Well-known YouTuber Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson recently appeared on the Lex Fridman Podcast to discuss his successful career, including some interesting topics such as how it feels to always be talking to a camera.
MrBeast currently has over 127 million subscribers on YouTube—and that’s just his main channel. Most of his videos include major money giveaways and larger-than-life challenges. But to really amp up the hype, MrBeast is known for screaming energetically to his viewers.
Fridman decided to ask MrBeast exactly what it’s like to scream into a camera all the time.
MrBeast said that he pictures a person watching the video instead of seeing a camera. “I’m picturing what the viewer is seeing when they watch it,” he said. “I’ll be saying things or doing something and then realize it’s not what I want and then freeze up. … In my head, I don’t like how it flowed or how the shot looked.”
No matter what he’s doing, MrBeast said that he can simultaneously “perfectly picture” what he’s filming by looking at the camera and picturing what others are seeing from the other end. This is something that started to become natural to him over the past five years.
Fridman said that it probably helps that MrBeast also edits his own videos. Since he’s able to see what the resulting content looks like after filming, he’s able to get a better idea of what things will end up looking like. MrBeast agreed, saying that he pictures it more as creating a video than performing.
“I’ve never been nervous talking to a camera. It’s harder for me to talk to a person than it is to talk to a camera,” MrBeast admitted.
He also debated if this was normal for other content creators or if he was personally “awkward and dumb.”
MrBeast then explained that he has a lot of people on his team who also think similarly to him, knowing what type of content will work and how to behave on camera. He even lived with his CEO for a couple of years. While working and living with staff, MrBeast would constantly tell them how he thinks and they would study him and how he spoke. He called this “cloning.”
For MrBeast, it’s about finding people who are “super obsessed” and “all in,” people who want to “be great.”
Fridman added that this makes brainstorming much more productive and MrBeast noted that he doesn’t have to be involved in every little thing when he has people like this on his team. He still is the one approving everything, but he doesn’t have to be in the weeds doing “minor stuff.”
It’s clear that MrBeast has really dedicated himself to his craft and has attempted to find a team that’s equally passionate about knowing exactly what works on camera.
