YouTube creator Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, has built a large following through stunts and philanthropic challenges. But a striking revelation during the premiere stream of Beast Games Season 2 on 6 January 2026 suggests he may be on the brink of preparing for a radical pivot, one that could see his signature long-form videos take a back seat.
BREAKING MrBeast just revealed to Jasontheween that he is GIVING UP on Youtube to pursue Streaming full time 😱👀 pic.twitter.com/Vx36eJ8bi0
— korza ✗ (@korzawyd) January 7, 2026
The Strategic Shift Behind MrBeast Short-Form Dominance
The evolution of social media has reached a tipping point where the 'quick fix' of vertical video is outperforming the cinematic epics that made MrBeast a household name.
Speaking to fans, Donaldson explained that the industry he entered is unrecognisable today. 'If you look at the landscape four years ago, TikTok wasn't big. There were no YouTube Shorts, no Instagram Reels. The biggest stars were long-form creators,' he remarked.
The motivation behind this potential exit from full-time long-form YouTube is, unsurprisingly, financial. Platforms are aggressively re-engineering their algorithms to favour bite-sized content because that is where the profit lies. As MrBeast put it: 'YouTube makes more money off of uh per minute of people watching shorts than they do long form. That's a public thing they've said. So they're more incentivised to funnel people to shorts because they make more money. And shorts is doing over isn't it like 200 billion views a day, it's going to grow to a trillion. Instagram makes more money off of Reels than they do off of in like normal feed stuff. So they're funnelling people to Reels.'
This shift isn't just a whim; it is a calculated response to a creator economy that is being funnelled toward short-form vertical videos. With Shorts already generating billions of views daily, the incentives for a creator of MrBeast's stature to pivot are becoming impossible to ignore.
Building Empires At Breakneck Speed: The IShowSpeed Phenomenon
If MrBeast represents the established guard adapting to change, Darren 'IShowSpeed' Watkins Jr. is the living embodiment of the new, high-velocity digital age. At just 19 years old, the Cincinnati native has shattered records with over 45 million subscribers.
His meteoric rise from a bedroom streamer playing Fortnite and NBA 2K to a global icon is a testament to the power of the 'live' moment.
IShowSpeed's breakthrough came when he took his energy to the streets, transforming the 'In Real Life' (IRL) streaming genre. His crowning moment occurred in 2024, when a record-breaking livestream in Indonesia pulled in over 1 million concurrent viewers.
'When I reached that moment, I just started crying,' he shared, reflecting on the 2023 Streamer of the Year win that validated his early struggles with 'one or two viewers'.
Redefining The Future Of The MrBeast Brand
Despite the talk of stepping back, Jimmy Donaldson remains a record-breaking machine. His Beast Games reality show dominated 2025, netting a staggering 44 Guinness World Records. Perhaps the most notable was the largest cash prize in reality TV history, a cool $5 million.
Holding over 380 million subscribers, Donaldson's secret remains a mixture of relentless work and psychological resilience. 'I enjoy doing things that people have never seen or done, so the records are just one way to keep me inspired,' he noted.
His advice to the next generation is simple but stark: 'My advice is to keep failing until you succeed. We keep trying until we're successful.'
As YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels become the primary revenue drivers, the 'Beast' brand appears to be heading toward a future that is vertical, short, and even more profitable.
Whether he officially retires his long-form camera or simply integrates it into a larger short-form strategy, one thing is certain: the era of the 20-minute YouTube epic is under threat from its own architect.
