Jimmy Donaldson, widely known as MrBeast, is an American YouTuber. He is also an entrepreneur and philanthropist. He develops videos primarily in comedy, entertainment, vlogs, gaming, and expensive stunt genres. He was thirteen years old when he started posting videos on his YouTube channel “MrBeast6000″ in 2012. His video “Counting to 100,000” was viewed by more than ten thousand viewers in just a few days on YouTube in 2017, which gave him immense popularity. Thereafter, his videos started receiving millions of views soon after they were uploaded on YouTube. Over a period of time, Jimmy Donalson started making diversified video content such as survival challenges, difficult tasks, vlogs, and donation videos with prizes of thousands of dollars. According to a social media survey, he was among the highest-paid YouTubers all over the world in 2020. As his business started growing, he engaged his four childhood friends to help him in content creation, and this team grew up to a number of sixty in 2022. According to some media sources, his YouTube channel ‘MrBeast’ was supported by more than 94 million people till April 2022. Gradually, Jimmy Donaldson created many more YouTube channels including Beast Reacts, MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast Shorts, and a channel where he shares some philanthropy activities. MrBeast Burger and Feastables are two eatable ventures, which were started by MrBeast in 2020. Later, he became the co-creator of Team Trees and The Team Seas.
Wiki/Biography
Jimmy Donaldson was born on Thursday, 7 May 1998 (age 25 years; as of 2023) in Wichita, Kansas, U.S. His zodiac sign is Taurus. In 2016, Jimmy Donaldson graduated from Greenville Christian Academy, Greenville, North Carolina. Later, he attended East Carolina University for a brief time period and dropped out.
A childhood picture of Jimmy Donaldson
Physical Appearance
Height (approx.): 6′
Hair Colour: Light Brown
Eye Colour: Grey
Physical Transformation
In June 2023, he took to Twitter to share images of his physical transformation. The YouTuber revealed that he embarked on a fitness journey after recognizing his overweight condition, and began engaging in activities such as walking 12,500 steps daily and incorporating weightlifting into his routine to regain his fitness.
Family
Parents & Siblings
The names of his parents are not known.
MrBeast with his mother
He has a brother named CJ Donaldson.
Jimmy Donaldson’s brother, CJ Donaldson
Wife
He is not married.
Relationships/Affairs
He is in a relationship with Maddy Spidell since 2019.
MrBeast with his girlfriend
Career
In 2012, Jimmy Donaldson began a YouTube channel named “MrBeast6000″ when he was thirteen years old. He appeared in his videos such as Minecraft and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 that he uploaded on his channel “MrBeast6000.” These videos mainly focused on estimating the earnings of other YouTubers and advice to new YouTubers. Some of his videos contained analyses of other YouTube channels. His YouTube channel “That-dude” had only 240 subscribers in 2013.
MrBeast playing Call of Duty on his channel in 2014
Jimmy Donaldson introduced a series of videos named “worst intros” in which he mocked and made fun of other YouTubers, and these gave him immense popularity on YouTube in 2015 and 2016. In the middle of 2016, the number of subscribers of his channel raised to around thirty thousand. Soon, Jimmy Donaldson opted for YouTube content creation as a full-time career and dropped his college studies at East Carolina University. As his YouTube business grew, Jimmy Donaldson hired his four childhood friends named Chris Tyson, Chandler Hallow, Garrett Ronalds, and Jake Franklin to assist him in his business. They started looking after the operations of Jimmy Donaldson’s YouTube channel, and they also appeared in some of the videos on the channel. They were given the responsibility to collect the statistics of the hit videos of his channel so that it could help the channel in predicting its recommendation system.
MrBeast’s four friends
MrBeast in a video in 2015
A video titled ‘counting to 100,000’ was uploaded by him on Youtube in January 2017, and this video was a 24-hour long video, which was developed by him in forty hours. This video included the stunt competition. In the following month, another video “Counting to 200,000 (Road to a Mil)” was developed by him in fifty-five hours, and the upload limit on YouTube was exceeded by this video. Some of the videos which were uploaded by him during this time included the attempts made to break a glass by using a hundred megaphones, watching paint dry for an hour, attempting to stay under the water for twenty-four hours and spinning a fidget spinner for a day, which was an unsuccessful attempt made by him.
MrBeast’s in one of his videos
In 2018, Jimmy Donaldson came into the limelight as a philanthropist when he donated $1 million to a charity. This money was earned by him through uploading videos on YouTube. This made him earn the title “YouTube’s biggest philanthropist” in 2018. A PewDiePie vs T-Series competition was held in 2018. During this competition, the billboards and several television and radio advertisements were purchased by Jimmy Donaldson so that he could help PewDiePie to lure more subscribers than T-Series. The aim to organise this competition was to become the most-subscribed channel on YouTube.
MrBeast while donating US$10,000 to a Twitch streamer with zero views
A real-life battle royale competition was organised by Jimmy Donaldson in Los Angeles in 2019 in collaboration with Apex Legends. The prize money for the winner of the competition was announced to be $200,000. He then uploaded a video titled “I Opened A FREE BANK” on 23 November 2019 and was blamed for counterfeiting the prize money. However, he denied all the allegations against him. He stated in a video,
I used fake money to mitigate the potential safety and security risks caused by a rush of people clamouring to get the free money, and claimed that he exchanged the counterfeit bills for a reality check for everyone afterwards.”
A series of videos were uploaded by Jimmy Donaldson in November and December 2019. These videos earned over 200 million views. The competition in the videos was won by a man named Mark, who was given the cash prize of $1,000,000. During the game, sixteen contestants who participated in the show showed their endurance by not taking their hands off an object and were not allowed to leave their location. After thirty-six hours of the competition, the winner of the game was announced. Soon after winning the cash prize, Mark exclaimed,
he was able to replace his car and house.”
In a video, 32 influencers participated in a rock, paper, scissors competition held in April 2020 on his channel. The winner of the game was announced to receive a prize amount of $250,000. Soon after its upload on YouTube, this video became the most-watched live original event video in April 2020. In October 2020, Jimmy Donaldson organised another competition video in which 24 people participated for a prize of $300,000. On 1 January 2021, Jimmy Donaldson released a video titled “Youtube Rewind 2020, Thank God It’s Over” in which he explained the video as a host. He narrated,
I had always believed that YouTubers “should get more say in Rewind,” and with this in mind, he decided to call “hundreds of YouTubers.”
Jimmy Donalson was one of the guests of the Clubhouse app in February 2021. In March 2021, he signed a deal to allow his content to be uploaded on Snapchat and Facebook. This agreement was signed by him with Jellysmack. Squid Game, a survival drama on television series, was recreated through a video by Jimmy Donaldson in November 2021. He organised a competition for this video and a $456,000 cash prize was announced for the winner of the game. There were 456 participants in the game. This video garnered over 248 million views in May 2022. In 2021, this video was regarded as one of the most-viewed videos of Jimmy Donalson. In December 2021, 15 social media influencers participated in a competition organised at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California by Jimmy Donaldson and a $1,000,000 cash prize was announced for the winner. Zach King won the competition after competing in the two rounds of the game.
MrBeast, left, watching over a challenge competing for US$1 million
Philanthropist
on 17 September 2020, Jimmy Donaldson started a YouTube channel ‘Beast Philanthropy,’ and the first video uploaded by him on this channel was “I Opened My Own Charity!” A charity food bank named Darren was announced to be launched by Jimmy Donaldson through this video. He also appealed through his first video that all the earnings of this channel through advertisements, brand deals, and merchandise sales would be given to charity. According to the Associated Press media house,
The charity had distributed over 1.1 million pounds of food, was helping to feed nearly 1,000 households in the Greenville, North Carolina area on a weekly basis, and had delivered over 9,000 hot meals for victims of Hurricane Ida.”
Game Application
A game app titled “Finger on the App” was launched by Jimmy Donaldson in June 2020. This was started in a partnership with Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF. The participants or players of the game were supposed to hold the screen of their phone with their fingers for maximum time as much as they could. The winner of the game was announced to receive $25,000 in cash. At the end of the game, four contestants were competing with each other by keeping their fingers on their mobile screens for more than seventy hours, and the winner of the game won the cash prize. After analysing the popularity of this game, the organisers of the game decided to launch its second version in December 2020, but the number of downloads of the game app exceeded the maximum limit, and the app ultimately crashed. Soon, the servers of the game were updated by the organisers. The winner of the game was a 19-year-old boy named Swagbacon123; this name of the winner was mentioned on his Twitter account, and he won $100,00o as a cash prize.
MrBeast (right) while promoting Finger on the App
MrBeast Burger
A virtual restaurant named MrBeast Burger was started by Jimmy Donaldson in December 2020. The burgers are available online across the US. In a conversation with the Wake Weekly, the producer of the MrBeast channel, Will Hyde, stated,
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.”
Donaldson and his first MrBeast burger location
Feastables
In January 2022, Jimmy Donaldson launched a food outlet titled Feastables, which sells its own chocolate bars named “MrBeast Bars.” These chocolates are available in the USA in three flavours. During its launch, the organisers of the outlet arranged a cash prize game to attract the participants for its publicity and endorsement. Over $1 million of prizes were announced for the participants of the game in collaboration with Turtle Beach Corporation and Roccat in February 2022.
MrBeast while promoting his Chocolate Bars
As an investor
In 2020, MrBeast invested in a company named Backbone One. This company manufactures smartphones, which look like Nintendo Switch controllers. This company has a Backbone app, which creates content and social tools for its users. In March 2021, Creative Juice’s financial network and Jimmy Donaldson entered into a partnership to raise funds with an investment of $2 million on his YouTube channel by offering up to $250,000 in exchange for equity. In April 2021, he invested in a financial company named ‘Current’ as its partner. During the same time, he invested in a cryptocurrency and promoted the same on his YouTube channel. Later, a huge loss was suffered by the investors of the company, and he was critically blamed for the same.
Team Trees
A challenge titled “Team Trees” was organised by Jimmy Donaldson and Mark Rober, a former NASA engineer and YouTuber, on 25 October 2019 for raising money on YouTube. The aim to organise this challenge was to raise a sum of $20 million to be donated to the Arbor Day Foundation. The challenge included the plantation of 20 million trees before December 2022. The other famous YouTubers like Rhett & Link, Marshmello, iJustine, Marques Brownlee, The Slow Mo Guys, Ninja, Simone Giertz, Jacksepticeye, and Smarter Every Day also promoted the challenge on their respective channels. In several parks in the United States, the tree plantation challenge began in October 2019. A sum of $20,000,000 was collected by the organisers of the campaign till December 2019. Global entrepreneurs including Jack Dorsey, Susan Wojcicki, Elon Musk, and Tobias Lütke came forward and donated to the cause. Discovery, Verizon, and Plants vs. Zombies also made their respective contributions. Till April 2022, the organisers of the campaign received $23.7 million in donations.
The poster of #TEAMTREES
TeamSeas
Another challenge event was organised by Jimmy Donaldson and Mark Rober on 29 October 2021. This was called TeamSeas on YouTube. The Ocean Conservancy and The Ocean Cleanup were the missions of this challenge along with raising an amount of $30 million from its promotional activities by 1 January 2022. The removal of 30 million pounds of plastic and other waste from oceans, rivers, and beaches was the mission of this challenge. The renowned promoters and collaborators of TeamSeas were AzzyLand, DanTDM, TommyInnit, LinusTechTips, TierZoo, LEMMiNO, The Infographics Show, Hannah Stocking, Dhar Mann, and Marques Brownlee.
The poster of #TEAMSEAS
Controversies
Accused of Unreasonable Demands
According to a media source, in 2018, an employee of Jimmy Donaldson quit his job merely after working with him for seven days. Soon after quitting the job, Nate Anderson stated the reason to quit his job in media. He said,
Unreasonable demands and called Donaldson a perfectionist.”
Later, Anderson explained his work experience with Jimmy Donaldson by releasing a video on social media. Soon after he put allegations against Jimmy Donaldson on various social media platforms, Anderson started receiving several death threats and hate remarks from the fans of Jimmy Donaldson. In another case, reportedly, due to the bad nature of Jimmy Donaldson at the workplace, once, his nine employees quit the job together. While talking to a media house, these nine employees stated,
While Donaldson was sometimes generous, his demeanour would change when cameras were off of him. A difficult work environment while working under him.”
Accused of Using Homophobic Slurs
A newspaper titled ‘The Atlantic’ published the old and deleted Tweets of Jimmy Donaldson in one of their articles in 2018. According to the newspaper,
He uses homophobic slurs and the idea of being gay as a punchline for jokes.”
At the time of publishing this article on him, the bio of his Twitter handle was written as,
Just because I’m gai doesn’t mean I’m gay.”
Accused of Racial Comment
In February 2021, Farokh Sarmad, an owner of a Clubhouse in the United States, was kicked off by Jimmy Donaldson. Donaldson stated that he could not speak Farokh’s name properly, and this was taken as a racist comment by Farokh Sarmad. Soon, the issue went viral on social media, and Farokh Sarmad was backlashed by various YouTubers and the Clubhouse members. Later, Farokh Sarmad stated in an interview with a media house that Jimmy Donaldson misbehaved with him and kicked him off the stage to accommodate more women members. He claimed,
He was passed over for speaking opportunities entirely. Then, Jimmy Donaldson verbally said he’d be clearing the stage to invite different people up. He told Colin by name that he’d be removing him, then said he was “really bad with names” before removing Sarmad.”
Sarmad continued,
From an outsider’s perspective if you see the video, you see my tweets, you think I’m crazy. I did this because I’ve suffered from this before, given that my name is Farokh. It’s happened to me in Paris where I was raised. It’s happened to me here in Canada as well as in the United States.”
He added,
To be kicked off because of my name is not right. And to not be given a chance to speak when other people who came on after me were given speaking time,” Sarmad said. “It was a very hard day for me.”
Accused of Bullying his Employees
In May 2021, Matt Turner, an editor at Jimmy Donaldson’s venture, put allegations on Jimmy that while he was working for Jimmy Donaldson, Jimmy used to call him mentally retarded. In the same conversation, Turner stated that he was never appreciated for his hard work by Jimmy. Turner also blamed Jimmy for misbehaving at the workplace by sharing a video on social media in 2018. In an interview with The New York Times, Matt Turner said,
He was “yelled at, bullied, called mentally retarded and replaceable by MrBeast every single day.”
Soon after Matt Turner posted a video against Jimmy Donaldson, a Twitter thread of this video was deleted. In this conversation thread, Turner was stating,
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.”
Awards
- In 2019, Jimmy Donaldson won the 9th Streamy Awards for Breakout Creator.
- In 2019, he was nominated for the 9th Streamy Awards for Ensemble Cast and Creator of the Year.
- In 2020, he won the YouTuber of the Year, the 10th Streamy Awards for Creator of the Year, Live Special, Social Good: Creator, and Social Good: Nonprofit or NGO at the 12th Annual Shorty Awards.
- In 2021, he was nominated for the Kids’ Choice Awards for Favorite Male Social Star
- In 2021, won the 11th Streamy Awards for Creator of the Year.
- In 2022, he won the Kids’ Choice Award for Favorite Male Creator.
Car Collection
MrBeast owns a Lamborghini.
MrBeast with his Lamborghini
Facts/Trivia
- When Jimmi Donaldson quit his college studies to pursue content creation as a full-time career, his decision was not accepted by his mother, which made him leave the house of his mother.
- In June 2019, Jimmy Donaldson posted a picture of his girlfriend, Maddy Spidell, on various social media platforms. In an interview with a media house, Maddy stated that money was not the reason to date MrBeast. She said,
I don’t want mr beast for his money, just want a bf with good taste in anime who can make me laugh.”
- In 2020, Jimmy Donaldson gave 40 cars to the 40,000,000th subscriber of his channel.
MrBeast gave his channel’s 40,000,000th subscriber 40 cars in 2020
- Once, in one of his videos, Jimmy Donaldson narrated his success story and the mantra to success on YouTube. He said,
Once you know how to make a video go viral, it’s just about how to get as many out as possible, […] you can practically make unlimited money. […] The videos take months of prep. A lot of them take four to five days of relentless filming. There’s a reason other people don’t do what I do.”
- In 2021, according to an online survey by SurveyMonkey, the total videos of Jimmy Donaldson were liked by 70% of the viewers and only 12% disliked them.
- In January 2022, Jimmy Donaldson was rated as the highest-earning content creator on YouTube with a $54 million estimated income in 2021. The 2020 Forbes Celebrity ranked Jimmy Donaldson in the 40th position among the top 100 high rated celebrities.
- According to global media sources, the videos uploaded by Jimmy Donaldson have the tendency to go viral soon after he uploads them on his YouTube channel. Jimmy earns “tens of millions of dollars” through the sales of advertisements, sponsorships, and social media recommendations, which were displayed on his YouTube channel. According to The Detroit News,
His videos have elements of internet challenges, guest appearances and reaction videos – three popular video genres online.[citation needed] On YouTube, his videos make use of catchy clickbait titles such as “I Adopted EVERY Dog in a Dog Shelter”, explain the challenges in under half a minute, and keep their length between ten and twenty minutes.”
- In a conversation with a media house, Jimmy Donaldson stated that the monetary prizes that he offered before starting the competition in his videos attracted more viewers on YouTube. Several renowned organisation sponsors the competitions organised by him, and this allows him to donate and offer huge monetary cash prizes in almost every video. For instance, in one of his videos, such as Minecraft, Jimmy Donaldson donated houses to charity. He is considered the pioneer or the originator of the modern high-cost stunt videos on YouTube, and these videos include a lot of challenges and huge funding. In some of his videos, Jimmy Donaldson donated items worth $100,000 to homeless people in December 2018, $32,000 to the Wounded Warrior Project, $70,000 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and $10,000 to a Los Angeles animal shelter. According to psychologist Tim Kasser,
A MrBeast video promoting a product would be about half as expensive as running a television ad, with higher engagement and reception.”
- Jimmy Donaldson is suffering from a chronic inflammatory bowel disease named Crohn’s disease.
- In May 2022, MrBeast hit the headlines when Elon Musk stated in a Twitter conversation with MrBeast that if he dies under mysterious circumstances then MrBeast would handle Twitter. The conversation was,
If I die under mysterious circumstances, it’s been nice knowin ya.” MrBeast asked, “If that happens can I have Twitter”; Musk replied “Ok” and that was that. MrBeast followed up with a “No takesies backsies”.”
- MrBeast gained his 112 millionth subscriber in November 2022, surpassing Swedish creator PewDiePie as the most subscribed individual YouTube channel in the world. Since 2013, for almost 10 years, PewDiePie had the most subscribed YouTube channel.
Categories: Biography
Source: SCHOOL TRANG DAI
