The end of the MrBeast era

polygon.com:

In the fall of 2023, a clip ripped from a video by Tom Simons and reposted on X (formerly Twitter) saw Irish YouTube entertainer Seán “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin strapped to a lie detector test. His friends were grilling him about everything, like whether or not he still enjoyed his job as a YouTuber and how much money he had in the bank. Though sensitive, none of the questions fazed McLoughlin, a video star with millions of subscribers on YouTube. To truly rattle him, his friends had to pull out the big guns — questions that, if answered honestly, would make most squirm. Has YouTube gotten worse as a platform, they probed? Yes, McLoughlin answered, still not missing a beat. And he said Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, YouTube’s biggest creator, was to blame.

Though his friends expected it, McLoughlin’s answer shocked the internet. With a reputation for generous stunts that give ordinary people cars, houses, and thousands of dollars, many think of MrBeast as a kind of philanthropic figure, representing some of the best YouTube has to offer. His branding is at once self-aggrandizing yet selfless; on podcasts he frequently reminds his 241 million subscribers (at the time of publication) that he’s at the top precisely because all he ever does is YouTube, and all he wants to do is entertain people. He lives in his own recording studio. While his free time seems minuscule, the rare times he does pull away from work are for dates with his girlfriend that center around activities that could enrich his videos, because he considers a single hour of a date to be worth $100K had it been dedicated to work instead.

The idea that MrBeast throws all the money he makes — and it’s considerable — back into doing YouTube videos is practically lore. There’s little regard for personal profit, or so he says. He tells viewers that while he employs a sizable percentage of his hometown, he still lives modestly, unlike other rich YouTubers. A segment of his fortune goes toward philanthropy, and in