Jimmy Donaldson is getting more shine from traditional media. Nearly two years after he graced the cover of Rolling Stone‘s first Creator Issue, the man known as MrBeast has hit the front page of another magazine: Time. The 101-year-old news publication featured Donaldson in a story about his “swift rise” on YouTube and his status as “the most-watched person in the world.”
The 4,500-word profile of Donaldson includes all of the typical talking points that come up in long-form explorations of the MrBeast empire. Time traced the creator’s roots in North Carolina, chronicled his upending of the YouTube ecosystem, and details his struggles to maintain profitability in an ever-changing industry.
Donaldson told Time that he envisions a future in which he won’t have to rely on sponsors the way he does now. “I know a video is gonna get 200 million views,” he said. “And I sell that video to a different company, which is just sad. In a perfect world, I would own a couple of different companies—chocolate, and maybe a global games company—and then that’s what I would promote in the videos.”
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Time noted that Feastables accounted for 70% of MrBeast revenue in its second year of activity. But the profile is not limited to Donaldson’s success — it also tracks the controversies that have dogged him since he became the biggest name on YouTube. The article includes input from several former MrBeast staffers, who criticized the operation’s safety record. Creative producer Scott Brown told Time that Donaldson and co. “view safety as, like, being overly cautious or a weakness.”
The article includes an accompanying video that takes viewers into “the belly of MrBeast.” Time followed the creator as he produced the latest of his big-budget spectacles. The studio tour won’t be new for MrWhoseTheBoss subscribers, but I don’t know how much overlap there is between that group and Time readers.
This is not the first time Donaldson has been featured in Time. He was included in the magazine’s Time 100 ranking last year, when his buddy Mark Rober authored a writeup discussing his influence in the creator economy.
