MrBeast, the world’s most prominent YouTuber, reacted To online criticism after a video — in which he paid for 1,000 people to receive eye surgery — sparked criticism among some viewers.
The YouTuber, Jimmy Donaldson, uploaded the video on January 28, and it received 59 million views in only three days.
“In this video, we’re curing 1,000 people’s blindness,” Donaldson could be heard saying at the beginning of the video as he was encircled by a large crowd.
Donaldson helped 1000 people get sight-restoring cataract surgery and filmed the patients’ reactions afterward. The YouTuber interviewed Jeff Levenson, an ophthalmologist, and surgeon he worked with, who said: “Half of all the blindness in the world is people who need a 10-minute surgery.”
A subsequent Instagram post from a nonprofit organization SEE International — who Donaldson collaborated with on the project — stated that the organization performed 1,000 surgeries across the globe over a three-week period for the video. According to the nonprofit MyVision.org, cataract surgery costs an average of $3,500 per eye.
