By now, you’ve probably already seen it. Over the weekend, MrBeast released a video in which he helped to pay for 1,000 blind people’s surgeries, helping them gain their sight—and the video has circulated at a mind-boggling pace.
With more than 50 million views since being posted less than 48 hours ago, the eight-minute video is the No. 1 trending upload to YouTube, and it’s not just curing blindness that has made the video a smashing success.
Along with paying for 1,000 people’s surgeries, MrBeast gifted numerous patients $10,000, gave one teen $50,000 for college, gave another teenager a Tesla, and donated $100,000 to SEE International, which helped perform the surgeries.
MrBeast is no stranger to massively successful videos. His channel has more than 80 videos with more than one million views on YouTube, but most of those videos have been on the platform for a year or more. While it’s difficult to estimate what the trajectory of this video will be, the pure philanthropy of the content clearly has a mass appeal.
MrBeast recently turned heads when he finally usurped the subscriber count of longtime YouTube great PewDiePie and hit 130 million subs. His current greatest uploads of all time include being buried alive and spending 50 hours in solitary confinement. His most-watched video ever remains his “real life” Squid Game, though. That video has more than 350 million views.
While the video has inspired many, it was seen as frustrating to others. Political commentating streamer HasanAbi pointed out that, while Beast’s generosity is admirable, the fact that we live in a world where people have to pay for such an essential procedure is disheartening.
