Translating MrBeast’s interview with Joe Rogan for a sentient audience
(This post originally featured on my newsletter, Future Proof, and is reproduced here thanks to the kind folks who pay for that and allow me to keep writing, while also paying my bills. You can subscribe too (there’s also a free trial) and get new subscriber-only content every week, if you want.)
I mentioned to my partner last week that I had been listening to Joe Rogan’s interview with MrBeast. “Who’s MrBeast?” she, an adult woman, replied.
I’ve been in the weeds of digital media for long enough now that the idea of not knowing who MrBeast is feels quote utopian, like Rousseau’s noble savage. If you’ve been on YouTube at any point in the past few years, chances are you’ll have encountered Jimmy Donaldson a.k.a. MrBeast a.k.a.k.a. the biggest multi-channel broadcaster on YouTube. Whether it’s asking his friends to keep touching a car for as long as possible (last to move their hand wins the car) or trapping strangers on a desert island and then offering the aforementioned landmass as a prize to the victor, MrBeast has had a huge impact on the YouTube ecosystem. He has, essentially, brought the budgets and prize pools of top cable TV game shows to the YouTube format.
