20 Questions with MrBeast around his studio/campus!
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All right, Jimmy, so we're both creators.

a lot in common, but I also think there are a lot of big differences between our channels and our workflows and how we do things.

It's just a little different on my channel.

What's the first app you open on your phone in the morning?

I love how we just jumped right into this.

I wouldn't recommend, but that's what I do.

ever at like a, I don't know, a barbershop or in the back of an Uber or something like that and somebody asks you what you do, how do you answer that question?

Oh, well, if I'm in the back of an Uber, I lie.

I just say I work at McDonald's because I don't want them to drop me off at my house and be like, yo, I know where a YouTuber lives.

Do you have like, there's usually follow-up questions.

Do You ever like say what you do and then have to sort of explain it

Yeah, so I guess I typically just describe it as I like to give away money While torturing myself and occasionally torturing my friends and then just doing whatever random weird things pop in my head.

That's gonna get some follow up questions.

I just say I'm a video producer and usually that sort of

No, you're the video producer that decides what tech everyone in America buys.

I mean, you're too humble to say that, but like half the time I watch his videos and I just leave and go buy stuff

So we're sitting here in a part of a semi deconstructed squid game set from the video you did on top of a bunch of money

you started making your channel and then found it at like 10, 000 subscribers or something.

Same, I didn't tell my parents about it, they found it.

When they did find it, how did they react?

And What's the difference between then when they found it and now when all this is going on?

Well, my mom was like, oh my gosh, she's not crazy.

Cause she would always think I was just talking to random people in my room or just like talking to myself when I was like recording videos.

So she, she kind of had a hunch and then she's like, but why?

Can we like start spending more time on school and less on videos?

And I was like, no, I want to spend less time on school and more time on videos.

So my mom just wanted what was best for me, but it was pretty brutal at the start because I was doing bad in school and I literally would just stay up all night making YouTube videos.

But then I think there was a moment where we did a brand deal that was basically more than her entire salary and that was kind of when it switched and she was like, you know what, you keep doing that.

You know, not because she's money hungry She just didn't want me to end up, you know working at a fast-food restaurant, which you know I mean if this didn't work out, I don't I don't know what else I would have ended up doing What's the money comfy sitting on 200 grand?

So I didn't have like a put your feet over there Okay, 400 grand is that more comfy that

Okay, so you've counted to a hundred thousand.

Yes, you said PewDiePie a hundred thousand times.

I did and Logan Paul hundred thousand times You completed a

What's the hardest challenge you've ever done, physically speaking?

It was actually when I buried myself alive.

That was, yeah, I buried myself alive for 50 hours.

It was brutal because I'll be honest, coffins aren't comfortable, and my back was hurting.

And like 30 hours in, I was like, I almost got out.

Like even just thinking about it, it makes me almost tear up.

I feel like you should collaborate with David Blaine at some point because all of the stunts are somewhere on the borderline of how much can you actually physically tolerate,

Weirdly enough, when I did that, we were in contact, and then since then we haven't talked.

David, if you see this, please, Let's do something.

Okay, so if you had to guess, how many cameras are on the entire campus for all of the channels and everything

Well, so there's videos like last take hand off Lamborghini, where We put 50 people's hands on a Lamborghini and in that video We had to get like

of these so we could zoom in and monitor every hand and then if you turn the camera There's videos where we do hide-and-see sometimes with dozens of people and so they each need a handheld and then other videos We need like 50 GoPros.

I mean, we're probably up to like 250, 300 cameras, but I mean.

I'm trying to be conservative, but yeah, it's crazy.

But it's not like we're just buying them to buy them.

It's just like certain videos literally need like 50 to 60 cameras at certain times.

I just like, we just buy cameras and they sit here and then when we need them we just grab them.

Yeah, I, personally I don't like like super high quality cameras.

I prefer it to look a little more amateur.

So I've been using like these G7X's and like average stuff for like

Like you're, you know, you're trying to get into movies and stuff like that, that never works.

Okay, so I read somewhere, I think you said you've gone through a dictionary and would just like pick random words

if you can find good video ideas in there.

It works actually better than you would think.

So basically, it's not just a dictionary.

It's you, You wanna take in inspiration and then see what pops in your head.

Something you don't think I will think you're gonna say.

Mannequins, okay, well there's mannequins behind us.

Okay, so can a million mannequins stop a car?

Can 10, 000 mannequins stop a tank, right?

Or what happens, I hate to make them all the same But what if you put a million mannequins on train tracks and try to hit it with the train what happens?

know seems like something you could pull off.

I the hard part is like what makes it a good like Compelling video because exactly people will be curious, but what makes it really good is a challenge.

Well and that's the thing but the point is you take in random inspiration you see what pops in your head you write them down and then usually 1 out of every hundred is good and so that's why I like to flip through the dictionary.

All right so you know how Spotify does that rap thing every year where they'll show you like all the artists and artists you listen to the most?

If YouTube did a rap for you, who would be the most viewed channels that you watch?

This is something I think they should actually do, but.

I mean, 90% of people watching this won't even know these channels, but I love Wendover Production, Polymatter, like people that just make videos like, it sounds dumb, but like, why global shipping is easier than manufacturing domestically, or things like that.

I love learning things, because it's, I'm not helping myself here, but I don't like when I spend a couple hours on YouTube and I don't really walk away with much so I try to like really watch and click on videos that teach me stuff so when I do go on YouTube it's like all videos that I learn.

Alright so I remember when the first YouTube channel hit a million subscribers.

And then I remember the first 1 hit 10 million.

And then obviously PewDiePie got to 100 million and it's just crazy scale and just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

You've said before your goal is to hit 100 million subscribers.

I feel like you have a pretty good shot at making that happen.

How do you set goals for yourself as a creator for your channel?

Assuming you do hit 100 million, do you set another goal?

So back in the day, my goals used to be very subscriber based or view based, but 1 thing I've learned, and I think you've probably learned this as well, is like Everything you want as a YouTube creator, every freaking goal you wanna hit, whether it be subscribers, you wanna hit a million or 10 million or whatever, will come if you just make the best videos possible.

So my goal, and this is what it will be till the day I die, is to make the best YouTube videos possible.

And so If my hypothetical goal was 300 million subscribers in 10 years, that will happen if I just make the best videos possible.

If my goal is to get 50 million views a video, that will happen if I just make the best video.

Whatever it is, just focus on making the best videos possible and all these other vanity, arbitrary metrics will just fall into play.

I don't mean that in an arrogant way, but that's just kind of like the mindset you have to have.

Like, go hard and believe in yourself, you know?

Okay, so you've had a lot of interesting ideas for videos.

I wonder how many of them, You've probably said this before, but how many of them do you scrap After you started them before they're done.

Um, so Probably 1 out of every 4 videos we end up getting scrapped because like I'll give you an example, right?

Climbing a wall with plungers seems like a cool idea And then you get hundreds of plungers, you get the strongest plungers in the world, you hire engineers and you realize you can't climb a wall of plungers.

And so then it gets scrapped, or we made the world's largest cookie and we were gonna try to eat it, but then you get in the weeds and you're like, wait a minute, eating that much sugar is probably not good for you.

Yeah, and so then it's like, ah, kill it.

And so it's 1 of those things where, you know, I'm 23, I haven't done a lot of these things, and so while I'm doing it, I learn stuff, and I'm like, oh, not what I thought.

Why do you have the world's largest iPhone and I don't.

Comment down below if you think he should switch his normal phone to the world's largest iPhone for a month and vlog it.

point, you have the ability, if you want, to pick up the phone and make any video you want happen.

I mean, that's being built for the most insane ideas I've ever seen.

Yeah, well, So video specifically, it's pretty simple.

I mean, like I hate to keep coming back to this point, but that's all that matters.

What's something original, unique, blah, blah, blah, You know, that they've never seen before and that's it's kind of really it.

I mean like it's not money I don't care to make money.

You think this is profitable on a YouTube channel?

It's not money It's not really time or effort.

It's really just whatever's the best video.

That's what I want to do And I think as long as that's your standard, like everything else just falls into place as a YouTuber.

So I feel like the Squid Game's video was sort of a long time in the making.

Which by the way, if you hear background noise, it's because they're tearing down the sets of Squid Game.

We're literally in the middle of it right now.

We're in 1 of the Squid Game rooms as they're tearing down the other ones.

See all Marques Brownlee transcripts on Youtube

20 Questions with MrBeast!