No one categorizes it, but there are levels to fame.[59]
If you have a million followers, you'll go out in public and occasionally take a photo. If you go to Walmart, every third time you'll take a photo. It's validating.[18] Those are the best because you're like, "Oh, I made it. These are real humans, not pixels on a screen."[59]
Then you hit 10M, and it's a whole different world. Every time you go out, you're going to take at least one photo and it’s still fun. It's manageable, but you think that's the top.[18] In most people's heads that's where it cuts off.[59]
Then you start to wonder, what do these people complain about? Fame's not that bad. But there's a big difference between 10M subscribers and 100M subscribers.[59]
At 100M, you're not taking one photo, you're taking 10, someone's following you out to your car, and occasionally someone follows you home.[59]
It doesn't feel like it's 10 times crazier, it feels like it's 30 times crazier. Not only do you have 10 times more fans but now a lot of people who aren't your fans also know you.[59]
(Also, this is .0001 percent of people. 99 percent of people I meet are super chill, just ask for a photo and it's cool. I love my fans.)[18]
I don't like leaving my studio. When I go out in public, it's brutal.[18]
On the way to Antarctica, we stopped in Chile for a few days. In the airport, I was wearing my hoodie, sunglasses just staring at the floor. I thought, “If I don't take any photos, I'll go straight to the hotel room and no one will know I'm here.” Somehow this one little kid recognized me. I said, “No photo please” and he's like “foto foto,” because they speak Spanish, and I didn't want to be mean, so I took it. I got in and out of the airport with only one photo, staring at the ground with my hood up.[18]
In the hotel room, someone sent me an article because that kid posted on social media and the local news picked up that MrBeast is in town. All of a sudden people are like, "What hotel's he staying at?"[18]
Now there's 200 people outside this hotel, some running up and down the hallways, knocking on doors trying to figure out which rooms me, Karl, and the Dream Team are in. Some are trying to camp out inside of the hotel.[18]
I asked the manager of the hotel, “Why doesn't your security control things?”
“Oh we do.”[18]
We said, “This is not a meet and greet. I'm just here while I wait for my flight to Antarctica!” Now people know I eventually have to leave and there's one airport. So I had to hire security to walk down this hotel because there's so many people. There's a sea of people waiting at the airport.[18]
Then the TSA people are like, “Oh this guy's famous, let's get him through the line because there's a mob of people…only if you come take a picture with our kids!” I'll help you skip these pictures, if you take these pictures. And I'm like, “Everybody, I'm just trying to board that plane.” Experiences like that make me seriously question, is this actually worth it?[18]
I don't like when people act like I'm a celebrity, I just want to be treated like a normal person.[12]
Every step of the way I’ve thought, “This is about as crazy as it'll get.”[18] Every year it progressively gets crazier.[59]
One time I stopped at a Target to buy a toothbrush real quick. I thought it’d take 3 seconds. I kid you not, I walked in, someone asked for a photo, I took it and went to the toothbrush aisle. When I'm checking out, another kid runs in the front door and says, "It's real."[59]
“What?”[59]
He said, “There's a Discord that tracks your location and it said you were here, but I thought it was fake.”[59]
I had him show me. So anytime someone tagged me in an Instagram photo or anything it would load it up there and people use it to figure out where I'm at. That stuff doesn't happen when you have 10 million subscribers.[59]
When you have 100 million, you're like ‘Oh this is a different league. Now, if someone wanted to kill me, there's a discord channel that tracks where I am at all times.’[59]
If you can find a way to be anonymous, you'll probably be a lot happier.[59]
Personally, I just work all day, so it doesn't bother me much. But if I was someone who had a social life and wanted to do things with my life besides work all day, I would probably be sad. For other people, that's a sad reality.[59]
At a certain point, the more famous you get, the less people see you as human. It’s a weird phenomenon. It's not as bad on YouTube because they see us in videos and relate to us. But for people who don't show their personality, it's even worse.[80]
The more famous you are, the more they'll go to extreme lengths to take a photo proving they met you, because no one will believe it otherwise. When I was 10, if I went to school and said, "I met PewDiePie," but didn’t have a photo, people would say, "Shut up. You're lying."[80]
I'm like a zoo animal in public.[80]
I always have to remind myself, even if I've already taken 200 photos: that next person doesn't know and it's not their fault I've already taken so many. All they're going to remember is that 5-second interaction, what I say, and how I am.[80]
I just think back to if I was 15 and I bumped into PewDiePie, and he's like "Hey no" and walks away. I'm not going to think, "Oh, he probably took 200 photos." I'd be sad.[80]
I always put myself in their shoes. When I am out in public, I try to always be on good behavior because I know it's going to be a big deal to them.[80]
I'm known for carrying around money, so I always have to be on guard. People have broken into my house before, so I have security at my house. No matter where I go, I'm always on.[18]
Also, if I mess up, someone's always filming me in public. I don't know what ‘messing up’ means, but you can never let your guard down.[18]
I have a couple strategies to not take photos. I'll tell you the second best because I don't want people knowing my number one. If I throw on a beanie and glasses, no one recognizes me. I have never worn a beanie in a video. If I cover up my bangs and then throw on shades, the amount of photos go down by 95%. If I really don't want to take a photo, I'll cover up my facial hair too. Then it's just some tall white guy.[78]
Back then, I would have been like, ‘What’s a couple of photos? Famous people are divas!” Now, I get it. I have about 5 minutes after the first selfie until I have to leave a place or cause a mob scene. At airports, I hide in a bathroom stall or ask a restaurant if I can sit in its kitchen until my buddies get to the front of the line so I can join them. My solution for all this is I just don’t go in public much. Problem solved.[63]
The easiest way to get people to subscribe is to tell them. If your video gets a million views and you don't say to subscribe, you might on average get a couple thousand subscribers.[19]
But if you say, "Hey you should subscribe, right now!" then a lot of people who wouldn't have because they didn't think about it are now thinking about it. You might convert 10,000-20,000.[19]