Last year, Time magazine named Donaldson one of the world’s 100 most influential people, while Forbes estimated his annual earnings in 2023 to be around $54 million. This NBA season, Donaldson’s food brand Feastables is the jersey sponsor of the Charlotte Hornets. His new filming complex in North Greenville sits alongside major manufacturing and pharmaceutical sites in the Eastern North Carolina city.

All this should come as a surprise, he says.

“In the middle of North Carolina, in a small town, I had like horrible acne. Especially back then. Really awkward,” he told podcaster Joe Rogan in 2022. “People would have bet a million dollars that I wouldn’t be a YouTuber, you know what I mean? It makes no sense.”

Many in Greenville are still making sense of it, too.

Tipping $10,000, counting to 100,000

Donaldson first went viral in early 2017 when, as a teenager, he sat at his bedroom computer and methodically counted to 100,000 over the course of 40 hours. Chronicling feats of singular discomfort is a particular type of MrBeast video. He’s spent 50 hours buried in a coffin-sized case. Then a full week. Another seven days stranded on an ocean raft with his crew of mostly fellow 20-something guys. In 2019, they made 1,000 uninterrupted trips around a Ferris wheel.

Other stunts showcase novel philanthropy. In a video posted last year, Donaldson paid for the cataract surgeries of 1,000 blind people. And zanier ideas involve pyrotechnics. Greenville’s fire marshal told The News & Observer his department has issued public noise advisories to alert local residents. Resident Maria Satira remembered a time four luxury sports cars zoomed past her on Greenville Boulevard.

“Our community is not that flashy,” she said. “If it’s something you wouldn’t see on a typical day, it’s a good chance it might be MrBeast.”

The most consistent MrBeast video trait is the inventive gifting of money and prizes. He’s tipped a waitress $10,000. Dropped $20,000 from a drone. Awarded pizza deliverers a new car, an entire house. Handed out iPhones for Halloween.

For his first giveaway stunt, Donaldson convinced a sponsor to give him $10,000, which he handed to a local homeless man.

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