Viral acts of kindness have a treacherous history online.

From staged events to straight up fraud -- things are never what they seem. So when headlines about MrBeast increased in frequency, our interest around the studio was piqued.

Hailed as “YouTube’s Viral Philanthropist,” Jimmy Donaldson, AKA MrBeast, and his hundreds of videos have a dynamic range. From his earliest playing minecraft, to extreme and arduous challenges involving microwaves or orbeez, Donaldson has left his career path on public for others to follow.

But we’re here to get to the nitty-gritty of his philanthropy. Is MrBeast really improving the quality of life in the world? Does Donaldson’s charitable nature dig deep, or is he just another flavor of prankster veiled by good intent?

Luckily, MrBeast distilled his biography on Twitter rather succinctly:

“I started at 13 years old with no money, a horrible laptop, and no microphone. Everyday for 8 years, I’ve obsessed and reinvested everything I’ve made. I’m grateful to wake up happy and excited everyday and all I want in life is to make the best content possible <3”

With countless videos detailing the potential profit as a YouTuber, one can see the obsession building inside MrBeast. Donaldson began to put the pieces together, developing the foundation of a YouTube career. He invested more and more of his time into understanding the economics of the platform and began building content around sharing those discoveries. He even began speculating the net worth of popular YouTubers. This youthful interest came with a deeper understanding of the YouTube and the economics at play.