In Jimmy Donaldson’s high-school yearbook, under the subheading “Things people might not know about you”, he wrote: “I have a YouTube channel.” He wasn’t exaggerating — even his mum didn’t know he’d been making videos in his bedroom for five years.
And why would she? The videos were mainly short clips of Minecraft or Call of Duty gameplay interspersed with occasional video essays on other YouTubers, estimating their net worth or studying their content strategies. Donaldson’s teenage face rarely made an appearance; he had fewer than 1,500 subscribers for the first two years and would frequently take long breaks from uploading.
Donaldson is now known primarily by his moniker, MrBeast. He’s 26 and, at the time of writing, has 455 million subscribers across his six different channels. This makes him the most subscribed YouTuberon the platform as well as a fully-fledged multi-millionaire — he earned an estimated $101m (£81m) in 2023, according …