If viewers don’t really see him having fun, that’s by design. Donaldson has outright said he sees “personality” as a limitation for growth, once noting in a podcast that hinging your content on who you are as a person means risking not being liked. And if someone doesn’t like a creator as a person, they may not give the videos a chance.
McLoughlin’s comments hit at another bleak possibility: Viewers may hardly see MrBeast having fun in his videos because he’s not actually having a good time. In podcasts, Donaldson tells hosts that he goes so hard, he won’t stop working until he burns out and isn’t able to do anything at all. With a laugh, he admits that he has a mental breakdown “every other week.” If he ever stops for a breather, he says, he gets depressed. MrBeast is so laser-focused on generating content on YouTube that he describes his personality as “YouTube.” He acknowledges that this brutal approach to videos, which has cratered many creators over the years, is not healthy. “People shouldn’t be like me. I don’t have a life, I don’t have a personality”
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.
Absolutely brutal indictment of algorithmic capitalism.
Shouldn’t he have enough money to quit by now? Ride off into the sunset, man. There’s nothing left to win.
you don’t get into his sort of situation if “enough” means anything to you. to them, there is only the need for more.
also like, what is there for him if he has “no personality”. If I made just like 2M (Mr. Beast is worth 500M), you could live off 6% interest and make a comfy 100k annually. I’d go skiing, go rock climbing, work on some projects I can’t do because I have to work for a living. If he has nothing to live for, he stops grinding on his youtube channel and then what? He just sinks into a depressive episode?