Standing on a pile of $5 million in cash, Jimmy Donaldson — the king of YouTube, better known as Mr Beast — declares it a reward for “the most insane competition show you have ever seen”.
Donaldson’s previous escapades include being buried alive for a week and recreating Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory but his £80 million new show, Beast Games, which has just premiered on Prime Video, is closest to his Squid Game homage of 2021.
The 1,000 contestants must evade US Navy Seals, fire cannons from a pirate ship, drag monster trucks, hang from platforms over water and endure a “literal insane asylum”. Donaldson dials up the sadism, grinning as he offers players $100,000 to betray their teammates and cackling as those who fail a block-stacking challenge plunge through trapdoors — 500 are eliminated in episode one. The prizes available heighten the drama, and the amorality. The overall winner will take home that $5 million, which Donaldson claims is the “biggest single prize in entertainment history” — also on offer are a Lamborghini and a private island.
This time, however, Donaldson, 26, is leaving the safety of social media for the more uncertain realm of television. He is the most popular YouTuber on the planet with 336 million subscribers and an estimated net worth of £400 million, and if he can defy recent controversies and convert his online clout to a streaming platform, executives may put more faith in social media stars.
To do so would be to further blur the line between fame forged at home and that bestowed by studios. “If it’s a hit, I think we’ll see a lot more YouTubers getting streaming deals,” says Taylor Lorenz, a tech journalist and author of Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence, and Power on the Internet. “If it’s a flop, these two worlds might remain stratified for a bit longer.”
Donaldson’s rise to becoming the undisputed champion of YouTube began in his bedroom in North Carolina. Armed with a second-hand laptop, he began making videos as a 13-year-old, experimenting with different formats and playing video games such as Minecraft while commentating for his viewers. Success eluded him for years but he remained obsessed with YouTube.
In 2016 he dropped out of university to pursue a career on the internet. His mother was furious and kicked him out of the house but the decision resulted in phenomenal success. Donaldson’s empire is built on elaborate stunts, bizarre challenges and extravagant giveaways, presented in highly produced videos featuring him and his friends. His main YouTube channel has more subscribers than any other and he has secondary channels dedicated to philanthropy and gaming that boast tens of millions of followers.
Donaldson’s everyman appeal — despite his enormous wealth he usually dresses in a hoodie — makes him accessible to his millions of young fans and fuelled his annual revenue of £550 million. “Each video does a couple million in ad revenue, a couple million in brand deals,” Donaldson told Time magazine this year. “I’ve reinvested everything to the point of — you could claim — stupidity, just believing that we would succeed. And it’s worked out.”
With his girlfriend, Thea Booysen
Donaldson is reported to still live in Greenville, North Carolina, in a modest home in a cul-de-sac where he has bought the neighbouring houses for friends and family. He is in a relationship with Thea Booysen, a successful 27-year-old YouTuber. Yet compared to her boyfriend few online personalities matter.
“Mr Beast is the biggest creator on the internet right now,” Lorenz says. “He is one of the most culturally influential figures in America. He’s really the king of the internet.”
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Donaldson pioneered a genre of video, sometimes pejoratively called “charity porn”, in which he films himself performing acts of generosity. In 2017 he gave a homeless man $10,000 in cash; that he is now handing out $5 million illustrates how far he has come.
His deal with Amazon will make him even richer, though leaving YouTube for traditional television could bring other benefits. There is a feeling around Hollywood that even the biggest online stars yearn for recognition from the mediums they threaten to usurp, which still offer more prestige among general audiences.
“TV is where the truly good content ends up,” Travis Knox, an associate professor at Chapman University’s film school in California, says, adding that the Amazon deal works for both parties despite “snobbery” in Hollywood towards social media stars. “If you put them in something that is aimed at under-25s, they will bring in an audience. But they’re not going to be winning Golden Globes, they’re winning Teen Choice Awards.”
“He’s really the king of the internet,” says the tech journalist Taylor Lorenz
Lorenz believes that money is the motivator. “I don’t think Mr Beast wants to be a traditional Hollywood movie star because the business he’s in currently is far more lucrative,” she says. “Hollywood is crumbling. Him doing this deal with Prime Video shows that these streamers are desperate to leverage big figures on the internet.”
Yet Donaldson’s extraordinary rise has not been without controversy — over the summer he was engulfed in a series of negative headlines. Old videos resurfaced in which he jokingly discussed buying black people. “The most I would pay is probably 300 [dollars],” he said in a clip from 2017, when he was 19. Donaldson was also filmed using a homophobic slur.
After the video went viral, a spokesperson for Donaldson issued an apology and said he had used “inappropriate language” as a teenager “while trying to be funny” and has learnt to be “more sensitive to the power of language’’.
Donaldson’s brand was further imperilled when Ava Kris Tyson, a regular on his channel, was accused of sending inappropriate messages to a child, who was 13 at the time, when she was 20. Tyson, who stopped working with Donaldson in July, vehemently denied grooming and said the interaction never “extended beyond bad edgy jokes”.
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Lawyers hired by Donaldson to investigate grooming claims found in November that they were “without basis” but the damage had arguably already been done.
While these controversies were bubbling away, contestants on Donaldson’s Amazon show filed a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. His production company was accused of failing to provide minimum wages, adequate meal breaks and rest time for competitors, whom it was alleged were exposed to “dangerous circumstances”.
“Several contestants ended up hospitalised, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions,” it was claimed.
An investigation into the workplace culture resulted in several employees being fired following “several isolated instances of workplace harassment and misconduct”, according to Alex Spiro, a lawyer hired by Donaldson who has represented celebrities including Jay-Z and Elon Musk.
Donaldson sought to dismiss the allegations last month when replying to a fan on X. “We have tons of behind-the-scenes dropping when the show does to show how blown out of proportion these claims were,” he wrote. “Just can’t release it now because it would spoil the games.”
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It is unsurprising that Donaldson is willing to endure bad publicity to give Beast Games a better chance of success. He has said that he spent more than a year working on the ten episodes. “I poured everything I have into this show,” he said, claiming that it had broken 40 world records.
Lorenz thinks closer scrutiny was inevitable as Donaldson’s brand grew, but that his core operation is not under threat. “Mr Beast’s primary fan base is children under the age of ten,” she says. “These are not people that are reading news articles or following cancellation campaigns.”
Donaldson’s credibility did take a hit, Lorenz says, but for now at least his empire is secure. “Nobody seems to be less willing to work with him because he remains so big.”
Knox says it is inevitable that social media will eclipse the traditional film industry and that Donaldson’s Amazon deal is a sign of things to come: “Hollywood needs him more than he needs Hollywood.”
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