RISING STARS.

• Author: Mildenberg, David

About five years ago, our former colleague Taylor Wanbaugh mentioned how much her younger brother enjoyed the zany YouTube videos of a 20-year-old guy from Greenville. We looked and were amazed at the creativity of MrBeast, so Taylor wrote a short story about his popularity.

My hunch was that Jimmy Donaldson, who then had more than 1 million YouTube subscribers, would extend his 15 minutes of fame for a bit longer, then move on to more conventional pursuits.

Wrong, like usual.

MrBeast keeps getting more popular, churning out a steady stream of bizarre, entertaining videos of mind-boggling competitions and charitable efforts. For a couple of years, we wanted to produce a strong story on the MrBeast phenomenon, but we struggled to find a writer enthused enough to take a deeper look at the creative Pitt County resident, knowing that he probably wouldn't talk with us. Profiles in Rolling Stone and the New York Times in the past two years included some negative comments that evidendy made him more distrustful of the media.

Fortunately, our columnist and part-time UNC Chapel Hill journalism instructor Dan Barkin connected us with a talented writer with an unlimited future. Noelle Norene Harff is a Colorado native and a sophomore at Chapel Hill with a passion for journalism and finance. As one might expect of a sharp collegian, she has a keen understanding of the internet. Like Taylor, she has a younger brother who grooves on MrBeast, apparently like almost every other teenage boy in the world.

Noelle produced this months cover story, which delves into how the graduate of Greenville Christian Academy became a global YouTube celebrity attracting millions of dollars in marketing support. A key reason, Noelle reports, is that Donaldson, 24, has remained rooted in eastern North Carolina and passionate about helping others.

He says he wants to be the...