By Miguel Gutierrez –
Despite being a billionaire and owning the most successful YouTube channel, Mr. Beast is not happy.
“I’m going to be honest – so far more unhappy than happy,” he said on a Diary of a CEO interview.
He has the most subscribers on YouTube and grosses multiple millions of dollars. He owns a billion-dollar chocolate bar company mopping the floor with the competition. He drills wells in Africa, gives homeless people homes, boosts his social media cohorts, and yet, Jimmy Donaldson is not happy?
He used to be a Christian, but now he says he’s agnostic. “It’s just hard to tell,” he told Logan Paul. “There’s a lot out there.”
The story of Christians losing their faith as the rise in fame and fortune (e.g. the Jonas Brothers, Katie Perry) traces back to Solomon’s apostasy. There’s nothing to new: as God blesses, people fall in love with the blessing more than the Blessor: they credit their own genius and forget the gift comes from God.
But he’s such a nice guy. Yup, Mr. Beast is one of the nicest guys on the planet. He gives sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, refurbishing to orphanages. He’s cleaned the ocean and planted trees on the planet. He refuses to source chocolate where it’s cheap because child labor is used in the harvest.
In sheer terms of fulfilling Christ’s injunction to care for the sick, the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, Mr. Beast gets a platinum plus rating.
But he wandered from the faith he acquired as a kid studying at Greenville Christian Academy. When he started his YouTube channel, the banner had Bible verses. But as he went viral, the verses dropped out. Premier Christianity titled sardonically its article on him: The Mark of Mr. Beast.
Uff, that hurts.
Jimmy, a mere 26 years old, was obsessed with video making. When his single, military mom pulled her hair out frantically begging him to do his homework, he replied, “You do it.” He started in February 2012 and now has 373M subs. Mom is no longer frantic – not after he handed her $100,000 in cold cash and bought her a new home. She gets it now.
What was his formula for success? The Purple Cow.
If you were to drive down a road and see a purple cow, you would be extremely curious. You might stop to see what’s up. You would never forget it.
Thus his videos exploit the bonkers factor and entice you to click. As you say, I can’t believe what he’s doing,” the views and subs are rocketing. Millions have pursued the Internet talisman of using click bait, Jimmy has honed it to perfection. The old fable about the Goose that Laid Golden Eggs is now a Purple Cow.
Not only is Jimmy obsessive, he loves problem solving: Hence he fixed when his chocolate bars fell off the shelf at Walmart and shattered inside the package. He wishes to fix Crohn’s disease, chronic gut inflammation of which he suffers. He probably will, once he throws his significant capital at research.
Part of the reason of his unhappiness, he says, is the same obsession with quality videos that has made him a success. His drive to produce constant content rules out having a life. He is getting married soon to a girl he says will mold herself to his demanding schedule. He doesn’t want to have kids until he can dedicate himself enough to be a good father. Good luck with that.
“I don’t think most people would be happy living my life,” he says. “They would be like oh let’s just grab a couple million dollars.”
To be sure, celebrity status, being sought by corporate giants, and doing things better than others (his chocolate company rhymes with his name “Feastables”) is heady stuff. But at the end of the day, when you pillow your head, it’s just you and the existential loneliness that is the human condition.
When you know so much, it’s easy to think you know more than the Bible.
And so he has waltzed away from the Lord.
Miguel Gutierrez studies at the Lighthouse Christian Academy in Santa Monica.
