Early Life
Born on May 7, 1998, in Wichita, Kansas, Jimmy Donaldson grew up in Greenville, North Carolina, under the care of au pairs due to his parents serving in the military. Jimmy, aka “Mr. Beast” started posting videos on YouTube around 2012 where he and his friends would experiment with different editing techniques. His Initial videos about game walkthroughs (playing Minecraft, Call of Duty, and Black Ops II), celebrity wealth analysis, etc. didn’t get much attention. Just like I don’t get attention from my crush!

With close to 30,000 subscribers on YouTube by 2015 Jimmy still hadn’t found his niche.  All this time he relentlessly pursued how to crack YouTube algorithms and how to make viral content. In 2016 when Jimmy dropped out from a University to pursue YouTube as a full time career. Of Course his mother didn’t approve of this and made him move out of the family home. Poor Jimmy! 

From here onwards he channeled all his focus and energy on creating content even though it meant risking his health or going through self-torture. 

Meet Mr. Beast; the YouTuber with 226 million subscribers!

•  Inception of Mr. Beast
•  Top 5 crazy challenges by Mr. Beast
•  Philanthropist or God complex?
•  Meet Mr. Beast’s brands
•  Impact and Recognition
•  Record Breaking achievements
•  Conclusion

Inception of Mr. Beast

Remember folks “obsession beats talent every time”. Jimmy’s Eureka moment happened in the year 2017 when his video “counting to 100,000!” went viral. In your face YouTube. BOOM. After 40 hours of self-torture when Jimmy posted this video on YouTube, the video quickly got tens of thousands of views. Personally I can’t even count till 100 without getting distracted and this guy literally blew everyone’s mind with this video. 

From here on Jimmy went on to do similar videos like saying Logan Paul 100,000 times, saying Pewdiepie 100,000 times, and watching dance till you’re dead for 10 hours and many more. This was the start of Mr. Beast going full throttle on YouTube. As the content and ideas got wilder Mr. Beast got on board his friends who had a similar growing interest in YouTube.  

His typical flow of videos includes 4 BASIC STEPS

1. Put up a challenge 

2. Explain game rules

3. Have a cash reward

4. Follow contestants as they go through the challenge 

Looks simple right? NO. If you’ve watched his videos, you know what I’m talking about. And if you haven’t then just read through some of his content ideas and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

TOP 5 crazy challenges by Mr. Beast

1. Spending 24 hours straight under water challenge

Now because counting to 100,000 wasn’t hard enough, Mr. Beast upped the game by performing this stunt. So how do we do this? Put a box underwater, fill the box with air and VOILA. I’m telling you Mr. Beast is like Tom Cruise of YouTube. 

In the beginning things looked manageable as he went underwater. With a constant supply of oxygen and his friends monitoring the stunt Mr. Beast thought he could easily pull this challenge.  

He went underwater around 11:30 am and was supposed to do a full 24 hours, but after a few hours his body started showing signs of weakness. Nausea, headache and claustrophobia started off after 12 hours of being underwater. Maybe Mr. Beast should’ve chosen a submarine to do this. 

 At the 12th hour he finally decided to step out.  And as he came out, his legs were shaking and he had a severe headache. Ouch! Who does these kinds of things? In the end of the video even Mr Beast was like “Don’t try this. This was a horrible idea”  

2. I bought everything in a store

Now, I live like a hobo and I’m not sure where my next meal is coming from. Here comes this 20 something dude and he ends up buying everything from a store. No wonder I’m jealous. 

Mr. Beast with his friends Karl, Chandler, Kris and Nolan went on to this shopping spree at Save a Lot Food Store. But hey when you wanna buy every item from the store, you need LOTS OF MONEY and an army of people to sweep everything from the shelf. 

I can imagine how stoked the manager at Save a Lot Food Store would be that day. Each item is taken off the shelf by the team in a few hours and it is brought to the counter. All this time I was thinking what would Mr Beast do with all these items? Clearly this is not a zombie apocalypse. So why all the staking.   

You guessed it right. Time for giveaways. Yeah! Mr Beast starts giving away groceries and other items to random strangers, families in need and to other homeless people. My heart just melted. In the end Mr. Beast receives a 20 foot long receipt totaling up to 70 thousand dollars and indeed lots of views.  

3. I spent 50 hours buried alive

Mr. Beast has a great fascination for dumb challenges and this is exactly what you get in this video. Grab your popcorn fella as this time Mr. Beast and his friends bury him in a coffin for 50 hours. I wonder where he gets all these ideas from. Perhaps David Blaine. 

A coffin is set up with bare essentials and multiple cameras are rigged on to track Mr. Beast all through the stunt. Through a crane this coffin is lowered into the ground and in a few minutes he is buried alive. You must be wondering how he will survive for those long hours. Well thanks to an AC vent that is completely connected to his coffin, a medical team on standby and cameras watching him 24/7. 

All this time as he is buried alive, his friends are chatting with him on a walkie talkie so that he doesn’t feel alone, and hey somehow a fly manages to get into the coffin to give Mr Beast a company. After no food, only fluids down the stomach Mr Beast comes out as a champion after completing this challenge after 50 hours. In your face Tome Cruise!

P.S – He peed in Gatorade bottles all this time when he was in the coffin.  

4. World’s Largest Bowl of Cereal

Well let me tell you something fellas. Size does matter, especially when you’re trying to find the last slice of cake in the fridge. I’m pretty sure Mr Beast would agree with me on this. For this stunt Mr. Beast and his friends fill a 2000 gallon bowl with powdered milk and mix expired cereal in it. Sounds fun? Nah? It gets interesting. 

After concocting this mixture Mr. Beast puts up a challenge that the last person to leave this “bowl of cereal” will get $10,000. And here begins the task when Chris, Chandler, Jake and Mr. Beast pick random people on their behalf to sit in this “largest bowl of cereal” I mean who doesn’t want $10,000 just by sitting in a pool of cereal. People happily agree to this task without thinking much. 

As with all his videos, you get to see a roller coaster of emotions as time goes by. After 7 hours, contestants start getting bored and yeah they start smelling of milk and expired cereal. I can’t even imagine what that would smell like, but I’m sure it’s awful.

 As the morale goes down two of the contestants give up after a good fight. With just two contestants competing in the end, it’s worth watching who takes away the $10,000. 

5. 7 Days Stranded at Sea

This is my personal favorite. Mr. Beast and his gang plan to spend 7 days on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Is it sea or ocean? Hmm, it’s a point of discussion. If you find the location just let me know. What I know is that they are away from civilization, on a raft and surrounded by deep water. Again you witness self-torture and suffering that these guys go through and as each day passes things start getting worse.

With the help of a survival specialist these folks come all prepared on the raft. Food, water, wood (to build shelter) etc. are loaded on the raft before the journey commences. Day 1 into the journey and things start getting out of hand. They get a perfect welcome with a storm, sunburn, seasickness, nausea on day 1. That’s what you get when you challenge nature. 

In the middle of the rain and a rocking raft they somehow manage to build a house, which looks like a nightmare. I mean they could have at least brought Bob the Builder on this journey. Facing nature’s fury they somehow complete day 4 which is worth a watch. One thing that I absolutely like about Mr. Beast’s videos is the support that he gets from his friends. Seriously, they are equally nuts. The emotions that these friends go through in this challenge is hilarious.  

With close to 214 million views on this video Mr. Beast and his friends do a fab job of entertaining the audience. 

Philanthropist or God complex ?

Launched in Oct 2020, Mr. Beast philanthropy includes initiatives like cataract surgery for 1000 people ($6 million), mobile food distribution ($500,000), and clothing for homeless shelters ($3 million). Apart from this he has done plenty of videos like donating $50,000 to streamers with 0 views, ordering water then tipping $30,000 etc. 

However, he is often criticized for these kinds of videos. People think Mr. Beast is exploiting the poor people and using them as a means to an end to grow his brand. I think it’s a slightly unfair argument considering the capitalist environment that we live in.   

With over $500 million dollar net worth to his name, at age 25, Mr. Beast thinks there is more scope to grow his company and raise the stakes. Not sure if it’s a God Complex or a smart business strategy.

Meet Mr. Beast’s Brands

As of now Mr. Beast has established 9 brands. These include Feastables, Mr. Beast Burger, Mr. Beast, Mr. Beast2, Mr. Beast gaming, Beast philanthropy, Mr. Beast store, finger on the app and Beast reacts.  No wonder why his bank balance increased rapidly.

Apart from this he has done collaboration with other brands like Microsoft, Electronics art, Quidd etc. that drives his ad revenue. With millions of people watching his videos, companies are ready to pay him a premium price for endorsement. As if this weren’t enough he has also invested in NFT’s, Crypto, real estates, warehouses and office spaces. Well all I can say is that Money Never Sleeps Pal!  

With Forbes and Rolling Stone doing a cover story on him, one can imagine how popular Mr. Beast as a brand is. His next goal is to turn this brand into a billion dollar company! And with an experience of more than a decade into content creation and a smart business strategy it’s just a matter of time. 

Mr. Beast Impact and Recognition 

Today Mr. Beast’s popular videos are dubbed in 11 languages reaching billions of viewers across the world. With 48.3 million followers on his main Instagram account and 226 million subscribers on YouTube his content is entertaining audiences like no other. Whether it stupid challenges, or extravagant giveaways people love these high stakes and fast paced videos. 

In the last few years, Mr. Beast has won multiple awards for his work as a digital creator.

Recently, the NBA team Charlotte Hornets announced “Feastables”, the snack bar founded by Mr. Beast as its new official jersey patch sponsor. This is a first of kind partnership between an NBA franchise and a social media star. “Feastables” replaced Lending Tree as Charlotte Hornets jersey sponsor. And for this sponsorship Mr. Beast is paying around $16 million per year. Now, that is a slam dunk.

Record Breaking Achievements

When you’ve finally figured out how the YouTube algorithm works, getting millions of views is not a hard task. Here are some of the notable records of Mr. Beast on social media platforms.

• “7 days stranded at sea” – 46 million views (In 24hours)

• “$1 vs $250,000 Vacation” – 52 Million views (In 24hours)

• His most popular video “$456,000, Squid Game in Real Life” has 555 million views! 

• First person to achieve one million followers on Threads

• Spent nearly $4 million dollar to create YouTube version of Squid game

• Mr. Beast Burger, the virtual restaurant made $54 million in 2021

Conclusion

Mr. Beast’s journey from a small time gaming channel to a YouTube megastar is a testament to his dedication, creativity, obsession and his mad love for content creation. I mean seriously who does stuff like counting to 100,000, underwater 24 hours, real life squid game, helping 1000 deaf people, and cleaning the world’s dirtiest beach. One has to be completely either nuts or extremely in love with his work to pull these kinds of challenges. 

Today he is the top creator on YouTube with a huge following known as the Mr Beast Army along with him. His success is an inspiration not only for creators, but for everyone who is associated with social media or marketing. 

I love this line from Spiderman “with great power comes great responsibility” and this fits perfectly for Mr. Beast. For now it looks like he is completely aware about these strengths and the responsibility his brand has towards the audience. His methods may come across controversial to some, but on a wider scale this doesn’t seem to affect his brand popularity. So if you’re looking for some crazy entertainment on YouTube, Mr. Beast has something for everyone.