As controversy continues to swirl around MrBeast, the secrets of his production pipeline are being revealed to the public. A leaked document purports to teach readers “how to succeed in MrBeast production,” and it details the strategies Jimmy Donaldson and co. have used to conquer YouTube.
There’s plenty to unpack in the document, which Donaldson appears to have written in his own idiosyncratic voice. If you’re not interested in interpreting the musings of a 26-year-old YouTube megastar, allow Tubefilter to serve as your translator. Here are some recurring themes we noticed during our read-through of the 36-page document:
MrBeast does things his own way
If the creator’s split from management firm Night didn’t make this point clear, his tone in the leaked document should. From the first page, Donaldson stresses that he is not interested in the traditional production pipeline. “This is not Hollywood and I do not want to be Hollywood,” he wrote. “And if that sentence is a turn-off to you then you’re probably at the wrong job.”
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Even the style of Donaldson’s writing informs his loose, informal approach to video production. In the opening paragraph of his guide, he apologizes for the “run-on sentences and grammar issues” and states that he is “a YouTuber, not an author.” (For the sake of readability, we have taken the liberty of cleaning up Donaldson’s errors when quoting the document.)
The production of Donaldson’s Amazon original Beast Games required him to blend his homegrown process with that of a Hollywood-affiliated platform. The result, according to previous allegations, was a shoot that needed more oversight. But maybe Donaldson shouldn’t be on Amazon anyway, because…
MrBeast loves YouTube
These days, many creators spread themselves thin across social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, X, and Twitch, but MrBeast is a YouTube-based brand through and through. Throughout the document, Donaldson reminds his employees that their “number one goal” is to produce content for YouTube specficially.
That approach may seem quaint in the era of multiplatform growth, but there’s a clear reason behind Donaldson’s focus. “YouTube is the future and I believe with every fiber of my body it’s going to keep growing year-over-year,” he wrote. “In five years YouTube will be bigger than anyone will have ever imagined and I want this channel to be at the top.”
MrBeast recently surpassed T-Series to claim the title of most-subscribed YouTube channel, so Donaldson’s wish to top the platform came true. Even as he branches out with his Amazon show, he maintains a close relationship with YouTube, and his production guide helps us understand why.
MrBeast’s guide is full of contradictions
Dispatches from the set of Beast Games characterize the production as a chaotic undertaking that reminded some participants of the infamous Fyre Fest. If we’re trying to figure out where that “disorganized” feel stemmed from, the leaked document offers some ideas. Despite the highly methodical nature of the MrBeast production process, some elements of Donaldson’s approach just don’t make sense.
Early on, the creator states that he wants the contents of his guide to be taken with a “grain of salt,” but he repeatedly outlines processes — such as his plan for checking in about bottlenecks — that should be heeded at all times. He forsakes the Hollywood process, but his descriptions of desired employee characteristics (“coachable,” “intelligent,” “A Players”) would not be out of place on a traditional job listing.
On one page, consultants are “cheat codes” who can take videos to the next level. But a few pages later, Donaldson writes “I hate having tons of people on set.” He claims he’s “not always right,” but he states that the goal of MrBeast videos is “to excite me.” He cautions employees to “never do anything that could make us look bad from a PR perspective,” but he includes the phrase “No does not mean no” in the document. Though he was not applying the phrase in relation to sexual politics, opponents like Rosanna Pansino jumped on that line as evidence of Donaldson’s authoritarian regime.
Most of these contradictions can be handwaved away by the “grain of salt” caveat, but there is a clear tension between the collaborative effort Donaldson wants MrBeast to be and the personal whims he brings to the channel. “If I’m not excited to get in front of that camera and film the video, it’s just simply not going to happen,” he wrote. “I’m not fake and I will be authentic, that’s partly why the channel does so well.”
Ultimately, this document could be a production guide for any long-form YouTube channel in 2024.
Despite Donaldson’s stubbornness and the faults of his personal process, he is still the most accomplished individual creator in YouTube history (at least by the numbers). The production guide reads like a creator’s bible because of MrBeast’s widespread influence on the YouTube scene. The strategies he lays out have been so frequently imitated that they feel like sacred tenets of the creator career.
Donaldson’s document alludes to statistics like click-through rate, average view duration, and average view percentage, all of which are prioritized on his recently-launched analytics platform ViewStats. You can draw a line between Donaldson’s thoughts on retention and the application of those ideas on channels like Jesser.
And then there’s his obsession with titles and thumbnails. In the document, he calls those elements “critical components” of videos, and creators like the Sidemen have seen the benefits of optimized titles and thumbnails.
Ultimately, when you put aside all of the chaos and controversies, Donaldson comes off as a student of YouTube. It is a well-known part of his origin story that he spent his childhood watching YouTube nonstop, and he wants employees to share his passion. “I want you to be obsessed with YouTube,” he writes.
MrBeast’s YouTube obsession has turned into a secret sauce that powers the most popular channels on the platform. For years, viewers have wondered how exactly Donaldson does it, and his priorities are now out in the open — for better or for worse.
