MrBeast accepts the award for favorite male creator during the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
Richard Shotwell, Invision via Associated Press
YouTube star MrBeast has been called many things — such as “demonic” — but now he has officially been named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2023.
“The best engineers I knew at NASA were the ones who could break a complex problem down to first principles. They could strip away the noise, reduce a problem to its essence, and find the solution,” former NASA engineer Mark Rober wrote in Time. “Jimmy Donaldson — known online by the handle MrBeast — is able to do that too.”
“Jimmy’s crystal ball is less cloudy than most people’s. When we worked together to raise the funds to plant 20 million trees and remove 30 million pounds of plastic from the ocean through the Team Trees and Team Seas campaigns, his optimism was infectious.”
MrBeast rose to fame for his family-friendly stunt YouTube videos. Recently the YouTuber — who has more than 140 million subscribers — is receiving recognition for his philanthropy efforts.
Just this years, MrBeast has funded cataract surgery for 1,000 individuals, donated 20,000 pairs of shoes to South African children and rebuilt homes for tornado survivors.
He operates five YouTube channels, runs multiple companies and is on his way to becoming a billionaire, reported the Deseret News. He plans to donate all his money to charity throughout his lifetime.
“He doesn’t really understand small thinking or complacency. I don’t know what he’ll do 10 years down the road, but I know it won’t be status quo,” Rober added in Time.
MrBeast has faced harsh criticism
Some critics called MrBeast “demonic” after he paid for 1,000 people to receive cataracts surgery to restore their sight. He also faced criticism after publishing a video where he donated 20,000 pairs of shoes to children in Africa.
Critics claim he profits off of his videos and exploits people in need for his own gain.
“People praising things like this like ‘good guy Mr Beast’ ignore the reality that he makes a profit from these types of videos,” one critic wrote on Twitter. “This isn’t really charity.”
MrBeast has defended his intentions on several occasions.
“Just a reminder for those of you that don’t normally watch this channel, Beast Philanthropy is a charity we run and all the revenue from these videos goes towards running our food pantries and helping people around the world,” MrBeast tweeted last month.
“Our charity owns this channel, I thought it’d be fun to use my fame to create a loop of helping. Film good deed, inspire millions of kids to do good, use revenue from good deed to do next good deed.”
How did MrBeast go viral?
MrBeast earned notoriety for his extreme personal challenges — counting from 0 to 100,000 for 40 straight hours and reading every word in the dictionary are a couple of his first viral videos.
He continues to impress audiences with his extreme videos, especially through giving away large sums of money otherwise known as “stunt philanthropy.” In one of his most recent videos, MrBeast donated 20,000 pairs of shoes to children in South Africa.
Last year, the YouTube star revealed his “formula” for going viral. He claims that spending long hours brainstorming ideas and spending large amounts of money are two factors that have helped him go viral.
“We spend half a million to a million dollars a video. Normal people spend $1,000 or $10,000,” MrBeast said in an interview with YouTuber CoffeeZilla.
“Sometimes we’re filming for three or four days, like 10 hours a day, while most creators film for a couple of hours a day,” he added. “By doing all of those things, it distinctively sets us apart.”
“Every time you think of the word ‘algorithm,’ replace it with ‘audience,’” he claimed. “The algorithm didn’t like my video? No, it’s the audience.”