By Chris Murphy
Copyright vanityfair
Impressive as it sounds, that number pales in comparison to MrBeast. The creator and designer of Saw-esque viral challenges (“Survive 30 Days Chained to Your Ex, Win $250,000”) has the most subscribers on YouTube. But even though MrBeast—real name Jimmy Donaldson—has over 1,200 times more YouTube subscribers than Hearon, Rolling Stone decided to rank Hearon one spot above MrBeast on its list of the 25 most influential creators of 2025 that the magazine published in late August. (Hearon and MrBeast came in at six and seven, respectively—both outflanked by the streamers Kai Cenat and IShowSpeed, as well as children’s entertainer Ms Rachel.)
At the time, Hearon wasn’t too pressed about it. “Every fucking publication has three of those lists per month,” he says. “They’re like, ‘Top 21 people under 31 who are giving it their all.’ No one ever pays attention to it. No one was going to read that list. I wasn’t going to share that.” But MrBeast felt differently. “According to this list a guy with 1 million followers is more influential than me,” he wrote on X, sharing Rolling Stone’s photo of Hearon. “What did I do to piss off The Rolling Stones.” MrBeast ended his post with a cry face emoji, either riffing on the outlet’s name or seemingly unaware that he misspelled Rolling Stone—which had previously featured him on the cover.
It wasn’t long before Hearon’s small but mighty army began to defend their king. “They were activated,” says Hearon. “I think they could put their weapons down. I thought it was funny. I don’t want to have that blood with anybody.” Still, his fans dragged MrBeast in viral post after viral post, with such vitriol that MrBeast eventually deleted his X post calling Hearon out.
Looking out the window at the Manhattan skyline, the comedian can’t help but laugh about the kerfuffle. MrBeast reached out to apologize, he says. “I was like, ‘Honestly, no need to apologize. When my special comes out, feel free to share it.’ Use that influence, baby. Share that special. That’s how you can help.”
That special, Model Comedian, premieres on HBO Max on Friday, September 19. In honor of its debut, Hearon chatted with us about the state of the comedy community, his painstakingly designed Holocaust joke, and why live performance still matters.
“You cannot fake standing up in front of the room and convincing them to care,” he says. “Everyone could unfollow me; AI could take every job I ever wanted. But no one can take away the ability to get up in a room and make people feel things. The robots will never be able to do that.”
Vanity Fair: You mine some pretty dark material in this special—the Holocaust, your father’s sudden death. How did you juggle the darkness and the humor?
Caleb Hearon: I hope that the special feels light and fun, but it is very dark material. I’m like, “That’s what it feels like to be alive right now.” I don’t know, babe. Everything feels so dark. You feel like you’re trying to make something pretty out of something ugly all the time. Every day I wake up and I’m like, “How am I going to be funny about the 15 bad things I read before I left the house this morning?” That’s the moment that we’re in.
I also feel like part of the issue is that we allowed ourselves to create these precious topics that no one can talk about—for good reason—and it really didn’t serve us. It went badly. Now I’m like, “We have to do something different.” The group of people I run with, this is how we’re talking about it. I really resent the fact that people have been made out to be these impossibly boring, woke scolds. I’m like, “We make way, way worse jokes than you guys do.” And they’re funnier.
On that note, one of my favorite runs in the special is when you go through basically every man in Trump’s Cabinet, calling them the F-slur and explaining why.
They are. It’s insane that we’re not talking about it more. I think I convinced HBO to run the Ron DeSantis bit as the first clip, and I think it’s a great tone-setter for the special. I’m just hoping that it can create enough of a moment that he’ll see it. That’s what I want. I just really want to get under his skin.
You have a talent for getting under people’s skin, even when you aren’t trying to. We have to talk about you skewering the Beast.
[Cackling] I’m missing public beef. It feels like in the social circles of the young entertainment industry right now, everything’s very like, “You’re amazing, girl!” “God, I love you!” “I would do fucking anything to hang out with you!” And in the group chat, it’s like, “Why the fuck were they on this list with me?” I’m like, “Put it on main.” [Laughs]
I loved it. Also, he wasn’t wrong. He has 990 million followers. I just was like, “Whatever, dude.” I thought it was funny. No ill will toward him. Shout out to MrBeast, for real. Go nuts, brother.
What was the hardest joke for you to figure out?
It was the Holocaust material. Oh my God. Honey, I worked so hard on that fucking joke. I workshopped that for a long time, because there’s so many pieces. When you first start doing it, you’re trying to figure out, How much can I get out of this? Should I keep it short? Do I go longer? Is sequential the best way to tell the story? You also have to build a lot of credibility with the audience to prove that it’s okay that I’m even doing this. It really, really, really was tricky to craft. I never bombed with it, but I definitely lost the audience many times working on it. I would just get maybe 6 out of 10 components into the joke and be like, they don’t like this, and we are not going to get them back.
Comedy seems to be at a bit of a fork in the road. On one side you have alternative, inclusive left-leaning comedians like yourself, and on the other side you have right-leaning anti-woke comedians, like the Kill Tony crew. How do you feel about the broader comedy scene?
Well, it’s totally fractured. But I think I’ve always felt very in the middle of everything. I’m gay, but then I’m fat. So that creates a distance between me and a lot of gay guys. I love trans people and I’m very leftist, but I’m from small-town Missouri. And plenty of people who love Kill Tony for some reason also love me. I don’t like Tony Hinchcliffe at all; I don’t think he’s funny. I have very little respect for many of the people on that side of things. But then there’s some people that I do love. I love [new SNL hire and Kill Tony regular] Kam Patterson.
Those guys, some of them don’t have it. Then in the same circle, you’ve got Shane Gillis, who’s one of the most technically talented stand-ups living. He’s really fucking good. I like Shane a lot. You’ve got Theo Von, who will randomly exhibit so much heart and character, and then in the next moment won’t. It’s very confusing.
I have no problem calling balls and strikes. I think Tony Hinchcliffe is a fucking hack. Joe Rogan—I’m not even worried about his politics. He’s one of the worst stand-ups I’ve ever seen. You don’t have to like my stand-up, but I’m telling you, I have seen open mic-ers on their first try do better than Joe Rogan’s last special. It’s humiliating. And you can print that.
Some people say the only way to make it as a comedian these days is to get on Saturday Night Live. Did you audition this year?
No, I’m not auditioning anymore. I would never audition to be on that show again.
There’s something that developed with that show where anyone who criticizes it seems bitter. Everyone goes, “If they called you, you’d answer.” And it’s like, in 2019 I would’ve.
When was the last time you auditioned?
The year that they hired Molly Kearney [2022]—who is amazing and wonderful.
What’s your relationship to SNL now? What do you think about the recent casting news?
Look, some of the funniest, smartest people alive currently work at that show or have worked at that show. The funniest, smartest, most charming people we have to offer line up to be put through the wringer by Lorne Michaels and offered the prize of sketch comedy. I love sketch comedy, but I’m like, baby, that schedule and working there seems like a nightmare.
We all keep dancing around what we know about that show, which is the politics of it are insane: who gets to sit where, how your sketch is decided on. I’m done not talking about it. It’s really insane that we all act like this isn’t happening when we all know that it is.
For a lot of people, it breaks their careers wide open. For a long time, it was the only place to become a star in comedy. I’m really fucking grateful that that’s not the reality anymore. I have long said the two best things that ever happened to me are that I didn’t get that show, twice. That doesn’t change the fact that it is a cultural fucking institution. Some of the shit they put out is genuinely the best comedy of the year every year; no one can deny that. I don’t think you probably have to run a sketch comedy show like the United States military.
