Nature of The Beast

Why would anyone spend 50 hours buried alive just to make a YouTube video? Jimmy Donaldson—a.k.a. MrBeast—had 54 million reasons last year. The world’s top-earning creator makes his mark through collaboration, not competition, and he has gotten rich by giving money away.

By Chloe Sorvino

Jimmy Donaldson, a sweet-faced 24-year-old YouTuber, is dressed up as Willy Wonka, complete with a purple velvet topcoat, oversize gold bow tie and orange top hat. The 6-foot-4 creator known as “MrBeast” is making a video to promote Feastables, the candy bar brand he launched last winter. He has lured 10 fans who found “golden tickets” in one of his MrBeast Bars to a warehouse in eastern North Carolina that Donaldson built. There they find a faux chocolate factory with huge gummy bears hanging off tree branches in in a lollipop forest and, just like in the movie, a real chocolate river flowing into a waterfall. In a room lined with bouncy marshmallows the contestants stand on spinning peppermints. First one to fall loses. The winner takes home $500,000, a…

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Forbes (Digital) - 1 Issue, December/January 2023

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