9 things we learned from MrBeast's Rolling Stone cover story
Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, was the top-earning YouTuber last year, enticing more than 90 million subscribers with thumbnails optimized to perfectionand tantalizing concepts like "I Spent 50 Hours Buried Alive." Now, he's on the cover of Rolling Stone.
The publication has announced that its first-ever "Creators Issue" will hit stands today, April 19, with a feature on TikTokker Bella Poarch, a spotlight on Black creators, and a sweeping, 5000-word profile of the king of cash himself. We've collected the best bits below in a helpful TL;DR.
1. He wants to turn Greenville, North Carolina, into an entertainment hub for creators
MrBeastLLC is constructing three content and production hubs in his hometown to position the city as "a magnet for content creators in digital media" à la Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.
2. "I wish the cool Jimmy was the real Jimmy"
According to writer EJ Dickson, Donaldson is pretty awkward in person. His best friend, Tyson, notes that Donaldson has "has a very hard time socializing" and "explaining to people what he wants and what he needs.”
SEE ALSO:In Casey Neistat’s documentary, David Dobrik’s act unravelsA former employee told the New York Timesin 2021 that Donaldson had fostered "a difficult work environment" and told Rolling Stonethat on camera, "‘He’s such a cool dude.’" but IRL, "you’d be like, ‘Damn, I wish the cool Jimmy was the real Jimmy.’” To that Donaldson says. “I’ve literally worked with over a thousand people. Two people thought I was pretty demanding, which was perfectly fine,” he says. “We have high standards, but it’s not a toxic work environment.”
3. He's kind of a Musketeer
Donaldson has portraits of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk (dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte) in his office. When it comes to Musk, “I don’t support or look up to everything he does or how he treats people,” Donaldson says, “But I think it’s inspiring that he’s weaning the world off of oil and rebuilding imagination when it comes to space exploration and stuff like that.”
He’s also been reading biographies of successful men like Michael Jordan and recently hired a life coach that told him successful men peak at 40.
4. He keeps his business in the family
His mother Sue, a former prison warden, is MrBeast LLC’s chief compliance officer and oversees the company’s and her son's financials. His parents split when Donaldson was young, and he's not in contact with his father, but his stepfather, Tracy, is very much in the picture as an operations manager at MrBeast YouTube LLC.
Tweet may have been deleted
5. He's apolitical and agnostic but is still cagey about transphobic comments he made in 2016
Donaldson is apolitical, he says, because “it would be very silly of me to alienate basically half of America.” Though he attended Catholic school as a kid, he now identifies as agnostic in part due to the church's views on topics like homosexuality. When asked about anti-gay slurs and jokes he tweeted and used in videos before 2018, he explains that he grew up in the heart of the Bible Belt and was taught that "gay people are the reason God’s going to come and burn this Earth." Now, "I [wish I could] go back in time and be like, ‘Hey, stop.’”
But when it comes to his 2016 take on what Dickson calls "a fairly well-known transphobic joke at the time," Donaldson says, “I was just playing along with the meme like everyone else" and denies understanding the meme's origins. He calls the video — in which he says "I was born a tank, but sadly it wasn't one of our 52 genders. Is someone just sitting there and getting paid to think of genders?" — a "joke.”
6. He's competitive as hell and obsessed with work
MrBeast fans probably already know that Donaldson studied YouTube almost full-time on his way to becoming the platform's top-earning creator.
That singular focus doesn't leave room, or desire, for a personal life. “All my friends revolve around work" he tells Rolling Stone. Donaldson seems more interested in growing his brand, sub count, and business endeavors like MrBeast Burgers. He's getting a shower installed in his office so he doesn't have to go home.
Tweet may have been deleted
“I want to be the biggest YouTube channel ever,” he says. “Not even for my ego. I don’t know. I just want it. It just gives me something to strive for, to get out of bed and grind for. But it’s also just vanity.”
7. His battle with Crohn’s disease may have led him to YouTube dominance
Donaldson was sporty as a kid, but a diagnosis of Crohn's disease, an autoimmune disorder, led him to spend more time indoors. According to his mom, the change likely prompted his pivot to YouTube. He currently tries to manage flare-ups with medication and by working with a private chef.
8. Security is tight at MrBeast HQ
With so much money flying around, oftentimes in large physical stacks, security is crucial to Donaldson's business and safety. An apartment break-in a few years ago led to more serious measures. He now wanders around Greenville with a bodyguard and lives in a house in a gated community with bulletproof windows and triple-steel-reinforced doors.
SEE ALSO:The highest-paid female YouTuber is a 7-year-old who earned $28 million in 20219. It's not about the money… most of the time
Donaldson says he doesn’t “give a fuck about money" or "chasing the next shiny object to the next shiny object.” It simply "allows us to get views so I make more money and do bigger stuff." But Dickson notes that Donaldson does seem interested in how much some of those shiny objects cost, "pointing out that his custom-built, double-sided refrigerator… was 50 grand to install." He also thinks money can cure everything “If you have a trillion dollars, you don’t really have any problems,” he tells Dickson.
Ultimately, Donaldson says that "I think what I’ve done speaks for itself." CEO Darren Margolias of MrBeast Philanthropy, which oversees weekly food drives and helped launch Donaldson's viral #TeamTrees and #TeamSeas campaigns, says that "by championing various philanthropic causes, Donaldson wants to school an entirely new generation in the benefits of unconditional giving."
Featured Video For You
OG influencer Alisha Marie spills the secrets of her most viral video
(责任编辑:产品中心)
- Amazon Android Days sale 2024: Save on unlocked phones, tablets, and more
- Video: Newt Gingrich RNC speech about everyone dying.
- Where to get legal help if you cause your own abortion
- Drowning baby kangaroo saved thanks to quick, heroic police action
- To Russia, with Love
- 'Black Myth: Wukong' PS5 review in progress: A potential masterpiece
- Revealed: The famed, mysterious, new Apple campus toilets!
- Novel cathode ticks the boxes for a cobalt
- Revealed: The famed, mysterious, new Apple campus toilets!
- Scientists detect water sloshing on Mars. There could be a lot.
- 刚刚!广东省养猪行业协会猪业青年委员会成立,袁坤担任委员会主任
- Orbital's O2 floating turbine starts exporting clean power to the grid
- [Newsmaker] Active
-
Yoon, US Senate's armed service committee chief discuss alliance, N.K. threats
President Yoon Suk Yeol (right) shakes hands with Sen. Jack Reed, chairman of the US Senate's a ...[详细] -
The Apple Watch Series 3 is here, has cellular connectivity, and is kinda boring
The big event Tuesday is giving us many Apple reveals: some large, some not so much. Falling squarel ...[详细] -
读好书,上好网!广东省中小学“绿书签行动”创意绘画大赛获奖名单发布
读好书,上好网!广东省中小学“绿书签行动”创意绘画大赛获奖名单发布_南方+_南方plus近日,由广东省“扫黄打非”工作领导小组办公室主办,各地市“扫黄打非”工作领导小组办公室、广东新华发行集团、南国书 ...[详细] -
Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Flynn apologizes for retweeting anti
Team Trump clearly has support from the fringes of society—you know, your white supremacists and ant ...[详细] -
Our galaxy might crash into Andromeda. What would happen to Earth?
Our Milky Way galaxy is a cannibal.It has grown by consuming other galaxies. Yet, it too, may be des ...[详细] -
雅安日报讯昨(3)日,记者从市文体广电新闻出版局获悉,由中国足协主办的2015年“我爱足球”中国足球民间争霸赛南区决赛从10月28日至11月2日在武汉塔子湖体育中心举行,我市足球队获得四川省比赛名额, ...[详细]
-
Trump likens N. Korea talks to 'beautiful game of chess'
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he views the on-again, off-again nuclear talk ...[详细] -
15 dog toys that your pooch (probably) can't destroy
The world is filled with a wide variety of good dogs, but some are harder on their toys than others. ...[详细] -
Haider all set for Paralympics Ceremony
PARIS:Pakistan's premier athlete at the Paralympics Haider Ali will be representing the country ...[详细] -
Rs400m KKH repairs project launched
ABBOTTABAD:Reconstruction and blacktopping of Karakoram Highway (KKH) from Salhad Abbottabad to Mans ...[详细]
- Yoon approves labor minister's appointment
- 最新研究首次证实!新会陈皮提取物可缓解慢阻肺病样病理改变
- Revealed: The famed, mysterious, new Apple campus toilets!
- 粤合好物系列报道丨入选10款最受欢迎“粤合好物”,这款果脯有何魅力?
- A Journey Into the Mind of Stephen King
- What's Apple's tax bill in New Zealand? Why it's zero, niet, nada.
- Silicon arches boost structural integrity of high