Mr. Beat

The English used in this article or section may not be easy for everybody to understand. You can help Wikipedia by reading Wikipedia:How to write Simple English pages, then simplifying the article. (July 2026)

Matthew Alan Beat (born November 6, 1981), better known as Mr. Beat, is an American Internet personality, educator, and author. At first a social studies teacher in Kansas, he became a YouTuber. His account was created in 2009, and he has been making videos since 2011.

Beat focuses on talking about the politics, geography, and economics of the United States. He is best known for his Mr. Beat Presents: Presidential Elections in American History series, which offers small summaries of each American presidential election. Outside of his work as a YouTuber, he has been an activist for increasing the number of congressional districts in the House of Representatives, and has written two non-fiction books about American politics.

Matthew Alan Beat^[1] was born on November 6, 1981^[2] in Topeka, Kansas, and was raised in Augusta, Kansas.^[3] He graduated from Augusta High School in 2000.^[4] Beat was born into the Catholic Church.^[5] He graduated from the University of Kansas in 2004 and the University of Nebraska Omaha in 2009 with degrees in journalism and education. He received a Master's Degree in history from Emporia State University in 2017.^[source?]

Until 2021, Beat was a high school social studies teacher at Blue Valley High School^[6] in Overland Park, Kansas and then Tonganoxie High School^[7] in Tonganoxie, Kansas. While at Tonganoxie High School, Beat and his students asked U.S. President Barack Obama to visit the school in 2015, but did not succeed.^[8] In 2021, Beat left classroom teaching for a job as a YouTuber.^[9]

Beat's first YouTube channel was for his band Electric Needle Room, which he created with his brother, Steven. The band is after for a joke in The Simpsons episode "Little Big Mom". He began posting live performances and music videos from the band in 2006. Electric Needle Room continue to perform live and release music.^[source?]

Beat's best-known and most popular channel was created in August 2009. At first named "Mr. Beat's Social Studies Channel", it was shortened to "Mr. Beat". Beat posts a large variety of videos on the channel, mostly about United States government and history - especially United States presidents. He has created several video series, such as Compared, Social Studies Songs, Supreme Court Briefs, Story Time With Mr. Beat, and Presidential Elections In American History, the latter of which was made into a book in 2020,^[10] with an updated version about the 2020 and 2024 elections released in 2024.

Beat is keen on the history of the U.S. presidency, with songs about all of the former presidents and a series about every presidential election in American history. He also sometimes makes historical parody songs and original history songs for Electric Needle Room, occasionally with other people.^[11] Also, Beat runs a second channel, "The Beat Goes On", where he mainly focuses on videos on other topics such as music, films, and culture.^[12][13] He co-hosts the podcast "Jobsolete" with Helen Hong which explores jobs of the past.^[14] Mr. Beat has been critical of conservative YouTube channel PragerU and has made videos speaking against it, including a 7-hour livestream.^[15] When doing another livestream on the two-axis political compass chart, he identified himself as a left-wing libertarian.^[16] Beat admits that his personal views may influence his content, and has expressed concern about what he sees as a tension between access to information and resistance to critical thinking.^[17] In his YouTube Shorts, Beat has criticized the second presidency of Donald Trump, while stating that he aims to keep a more neutral tone in his long-form videos.^{[18][19][20][21][22]} He worked with the highest-subscribed channel MrBeast in 2026, creating a video on the history of YouTube and joking about their name being similar.^[23]

In January of 2022, Beat livestreamed himself calling the office of every Senator in the United States, which took eleven hours.^[24] Beat also called the office of every United States Representative in a livestream that October, which took him nine days.^[25] The purpose of Beat's calls were to gain support for election reform, with his October livestream focusing on the Election Day Holiday Act (HR222), a bill introduced in the 117th Congress by Rep. Anna Eshoo to make Election Day a federal holiday in the United States.^[26]

Though Beat received responses from several members of the House and Senate, specifically Senator Cory Booker, who sent Beat a video response,^{[‡ 1]} Beat claimed "this experience has been a total letdown and has made me question our representative democracy".^{[‡ 2]}

On January 1, 2026, Beat posted a video on his social media channels stating he would be emailing U.S. representative Tracey Mann every day until he received a reply.^[27] Beat wanted to know Mann's opinion on expanding the size of the House of Representatives. Beat has encouraged his followers to write to Mann or their own lawmakers regarding House expansion, stating "I want to make a difference ...because I am worried about the future of our country."^[28] In March 2026, Mann responded to Beat, but disagreed with his request.^[29]

Beat has interviewed multiple government officials, such as California Governor Gavin Newsom,^[30] Senators Jeff Merkley^[31] and Cory Booker,^[32] as well as Congressmen Adam Smith^[33] and Sean Casten, who he called his "new favorite congressman" at the time.^[34] In his interview with Newsom, Newsom noted his attempts to contact his congressmen, and supported his goal.^{[‡ 3]}

Cite error: There are <ref group=‡> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=‡}} template (see the help page).