By Lauren Greenslet
MrBeast has set out to complete what might be YouTube’s most ambitious project to date. Planting 20,000,000 trees.
On October 25, 2019, Jimmy Donaldson, a popular YouTube personality known as MrBeast, posted a video titled, “Planting 20,000,000 Trees, My Biggest Project Ever!” In the video, he addresses that tons and tons of his fans had been reaching out and contacting him about planting trees for a video idea, specifically for hitting his 20,000,000 subscriber mark. Donaldson, who’s known for his epic and over the top challenge videos, took on the demand for foliage. He explains how he realized the importance of the project, not only to his fans but the actual Earth, for him to do this and to make a difference in the environment. Donaldson briefly describes how much impact the environment has had on us and how we’ve had just as much impact, multiplied. One of the other main reasons the influencer wanted to do this challenge wasn’t only to make up for the devastation and loss of trees recently but to also show that his generation, Gen Z, isn’t just about “retweet activism.” “Retweet activism” is where someone will tweet something, it goes viral, but yet nothing happens about it. He was determined to break that stereotype.
Donaldson realized what he needed to do and sent out a tweet requesting a little bit of back up for the project. At the end of the day, he and his friends, along with fans and community members in the area, had planted a total of 1,700 trees in an empty field. In the end of the video, he announces that he’s partnered with the largest tree-planting non-profit, the Arbor Day Foundation. Together, they created a website to kick off what’s known as the #TeamTrees challenge. For every dollar donated to #TeamTrees, one tree is planted. His goal is to get 20,000,000 trees planted and growing by the start of the new year in 2020. Through this challenge, Donaldson and Arbor Day are encouraging fans and supporters around the globe to help make up for some of the devastating effects we as humans and natural disasters have caused on or planet.
After the video was posted, loads of support came flooding in. YouTube stars, celebrities, CEO’s, and regular people came together to donate. Influencers, such as Jeffree Star and Theodd1sout, have been donating more than $10,000. Elon Musk donated $1 million. Tobi Lutke one-upped Musk by donating $1,000,001. Streamers from different platforms are coming together doing streams in honor of the challenge and to encourage everyone to contribute to the cause. It’s been two weeks since the video was posted to Donaldson’s channel on YouTube and they’ve already raised over $15 million which translates to over 15 million trees planted. It’s predicted that the goal will be reached even before the year is over and may even go over the planned amount.
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