North Carolina kid cracks YouTube’s secret code

In the fall of 2016, Jimmy Donaldson dropped out of college to try to solve one of the biggest mysteries in media: How exactly does a video go viral on YouTube? Donaldson, then 18, had been posting to the site since he was 12 without amassing much of an audience. But he was convinced he was close to unlocking the secrets of YouTube’s algorithm, the black box of rules and processes that determines what videos get recommended to viewers.

In the months that followed, Donaldson and a handful of his friends tried to crack the code. They conducted daily phone calls to analyze what videos went viral. They gave one another YouTube-related homework assignments, and they pestered successful channels for data about their most successful posts. “I woke up, I studied YouTube, I studied videos, I studied filmmaking, I went to bed and that was my life,” Donaldson recalled during a recent interview.

Then, one day, he was struck with an idea for a video that he was sure would work. It was as simple as counting. Donaldson sat down in a chair and, for the the next 40-plus hours, murmured one number after the next, starting from zero and continuing all the way to 100,000. At the end of the exhausting stunt, he looked deliriously at the camera. “What am I doing with my life?” he said.

It was an oddly mesmerizing performance, the kind of thing every kid in elementary school thinks about but never tries. The resulting video — entitled “I COUNTED TO 100000!” — was a viral smash. Since its debut on Jan. 8, 2017, it has earned over 21 million views.

The video helped give rise to one of the unlikeliest success stories on YouTube. Over the past four years, Donaldson‘s channel, MrBeast, has amassed more than 48 million subscribers. In the last 28 days, people have spent more than 34 million hours watching his videos. On Dec. 12, MrBeast was named Creator of the Year at the Streamy Awards, YouTube’s equivalent of the Oscars.

The consistent success of MrBeast’s videos has gotten the attention of the YouTube establishment. Last year, every video he posted eclipsed 20 million views. Such consistency is unparalleled, even among YouTube’s biggest stars. “He lives on a different planet than the rest of the YouTube world,” said Casey Neistat, a filmmaker turned YouTuber.

Donaldson, now 22, has a baby face and a patchy goatee. He speaks with an aw-shucks modesty and doesn’t do many interviews. But the restraint quickly fades away when he starts talking about YouTube.

“Once you know how to make a video go viral, it’s just about how to get as many out as possible,” he said. “You can practically make unlimited money.”

“The videos take months of prep. A lot of them take four to five days of relentless filming. There’s a reason other people don’t do what I do.”

Unlike many first-wave YouTube stars, who were actors, screenwriters, models and singers hoping someday to break into traditional industries, Donaldson has only ever aspired to YouTube stardom. He wakes up every day thinking about the perfect videos, with an exactitude that borders on monomania.

The success of the counting video taught him an important lesson. While many of his friends were interested in getting the most views with the least effort, he wanted to convey to the audience how hard he was working. His stunts grew more extravagant. He spent 24 hours in a prison, then an insane asylum, then a deserted island.

The views on his videos, which are YouTube’s primary currency, started to snowball. In his first six years on the site, he had generated just 6 million views. But at the age of 18, with his full attention on YouTube, he earned 122 million annual views. At 19, he attracted more than 460 million. He now generates 4 billion views a year.

“The beauty of YouTube is double the effort isn’t double the views, it’s like 10x,” he said. “The first million subscribers you get will take years, but the second will come in a few months.”

Over time, he deduced more of YouTube’s mysteries. Make a clip too long, no one watches or wants to watch another. Make one too short, people won’t linger. Use a bad thumbnail photo or title and no one will click. Donaldson typically makes videos that are between 10 minutes and 20 minutes long. He picks a concept that is easy to communicate in the title — “I Adopted EVERY Dog in a Dog Shelter” — and then uses the first 30 seconds to establish the stakes.