MrBeast has overtaken T-Series as the biggest YouTube channel in a long-running battle for the most subscribers, the BBC reported on Monday.

Indian music label T-Series, which uploads trailers and music videos, held the record for the largest YouTube channel for five years, before it was toppled on Sunday.

MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, was already the individual with the largest following. But the 26-year-old has now made history on the platform with a seemingly unassailable 269 million subscribers, dethroning T-Series and putting him head and shoulders above everything else.

Across nearly 800 videos MrBeast has made a name for himself with massive stunts — including giving away private islands, being buried alive, and staging a real-life version of the Netflix hit Squid Game.

In a post on X, MrBeast said he had finally “avenged” YouTube star Felix Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie, in surpassing T-Series’ 266m subscriber count.

In a follow-up post, MrBeast said his channel took the record with its largest ever daily spike in subscribers, which rose by more than 2 million on Saturday.

T-Series originally set the record in 2019 by overtaking PewDiePie — to which the Swedish YouTuber said “all it took was a massive corporate entity with every song in Bollywood” in a music video explaining his defeat.

MrBeast becoming the most subscribed-to individual and channel on YouTube means he has extended his grip, and wealth, on the platform even further. He has several other channels dedicated to his gaming, philanthropy and reactions to other content - accounting for tens of millions of subscribers each.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2024