Popular YouTube channel MrBeast has clinched the title of the video streaming platform’s most subscribed channel.
With more than 272 million subscribers, it overtook Indian music channel T-Series – which has 266 million subscribers and features music videos as well as film trailers – and nabbed the top spot on June 2.
MrBeast, run by American YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, 26, often went viral and gained a following online for elaborate challenges and lavish giveaways.
For example, he staged a real-life version of hit South Korean series Squid Game (2021) in 2021, casting 456 contestants to compete in a series of games, and awarded a US$456,000 (S$613,800) prize to the winner. The video has more than 616 million views and is his most popular video to date.
He has also pulled stunts such as filling his brother’s house with slime and then buying him a new house, and spent 50 hours in solitary confinement.
Donaldson posted about his achievement on X on June 2. He put up a picture of his subscriber count inching past T-Series’ and wrote: “After 6 years, we have finally avenged PewDiePie.”
Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie, whose real name is Felix Kjellberg and who is known for his comedic videos, was embroiled in a rivalry with T-Series to be the most subscribed YouTube channel in late 2018. At the time, Donaldson was an avid PewDiePie supporter, rallying for subscribers for Kjellberg’s account.
Eventually, T-Series overtook PewDiePie in 2019. The latter now has over 111 million subscribers.
Donaldson began posting on YouTube in 2012, when he was 13. He went viral in 2017 after he posted a nearly 24-hour-long video of himself counting to 100,000. His follower count continued to climb as he engaged in increasingly outlandish stunts – like buying everything in a store – and extravagant giveaways.
For his recent 26th birthday in May, he purchased and gave away 26 Teslas to his 56.6 million Instagram followers.
In a Time magazine interview in February, Donaldson estimates that he makes some US$600 million to US$700 million a year, but claims that he is not rich.
He told the American publication: “I’ve reinvested everything to the point of – you could claim – stupidity, just believing that we would succeed. And it’s worked out.”
