Soon after Threads was launched, a famous US-based YouTuber named MrBeast became the first user to achieve one million followers, surpassing the app’s developer Mark Zuckerberg.
The brand new social media app with text-based chat feature to rival Twitter went live on July 5 and grabbed headlines by garnering over 22 million sign-ups soon after the app was launched.
One of the first Guinness World Records for the app was set by Jimmy Donaldson, the real name of a YouTuber who quickly gained a huge number of followers.
It wasn’t the first account to do so, but others were from companies like Instagram and National Geographic, so technically it wasn’t the first.
In just three posts, Mr.Beast racked up one million followers, according to his Threads bio, which calls him the “Future Threads CEO.”
His first post soon after the app went live read: “Awesome, how long until we too get hooked on this app? Lol.”
He also invited his fans to like a post if they think Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg should make him CEO of the app.
“I feel like cheating on Twitter by using this app,” joked MrBeast.
The newly launched meta-app Threads was marketed as a “friendly” alternative to Twitter, which has experienced some setbacks since SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk took control.
Similar to Twitter, users can post links, photos, and videos, and others can like, comment on, and share those posts with their followers. A maximum of 500 characters can be used in the post.
To further simplify things for new users, the app lets them sign up using Instagram, import their profile pictures and bios from the photo-sharing application, and even follow them all with a single click. Enables those they already follow on Instagram.
As per reports, 2 billion active Instagram accounts are the reason why Threads attracted over 22 million users from its database in the first few hours of its launch.
Zuckerberg, the second person to reach 1 million Threads followers, wrote in a post: “The goal is to keep it compatible as it expands. I think it’s possible and will ultimately be the key to its success. That’s one reason why Twitter will never hasn’t been as successful as I think it should be, and we want to do it differently.”
MrBeast, who is credited with creating a category of YouTube videos focused on expensive challenges and stunts, has a huge fan base across all social media platforms.
Apart from having 165 million YouTube subscribers, he has 38.5 million Instagram followers.
MrBeast also holds two other Guinness World Records: the most male subscribers on YouTube and the highest-grossing YouTube contributor (to date), with earnings of $54 million (£40 million) in 2021.
