YouTuber MrBeast - who is credited with popularizing a genre of videos that focuses on pricey stunts - has apparently helped cure blindness for 1,000 people.
The 24-year-old, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, took to the popular video-sharing platform over the weekend to reveal that he'd be paying for cataract removal for 1,000 people who could not afford it.
"We're curing a thousand people's blindness," Donaldson said in the video, which has received 47 million views since Monday (January 30).
The clip features before and after footage of people who'd had their vision restored after the surgery. MrBeast also gave some of the participants up to $10,000 in cash, as well as gifts.
Donaldson is the biggest earner on YouTube, with Forbes detailing that he earned an estimated $54 million in 2021. His team reportedly gave Dr. Jeff Levenson, a Florida-based ophthalmologist and surgeon, a call in September 2022 along with a list containing the names of people who needed surgery but couldn't afford it.
Dr. Levenson told CNN: "Half of all blindness in the world is people who need a 10-minute surgery." He then revealed that he'd felt compelled to help others get the surgery once he'd had his own.
"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," he told the outlet.
He ended up revealing that the act of goodwill almost hadn't happened, adding: "I had never heard of MrBeast [...] So I almost hung up. But I gratefully did not hang up."
The UK's National Health Service has described cataracts as occurring when the lens, a small transparent disc inside your eye, develops cloudy patches. However, as people age, these patches usually become bigger causing blurry, misty vision and eventually blindness. Younger people can usually see through the lens as if it was clear glass, but they can end up like frosted glass with age, and this prohibits our vision.
According to Yahoo! News, Dr. Levenson performed cataract correction surgeries on 40 people in an 11-hour time span, and also connected MrBeast and his team to SEE International, an organization that gives free eyecare to people around the world.
"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," he declared.
MrBeast is known for his expensive stunts and earned the title of 'YouTube's biggest philanthropist' by 2018 after giving away $1 million in a series of stunts.