In the fall of 2016, Jimmy Donaldson decided to drop out of college to find a way to ‘uncover’ one of the biggest mysteries in the media industry: How can a video go viral on YouTube?
Donaldson, then 18 years old, has been posting content to YouTube since he was a 12-year-old boy.
Jimmy Donaldson – American YouTuber with the fastest growing channel in YouTube history
In the months that followed, Donaldson and a few of his friends tried to solve this difficult problem.
`I woke up, I studied YouTube, I studied videos, I studied filmmaking, I went to bed and that was my life,` Donaldson recalled in a recent interview.
First success with videos with surprisingly simple content
One day, Donaldson came up with an idea for a video that he believed would get a lot of views.
Accordingly, Donaldson sat down in his chair and, over the next 40 hours, muttered number after number, starting at zero and continuing to 100,000.
In fact, it’s a mesmerizingly strange performance, something every kid in elementary school thinks about but never wants to try.
Counting numbers from 1 to 100 thousand – the first viral video of MrBreast channel
It was this video that helped create one of YouTube’s most unlikely success stories.
In 2020, MrBeast channel earned about 24 million USD, helping Donaldson ranked No. 2 in the ranking of the 10 users who earn the most money from YouTube.
The continued success of MrBeast channel’s videos has attracted the attention of YouTube video makers.
Success thanks to holding the secret behind Youtube’s algorithm?
The success of the counting video taught Donaldson an important lesson.
The content of Donaldson’s videos is becoming more and more extravagant.
`The best thing about Youtube comes from the fact that views will not increase twice if you double your efforts. In fact, views will increase 10 times,` Donaldson shared.
Donaldson’s most viewed video: Bathing challenge in a water tank containing 100 million blooming seeds
Over time, Donaldson deduced more of YouTube’s mysteries.
Donaldson typically creates videos that are 10 minutes to 20 minutes long.
Donaldson’s videos often blend three popular genres on YouTube.
Notably, Donaldson himself denied that he owned the formula for making `million-view` videos.
Abridged translation from Bloomberg
