American shopping-mall foot traffic falling as MrBeast's subscriber count rises. The teenager who would have been at the mall in 2016 is, in 2022, watching a YouTube stunt video instead. Two graphs of the same generation allocated differently.
US shopping-mall foot traffic declined steadily across this window as e-commerce grew, anchor-store closures accelerated, and the mall format lost its 1980s-1990s default-leisure status. MrBeast YouTube subscribers grew from about 14 million in 2016 to over 200 million by 2024 as the philanthropy-and-stunt format scaled. Two completely unrelated lines on opposite trajectories sharing a window because the same six years moved teenage attention from physical retail to a single creator's empire.
Attention moved venues. The mall lost what one creator gained. Two completely different rooms, same audience.
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Want to learn more about why correlations like “Shopping mall foot traffic” vs “MrBeast YouTube subscribers” don't prove causation? Read our guide to statistical thinking.
