Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (2024)

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Charissa Cheong

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (1)

  • Matthew Beem is a 25-year-old YouTuber whose content focuses on building giant props.
  • Beem's channel has rapidly grown, and he gained 1.2 million subscribers in a six-month window.
  • Insider spoke to Beem about finding online fame and working with prominent YouTubers like MrBeast.

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Colorado-based YouTuber Matthew Beem has risen to fame on the platform over the last year.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (2)

Sometimes, 25-year-old YouTuber Matthew Beem is so shocked by how much his following has grown that he wants to "pinch" himself.

Beem, who grew up in Colorado, has gone from filming his shoe collection for a small following of hundreds of people, to collaborating with some of the biggest names on YouTube, like MrBeast, KSI, and FaZe Banks.

He now has 1.8 million YouTube subscribers.

The influencer initially saw a relatively slow growth on YouTube, gaining under 20,000 subscribers a year after he began posting on his current channel in 2019, according to analytics tracker Social Blade.

However, his videos started to blow up in September 2021, when he rapidly gained more than 1.2 million subscribers over the following six months.

Beem told Insider how, against all odds, he fulfilled his dream of becoming a YouTuber.

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Before he was popular on YouTube, Beem painted cars for a living.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (3)

Between 2014 and 2015, when Beem was 18 years old, he got a minimum-wage job washing cars, and over the course of seven years, he gradually worked his way up in the company, learning how to paint custom vehicles.

Beem told Insider he had aspirations to become a YouTuber early on in life, so took the job as a way to make money while creating videos.

"When I graduated high school, I knew I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to instantly start working and saving up money so I could eventually invest in a YouTube channel," he said.

After working at the company for more than four years, Beem said he was promoted to head painter, and would work from 5am to 5pm during the day before going home to film YouTube videos at night.

He told Insider he only quit his job in January after his "channel started to do really well," becoming a full-time content creator.

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The influencer said he has been making YouTube videos since 2010.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (4)

Beem told Insider he has had a passion for filmmaking from a young age, and also enjoyed watching YouTube in his childhood and teenage years.

"When I was like 10 years old, instead of watching regular TV, I'd watch YouTube all day, of people playing video games like 'Minecraft' and 'Call of Duty.'"

A few years later, Beem said he was inspired by YouTube's "vlog-era," characterized by creators like Casey Niestat and Logan Paul, who would post regular video updates that showed viewers how they lived day-to-day.

The influencer said in 2010, he began posting clips of himself playing "Call of Duty." Insider could not find these clips in the public domain and Beem said they were likely uploaded to one of many now-defunct channels he created.

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Beem initially saw slow growth on YouTube, saying it took him three years to gain his first 100 subscribers.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (5)

Beem told Insider that it was challenging trying to gain subscribers on YouTube early on.

"It took me like three years to get 100 subscribers, and half of them were my family," he said.

"It's so hard at the beginning, you know. You're putting so much time into these videos, and they might get like one or two views. It's definitely a long road," he added.

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Beem started posting basketball-inspired content on his current YouTube channel in 2019.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (6)

After Beem left high school, he launched his current YouTube channel called "Matthew Beem," in January 2018.

He started posting content in 2019, initially centered around hislove of streetwear, where he would show viewers his sneaker collection and talk them through how much he spent on various pairs. He also posted challenge-style videos where he and his friends would try to buy a streetwear outfit with a limited amount of time and money.

Beem told Insider his early content was inspired by his interest in basketball, a sport he played while growing up.

"Within the culture of playing basketball, shoes play such a big part, so I've always loved sneakers. And then once I started my job, I really got into a phase of collecting sneakers, and I also liked making content about it," he said.

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Within a year, Beem pivoted more towards lifestyle content on YouTube.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (7)

Beem said that after posting videos about his sneaker collection, he eventually felt inspired to make content that was more "broad."

"I wanted to be able to pivot and do travel and stuff like that," he told Insider.

In late 2019, Beem started posting more lifestyle content, such as extreme eating challenges, travel vlogs, and prank videos, on his channel.

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After Beem made a video with popular creator MrBeast, his channel suddenly blew up.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (8)

Throughout 2020, Beem posted several videos about popular YouTuber MrBeast, who currently has 96 million subscribers and is one of the most-viewedandhighest-paidcreators on the platform.

Beem did not know MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, personally at the time, but he used the YouTuber's name in various video titles, such as, "I Covered My House With MrBeast's Face," and "Asking MrBeast to give me $100,000"

On July 27, 2021, Beem posted a YouTube video titled, "I Surprised MrBeast with a Custom Car!"

In the video, Beem filmed himself using skills learned from his car painting job to customize a Smart car for Donaldson, in celebration of the launch of the YouTuber's new burger chain, MrBeast Burger.

Beem, who had 19,000 subscribers at the time according to analytics tracker Social Blade, told Insider he spent a month customizing and wrapping the car, and drove it to North Carolina, where he knew Donaldson was based, to try and convince the YouTuber to accept the car in a video with him.

Beem told Insider one of Donaldson's producers had initially turned down a pitch for a collaboration that Beem sent them, saying that Donaldson was too busy to take up the opportunity. Beem said he decided to pursue his video idea to surprise Donaldson and his team.

"I bought a Smart car without asking them because I figured that it's a lot easier to say no to an idea rather than an amazing thing that's already done."

When Beem drove to North Carolina, he said he called Donaldson's producers, who agreed to let him present the car to Donaldson in a video. The video now has 4.5 million views on the platform.

Representatives for Donaldson did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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Beem said he took a big risk with his car-themed videos, spending around $50,000 to customize a car for Logan Paul.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (9)

In September 2020, Beem posted a video titled, "I Spent Thousands on Logan Paul!," which now has 12,000 views on YouTube.

Beem told Insider that Logan Paul gave away his old car to a fan, and Beem contacted the fan so he could "paint it amazingly" and give it back to him in a video.

According to Beem, the video ended up costing around $50,000 to make, because someone crashed into the car during the process and he had to pay to get it fixed. He also said he took out a $20,000 loan, which was seen by Insider, to help fund the idea.

"All the money I saved went into that and more because I took out loans for this massive risk. I was getting like 50 views a video and haven't really seen any success at that point. But I just really believed in it and wanted to take that jump."

A few months after Beem's YouTube videos about MrBeast and Logan Paul went live, he said his channel "got some traction," and a similar video he posted in January 2022, called "I built Logan Paul a car!" has 3.2 million views on the platform.

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Beem gained 1.2 million subscribers over a six-month period starting in late 2021, skyrocketing to YouTube fame.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (10)

Beem's subscriber count grew dramatically after he posted his car videos, gaining more than 130,000 subscribers from September to October 2021, according to Social Blade.

The website shows that over the next six months, from October to March, Beem was able to gain more than 1.2 million subscribers, and currently has 1.8 million subscribers on the platform.

Beem hit the one million subscriber mark in February and told Insider he was in the middle of filming a challenge to stay inside a room for 50 hours when he got the news.

"It was awesome because all my team and family and friends ran in there, and I just cried like crazy. I couldn't do anything besides that," he said.

The YouTuber continued, "I had so many amazing people there and we watched the countdown and freaked out together. It's definitely one of the best moments in my life."

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More recently, Beem has developed a niche in building large props for other YouTubers in videos

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (11)

Some of Beem's most popular videos involve him showing behind-the-scenes footage building large-scale objects. He has made Minecraft models, a giant toilet seat, and huge boxing gloves in videos that have accumulated more than 12 million views in total.

Occasionally, Beem has presented these large objects to YouTubers in his videos, such as when he rebuilt a version of the doll from the Netflix show "Squid Game" for a collaboration with MrBeast, or when he built giant bottles of Prime, an energy drink produced by Logan Paul and British YouTuber KSI, before presenting them to KSI at the end of the video.

Beem said he stumbled on this YouTube niche by "accident," after he posted a video in August 2021 involving a large Minecraft statue that he built, without showing viewers the process of how he built it. Fans on Twitter and YouTube began saying they wanted the YouTuber to show footage of how he made the prop, he said.

"They wanted to see how we did it, and we didn't show it really at all. Me and my friends that built it were like, 'no way they want to see it, it's super boring. It's just us using a bunch of screws and going to the hardware store.'"

Beem told Insider that because fans kept requesting they show behind-the-scenes footage, they built an even bigger Minecraft statue to showcase how it was built in a video posted in September. "That was actually my first video to hit a million views," he told Insider.

The YouTuber said it typically takes thousands of hours and a team of 10 people to create these large-scale building projects.

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Beem said he has developed a friendship with MrBeast over the last year.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (12)

Beem, who told Insider that Donaldson was his "biggest inspiration" on YouTube, has collaborated with the influencer several times since the pair's first video together in July last year.

Beem built a giant bar of chocolate in celebration of Donaldson's line of chocolate products, called Feastables, in a video posted in February 2022, and the pair were both involved in a vlog-style video on Beem's channel titled, "MrBeast Challenged Me to Uber Across America," posted in August 2021.

Beem described Donaldson as "a great friend," adding "I've learned a lot from him. He's always really nice to share information with and just chat and have fun," he said.

He told Insider he sometimes texts Donaldson to ask for advice about videos he's working on, and Donaldson has also asked Beem for his opinion on potential video thumbnails in the past.

"To be able to have that relationship with him and all the other amazing people I've met, it's just unreal," Beem said.

Representatives for Donaldson did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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Beem said he wants to keep growing his YouTube channel and presence on other social media platforms.

Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (13)

Beem said that even though he has found huge amounts of success with his current videos, he still has weekly meetings with his team to think of "bigger risks and bigger projects" that can grow his following even more.

He also said he wants to focus more on posting content on other social media platforms, like TikTokand Instagram, on which he already has accounts, because he wants to "challenge" himself to increase his following outside of YouTube.

Currently, Beem has 44,000 Instagram followers and 670,000 TikTok followers.

Overall Beem said it has felt "amazing" to achieve such rapid growth on YouTube, but ultimately, "Even if the channel wasn't doing as well, I would still be doing it because I just have a passion for making videos."

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.

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Meet Matthew Beem, the 25-year-old YouTuber who skyrocketed to 1.8 million subscribers after a decade trying to make it as an influencer (2024)
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