Are You Watching? How Matthew Beem Became Colorado’s Biggest YouTube Star

Matthew Beem drove toward North Carolina with a video camera and a pink-and-blue Smart car covered in giant French fries. He didn’t know exactly where he was going. He didn’t have an address or even a city in mind. But he knew who he was looking for: YouTube star MrBeast.

Over a decade into his own YouTube career, Beem had little to show for it.

The Colorado Springs native had been posting videos religiously since he was thirteen. After graduating from Mesa Ridge High School in 2015, Beem didn’t go to college, choosing instead to work at his father’s auto-body repair shop, washing cars and cleaning toilets to fund his video shoots. He tried doing Call of Duty gaming montages, sneaker reviews, eating challenges, vlogs. Nothing seemed to land.

Beem’s view-count milestones are proudly displayed on the wall: one million views for a video building a massive Minecraft statue, ten million views for a video creating Squid Game props for MrBeast, and 100 million views for a video filling a house with water to make a giant fish tank.

But the name plate on his office door reads “Matthew A. Beem: painter,” a souvenir from his days at the now-closed Beem’s Collision auto shop. In addition to the framed articles reporting on his YouTube exploits is a local newspaper feature on the shop from 2017, with a front-page photo of Beem repairing a hail-damaged vehicle.

“I pinch myself all the time,” Beem says.

“I’m really happy that it took me so long, because I was ready for the moment,” Beem says. “When my friends were in their freshman year of college, no one was asking them, ‘Hey, why aren’t you a doctor yet?’ It takes time, obviously. If I was going to be one of the best YouTubers in the world, it was going to take time. Uploading was my schooling.”

Beem has always taken his craft that seriously. Even at fourteen, during his Call of Duty phase, Beem says he hired an editor for his videos and spent family vacations on the phone stressing about his upload schedule.

These days, Beem’s operation is much larger. His most expensive video to date reportedly cost $250,000 to produce, including payroll, construction and explosives used to blow up a mini village outside of Fort Collins. Beem says his company generates around $2 million per year from brand deals and ad revenue. Last year, it made approximately $120,000 in profit; most of the money goes back into the videos and employees, according to Beem, who says he often does not receive a paycheck himself.

A Deal With Disney

Disney recently bought out Beem’s catalog for an undisclosed amount, and is streaming the videos on Disney+ and Hulu. Beem says he is also working with Disney on a potential original show.

Despite his successes, Beem’s methodical approach to content creation has attracted criticisms from some who call it “soulless” and algorithm-focused, or say it’s a fame-seeking copy of MrBeast. Beem compares it to emulating the style of famous athletes when learning to play sports. He’s willing to shift the subjects of his videos as trends change — from surviving fifty hours in various locations, to building giant items, to now constructing hidden rooms — because to Beem, the appeal seems to be the process of making videos rather than the specific content within them. He traces his current career to his pre-YouTube ambitions of becoming a director and filming camcorder videos as a young child.

Leading the YouTube channel is a 24/7 job. Beem says he works seven days a week; his spokesperson reports that Beem has taken just two days off in the last nine months. In order to film with the biggest creators on the planet — including the likes of IShowSpeed, KSI and David Dobrik — Beem’s schedule is always in flux. While meeting with Westword in Colorado Springs, Beem was unsure if he had to be in Chicago the very next day.

Beem says the non-stop work never feels like too much, but more “like I’m doing a passion project every day.”

“It’s hard to quit something that you love. One time, a kid came up to me at a convention and asked for advice because he was thinking about quitting YouTube. It’s kind of crazy, but I told him, ‘You probably should quit,’ because I never thought about quitting.”

— Matthew Beem

He has become a certified hometown celebrity, and he works hard to live up to that reputation.

Beem has collaborated with several local organizations for his YouTube videos, including filming at Colorado Springs businesses, building a luxury dog hotel for the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region, and building a hidden gaming room at a middle school, which he says is now used as a sensory room. In his latest YouTube upload, Beem remodeled rooms in community members’ homes, knocking on random doors to see who would take him up on the offer.

Beem says he is currently working on a project with Children’s Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs.

“This is where my heart is,” Beem says. “I’m the biggest hype man for Colorado and Colorado Springs. It’s cool to be able to do that.”

While other internet stars like Sommer Ray and Jake Warden are also from Colorado, they relocated once they made it big, which is common in the industry. But Beem remains in his hometown — and in his mother’s basement.

“When I was younger, I always wanted to move to L.A. But once I started to have success and travel to all these amazing places, every time I would land in the Denver airport, I would feel at home and feel at peace,” Beem says. “Being an influencer can become extremely lonely, because people only approach you for certain reasons. It feels really good to go home and see my mom and sister and be reminded who I am.”

A Serious Business With Serious Success

Beem has spoken at numerous local schools, talking to students about the realities of being a YouTuber. Today, more than 30 percent of children aged twelve to fifteen say they want to become professional YouTubers, making it the top career aspiration among Generation Alpha, according to a report from the social commerce platform Whop. The second-most-sought-after job is TikToker, at 21 percent.

YouTube’s heavy influence on children has stirred public debate. In March, a jury found YouTube liable for designing the platform to be addictive for children and teens without concern for the harm to their mental health. Individual child-facing YouTubers have also come under fire, including some with whom Beem associates. Logan Paul, a repeat subject of Beem’s videos, has been called out for filming the dead body of an apparent suicide victim, tasering dead rats, and advertising his energy drink to kids. Jake Paul has been accused of sexual assault, racism and terrorizing his neighbors, leading to Paul being ousted from his Disney show. Even MrBeast has attracted controversy from critics who say he financially exploits his young audience, most recently after he acquired a banking app designed for teens and young adults, inspiring concern from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Beem says he feels the pressure of having so many young eyes on him. It influences everything, from how he responds to road rage when driving to the kind of brand deals he accepts. He turned down a six-figure offer from a gambling platform because he didn’t want to promote gambling to his audience, Beem notes.

“I take the situation seriously,” he says. “I’d like to say I’m a good person, so I just try to make the best decisions I can. …This life puts a microscope on who you are. It makes a bad person worse and a good person even better.”

Beem aspires to become the biggest YouTuber in the world, surpassing his friend and idol, MrBeast. He says he told MrBeast that he was coming for his spot on the very first day they met, back when Beem only had 17,000 subscribers.

Though he still has a ways to go, Beem sometimes feels like he achieved his dream long ago.

“I remember hitting 100,000 subscribers,” he recalls. “I was driving by the Cheyenne Mountain World Arena, where my high school graduation ceremony was. I was vlogging. I counted down: ten, nine — and then when I hit six, I couldn’t even talk. I was just crying like crazy. That was a lot for me. …It really felt like I made the right decision. I did it.”