Combing through the list of uploads from MrBeast in the last few months, there’s no video that has been seen less than 20 million times. You read that right. The worst case scenario has been 23 million views for an effort — ‘Giving $1,000,000 Of Food To People In Need’ — that he had uploaded in March 2020. That’s the pull of this 22-year-old YouTuber. It seems that the Greenville-bred is on the way to take the crown from PewDiePie, who has been uploading for more than 10 years.

It’s people like Jimmy Donaldson (or MrBeast), PewDiePie and Bhuvan Bam who keep people glued to smartphones. There is always room for streaming movies but consumers tend to view them on TV while keep short videos and YouTube for the smartphone. What makes MrBeast a sensation is how he handles the algorithm governing YouTube and at the same time his challenges and money giveaways, which has inspired YouTubers in other categories. Such is his popularity that other YouTubers are re-enacting Donaldson’s challenges.

Donaldson, in fact, operates six YouTube channels with names like MrBeast, MrBeast Shorts and Beast Reacts, which together have around 91 million subscribers, a figure that grew substantially during the pandemic.

It’s sheer patience and effort that has brought him glory. His early posts came around age 12 but what he was lacking back then was a huge audience. Six years later he started understanding the way YouTube’s algorithm works… how the platform decides what videos get recommended to viewers. With a small group of friends, he analysed videos while seeking data behind videos from successful channels. Ultimately it clicked. It may sound weird but when he sat in a chair for over 40 hours counting numbers, starting from zero, people logged in. It ended with him asking, “What am I doing with my life?” Call it a stunt but the video — ‘I COUNTED TO 100000!’ — became the talk of the digital world. Since its debut on January 8, 2017, it has notched up over 22.5 million views.

Though he’s not very sparing with interviews, in an exception that he made to Bloomberg, the man said: “I woke up, I studied YouTube, I studied videos, I studied filmmaking, I went to bed and that was my life.”

A sizeable share of millennials continue to tune into a medium which was born 16 years ago. People spend hours on the bed or sofa, watching YouTube videos for two-three hours straight, losing track of time. Things can get repetitive on YouTube and, in the process, becomes hypnotic as one video gives way to another recommendation, drawing viewers into a pixelated world.

‘I really want to be Elon one day’

In one of his YouTube stunts, MrBeast spent 50 hours “buried” alive. The video has over 70 million views

After watching MrBeast getting “buried” for 50 hours — the video comes with a 12-minute ramble — I couldn’t stop moving from one video to another — world’s largest mystery box to buying a private island, world’s tallest Lego tower to eating a $70,000 golden pizza. Each time I was spending 10-15 minutes on a video and before I knew it, one hour was up (killed? wasted?). It was only a matter of time I became another addition to his 61.6 million subscribers on the MrBeast channel. And remember, he has more channels.

While young YouTubers want to become like Donaldson, the man himself wants to be more like Elon Musk. “I really want to be Elon one day,” he wrote last year on Twitter, referring to Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX and one of the world’s richest people.

Going by the way he is expanding his business, Donaldson is on the right path. He has a mobile gaming app called MrBeast Burger, which has sold more than one million burgers. According to The New York Times, in March, he became an adviser to a financial network that provides business tools to online content creators. In April, he signed a deal with a company to distribute his content across a range of social media platforms.

In December 2020, he started MrBeast Burger, which does not have a physical presence but allows diners to order food through delivery apps. He has also joined the audio chat app Clubhouse this year

In 2018, he had a dozen-odd people working for him and the year after he moved to a bigger office and grew his force to around two dozen. The team continues to grow. His primary YouTube channel itself is generating up to $3.1 million a month, according to data from SocialBlade, a YouTube analytics service, which also says, that at the current rate of growth, he is projected to overtake PewDiePie as the most subscribed creator in the world in the next year.

Another characteristic separating him from the first generation of YouTube stars is that they were actors, singers and models while he is the product of YouTube’s success. The man is simply a genius creator, who can make almost anything popular using his channel. Going by Bloomberg, in his first six years on the site, he had generated just six million views. But at the age of 18, with his full attention on YouTube, he earned 122 million annual views. At 19, he attracted more than 460 million. He now generates four billion views a year. “The beauty of YouTube is double the effort isn’t double the views, it’s like 10x. The first million subscribers you get will take years, but the second will come in a few months,” he said.

Not that his career is without controversies, like some of his early videos were criticised for the use of offensive jokes but these are things he has left behind. All his focus is now on coming up with recipes for viral videos. With his love for gaming, he has even considered owning an esports team. MrBeast is hungry for putting out more creative work, even if that means working 12-15 hours a day.

In figures

• In his first six years on YouTube, he had generated just six million views. But at the age of 18, with his full attention on YouTube, he earned 122 million annual views. At 19, he attracted more than 460 million. He now generates four billion views a year.

• In 2018, he had a dozen-odd people working for him and the year after he moved to a bigger office and grew his force to around two dozen. The team continues to grow. His primary YouTube channel itself is generating up to $3.1 million a month, according to data from SocialBlade, a YouTube analytics service, which also says, that at the current rate of growth, he is projected to overtake PewDiePie as the most subscribed creator in the world in the next year.