrequently in these videos.
In 2015 and 2016, Donaldson began to gain popularity with his "Worst intros on YouTube" series poking fun at YouTube video introductions. By mid-2016, Donaldson had around 30,000 subscribers. In fall 2016, Donaldson dropped out of East Carolina University to pursue a full-time career as a YouTuber. His mother did not approve of this and made him move out of the family home.
As his channel grew, Donaldson hired four childhood friends – Kris Tyson (formerly Chris Tyson), Chandler Hallow, Garrett Ronalds and Jake Franklin – to contribute to his channel. They then contacted numerous YouTubers in order to obtain statistics of their successful videos and predict the platform's recommendation system. Franklin left the crew in 2020. Afterwards, Karl Jacobs, previously a cameraman, was promoted to take his place.
Rise to fame (2017–2020)
In January 2017, Donaldson published an almost day-long video of himself counting to 100,000, which became his breakthrough viral video. The ordeal took him 40 hours, with some parts sped up to "keep it under 24 hours." Donaldson 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".