People have worked out the staggering amount MrBeast spent to ‘cure 1,000 people’s blindness’
The internet has managed to work out the insane amount of money MrBeast spent to cure blindness for 1,000 people.
Jimmy Donaldson – a YouTuber who goes by the name MrBeast – uploaded a video this week titled: “Curing 1,000 people’s blindness.”
In it, the 24-year-old partnered up with Dr. Jeff Levenson, a Florida-based ophthalmologist and surgeon, who performed cataract correction surgeries on a list of people MrBeast gave him in September 2022.
Dr. Levenson ended up getting through 40 surgeries in just 11 hours, later stating: “If MrBeast can light a fire, and if we can get governmental and private support behind it, we can end half of all the blindness in the world. Without all that much cost, and with incredible gains in human productivity and human potential.”
Speaking to CNN, Dr. Levenson explained that the procedure is super fast, and is pushing for greater access to it since he had his own cataract correction surgery.
“Half of all blindness in the world is people who need a 10-minute surgery,” he said, adding: “In the days and weeks after my own cataract surgery, I was stunned by how bright and beautiful, and vivid the world was. But I was shocked by the idea that there are hundreds of millions, probably 200 million people around the world, who are blind or nearly blind from cataracts and who don’t have access to the surgery.”
MrBeast is known for his expensive stunts and earned the title of ‘YouTube’s biggest philanthropist’ in 2018 after giving away $1 million in a series of stunts. He’s also the biggest earner on YouTube, with Forbes detailing that he earned an estimated $54 million in 2021.
Following the release of the well-intentioned video, MrBeast unfortunately received backlash from some viewers. One person even tweeted at the time: “You are not, & will never be, the last rich person to use their wealth to also buy them social capital, while demanding your position grants you to be worshipped by uncritical impoverished people. Youre [sic] not special, you’re literally textbook rich white man with a god complex.”
MrBeast eventually responded to the criticism with his own tweet: “Twitter – Rich people should help others with their money. Me – Okay, I’ll use my money to help people and I promise to give away all my money before I die. Every single penny. Twitter – MrBeast bad.”
Since the backlash has died down over the past few days, however, some people have taken it upon themselves to calculate just how much money would have been spent on the surgeries.
One Twitter user wrote that the estimate would have been around $5 million, tweeting: “bro really spent 5m on this. mrbeast is different.”
Someone else added that it could possibly be even higher at a whopping $8 million, given that MrBeast also gave certain patients expensive gifts and cash. “If we add the things he gifted and that the 5mill are an estimate, he probably spend 8mill on one video,” they wrote.
Despite the initial backlash from his video, it’s clear MrBeast is using his platform for all the right reasons. After all, there’s enough drama and toxicity on the internet already.
