How MrBeast Became the Willy Wonka of YouTube - The New York Times

It seems New York Times Magazine has discovered MrBeast!

Donaldson has built a YouTube empire on this kind of quasi philanthropy, in which he crafts spectacles around surprise cash giveaways ("Giving a Random Homeless Man $10,000"), contests with expensive prizes ("Last to Leave $800,000 Island Keeps It") and other lavish, if not particularly sensible, gifts ("Tipping Waitresses With Real Gold Bars"). The phenomenal popularity of these videos has made him a superstar by any measure and cemented his reputation as a secular saint among the YouTube faithful, but it has also left him open to the criticism that his generosity is more calculated than heartfelt -- another audience-development strategy alongside the garish thumbnails and finely tuned video titles.

This is a decent overview of MrBeast and his continually growing YouTube "empire".