‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube star

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

He’s spent 24 hours immersed in slime, two days buried alive – and showered vast amounts of cash on lucky participants. But are MrBeast’s videos simply very savvy clickbait – or acts of avant garde genius? Written and read by Mark O’Connell. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
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0:22.0	tours, barefoot hikes across shifting quicksands and even a visit to a bee farm. So with
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0:42.2	Hello, Faker Others here, host of the Guardian Women's Football Weekly podcast.
0:47.3	So the European Championships are fast approaching.
0:50.1	And the team here, me, Susie Rack, Tom Gary and expert guests are going to guide you through
0:55.3	the highs and the lows of the month-long tournament, starting with a preview episode on Friday, June
1:01.5	the 27th. The lionesses, of course, are hoping to win back-to-back euros, but can Serena Vigman's
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1:12.2	Can Wales who are making their first ever appearance in an international tournament cause any upsets?
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1:39.2	For the text version of this and all our long reads, go to the Guardian.com forward slash long read.
1:47.7	The Mozart of the Attention Economy. Why Mr. Beast is the world's biggest YouTube star.
1:54.0	Written and read by Mark O'Connell. Jimmy Donaldson, the 27-year-old online content creator and entrepreneur known as Mr. Beast,
2:11.9	is by any reasonable metric, one of the most popular entertainers on the planet.
2:17.0	His YouTube channel, to which he posts his increasingly elaborate and expensively produced videos,
	...

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