POPULAR YouTuber MrBeast has become the most-subscribed channel on the platform, after earning two million followers in a day.
It not only marks the largest one-day record for the channel, according to Jimmy Donaldson, creator of the MrBeast brand, but also ‘avenges’ former title-holder PewDiePie.
Online tracker Social Blade puts the MrBeast account at an eyewatering 268million subscribers.
“After six years we have finally avenged Pewdiepie,” MrBeast wrote on X.
PewDiePie, also known as Felix Kjellberg, has held the title four times between 2013 and 2019 for more than 2,000 days combined.
However, PewDiePie was eventually knocked off the top spot by Bollywood music label T-Series in 2019.
A competition between PewDiePie and T-Series ensued in late 2018, which ultimately saw the Bollywood channel secure the title.
MrBeast was a front-row supporter of PewDiePie’s fight for top subscribership, having paid pasted ads promoting Kjellberg’s account on billboards around his town.
T-Series managed to hold the title for roughly 1,900 days before MrBeast came in to ‘avenge’ his YouTuber ally.
The channel remains close behind MrBeast with a total of 266million subscribers.
T-Series reached 100million subscribers in late May, 2019.
It took roughly a month for T-Series to earn its last two million subscribers, according to data from Social Blade.
So it’s unclear if T-Series will be able to catch up.
The feat garnered a congratulations on X from tech billionaire Elon Musk.
While MrBeast’s channel began in 2012 as a gaming reaction outlet, it eventually grew into a philanthropic venture including huge giveaways.
The operation makes MrBeast frontman Donaldson about £550million per year, but he reportedly doesn’t keep any for himself.
He simply reinvests it into his channel and even bigger giveaways.
Earlier this year, the YouTube sensation launched a new game show with a whopping £4million prize on Amazon’s Prime Video.
Who is MrBeast?
The man behind the MrBeast channel is James Stephen “Jimmy
Born May 7, 1998, the 26-year-old American YouTuber turned philanthropist grew up in Greenville, North Carolina.
He began posting videos in early 2012 at the age of 13 under the hand MrBeast6000.
The entrepreneur briefly attended East Carolina University before dropping out and becoming “relentlessly, unhealthily obsessed with studying virality”, he told Rolling Stone in 2022.
Donaldson studied YouTube’s algorithm for about five years before eventually going viral himself in 2017.
A 24-hour video showing MrBeast “counting to 100,000” – a feat which took him 40 hours.
The video earned Donaldson tens of thousands of views in just a few days.
Since then, the MrBeast channels has garnered an almost cult-like following, allowing Donaldson to reinvest his millions back into communities.
Donaldson is co-creator of Team Trees, a fundraiser for the Arbor Day Foundation that has raised over $23million to help re-forest spaces.
He also co-founded Team Seas, a fundraiser for ocean conservation and cleanup that has raised more than $30million.