MrBeast’s biography, net worth, fact, career, awards and life story

Jimmy Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), more commonly known by his online alias MrBeast, is an American YouTuber notable for his expensive stunts and philanthropy. He is also the co-creator of Team Trees, which is a fundraiser for the Arbor Day Foundation.

Career

History

Donaldson began posting videos to YouTube in 2012 at age 13, under the handle “MrBeast6000”; his early content ranged from Let’s Plays to “videos estimating the wealth of other YouTubers”. However, his videos remained in relative obscurity — averaging around a thousand views each – until the release of his 2017 “counting to 100,000” video that earned tens of thousands of views in just a few days. As of December 2019, Donaldson has over 28 million subscribers on YouTube and is managed by the Dallas-based talent management company Night Media.

Content and style

Donaldson’s videos typically feature “attention-grabbing stunts”. He often makes videos on donating thousands of dollars to Twitch streamers, many of these videos being sponsored (although he has donated without a sponsor in the past). In 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. Additionally, Donaldson has tried to break glass using a hundred megaphones, watched paint dry for an hour, and unsuccessfully and successfully attempted to spin a fidget spinner for a day, although the footage is gone. In March 2019, he organised and filmed a real-life battle royale competition in Los Angeles with a prize of $200,000.

Several videos involve 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 Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and $10,000 to a local animal shelter in Los Angeles. During PewDiePie vs T-Series, a competition to become the most-subscribed channel on YouTube, Donaldson bought billboards and radio advertisements to help PewDiePie gain more subscribers than T-Series; at the Super Bowl LIII, he bought multiple seats with occupants whose shirts spelled out, “Sub 2 PewDiePie”.

Team Trees

On October 25, 2019 at 19:00 UTC, Donaldson and former NASA engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober organised 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”. In exchange, the organization would plant one tree for each dollar raised. 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, Smarter Every Day brought attention to this idea. Trees will begin to be planted in January 2020 in national parks of the United States. By the 24 hour mark of the 67-day project, nearly $4 million had been donated. On December 19 of that year, the $20,000,000 goal was surpassed. The project has also received large donations from corporate executives Jack Dorsey, Susan Wojcicki, Elon Musk, and Tobias Lütke.

Personal life

Donaldson was born on May 7, 1998. He resides in Greenville, North Carolina, and graduated from the Greenville Christian Academy in 2016. According to Newsweek, Donaldson dropped out of college in order to pursue a full-time career as a YouTuber. During an online interview with Keemstar, Donaldson said that he has Crohn’s disease. He has an older brother named CJ Donaldson, who owns a channel named “MrBro”.

In June 2019 Donaldson announced that he was dating Maddy Spidell.

Awards and nominations