On Mr. Beast
The YouTube master creates content for everyone, but at what cost?
I'm late to the game on Mr. Beast, but the kids just got into him through his Minecraft content and brought him to my attention. I've watched a lot of his content at this point, and I am struck by a number of things while watching it.
Maybe you, too, live under a rock or you don't have children that are aching for his content. Mr. Beast is a YouTube phenomenon who started creating content on the platform at age 11. Now 26, Mr. Beast has the most subscribers of anyone on YouTube, with hundreds of millions of people watching each of his new uploads.
And what is the content? Mr. Beast and his gang of merry troublemakers create addictive, viral content often centered around challenges. Stand in a circle the longest and win $250k. Fit everything in a GameStop inside of a red tape triangle on the floor and Mr. Beast will buy it all. He's giving away millions of dollars on the regular, often bribing challenge participants with briefcases of USD, and most of it is going back to his subscribers.
He's also the creator and host of Amazon's streaming series Beast Games, which broke countless world records by giving away a prize of five million dollars cash. The games began with 1000 contestants and over the course of ten episodes whittles them down with physical, psychological, and random luck challenges. There's a twist at the end that I won't give away, but it stays true-to-form for Mr. Beast content.
Mr. Beast is also a philanthropist, digging wells for clean water in Africa, planting trees, removing plastic trash from the ocean, and running a food bank where he lives in North Carolina. He gives away houses to the homeless and adopts out 100 dogs, but the content comes with the same temper of the challenge videos. Rapid-fire jump-cut GoPro footage annotated with text and dramatic music. All subjects are given the same aesthetic weight, which is none at all.
Some of the videos are not challenges but just tours of exponential wealth. $1 VS $1m Hotel Room, Plane Tickets, Private Islands–all of these videos show the disparate experiences of what money can provide. Gone are the frictions of lived experience, pleasant are the people surrounding Mr. Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson.
I am struck by the way in which my children are drawn to these videos, falling prey to the editing that has given Mr. Beast endless power in his spectacles. I explain to them about cliffhangers and editing, they ask questions about reality and feasibility. They hang on his every word, often asking me what I would do if I were in the pictured situation.
What are the ethics behind the spectacle? I am worried that my children are now waiting for a stranger to offer them money for something outrageous. I explain to them that This Is Not Normal, that Mr. Beast has to reinvest his millions made back into the channel to feed the machine.
I am struggling to capture the breadth of this Mr. Beast phenomenon. The kid owns Feastables, his own chocolate brand, which he touts as the "highest rated chocolate in the world," and has also opened and shuttered his own burger chain. He has merchandise for the channel, brand partnership deals, and toys and games both digital and physical. I am scrambling to get Mr. Beast gear for Moss for Christmas, and wonder how much it will cost me to ship Feastables to Australia.
He's been on the cover of Time Magazine, for Chrissakes. And he does it all while suffering from Crohn's Disease, which is what actually brought him to YouTube in the first place. I can't imagine doing all of the work he does while chronically ill. A self-described work addict, Mr. Beast claims to have spent more time thinking about viral video content than anyone in the world.
Here's what I know I like about Mr. Beast. He is wholesome, and does not promote drugs, drinking, or gambling on his channel. I am not worried about my kids seeing something that they shouldn't on his channel, which is a relief I cannot say about most of YouTube. There's occasionally a bad word here or there, but overwhelmingly, I find the content pure.
I appreciate the philanthropy angle, even if it framed in the same way as the other content. My kids are enthusiastic about sharing money with those who need it, even if they are only beginning to grasp the role of money in the world. They know it's important without knowing exactly why.
He's a model for a self-made man. He's worked out his own systems for dominating in the algorithm game and gone on to share the tools he has developed with the world. He reinvests his profits back into the channel, trying to create more and better content for his fans. His empire is currently looking at a $5 billion valuation. And he cares about the fans, saying that he actually reads the comments on his videos.
He's cute, and sweet, in an aw shucks sort of way, and doesn't hide the joy he takes in bringing people good fortune. He cries openly and honestly at the right things. He can no longer go in public without being mobbed by teens, but when it happens he graciously conducts meet and greets and takes photos with his fans. I won't lie, I have my own kind of crush on Mr. Beast, not dissimilar to my crushes on good comedians who own the form. From the Medium comes the Messenger.
While there are critics of the man, the channel, and his many businesses, the numbers don't lie. He's popular beyond measure, though he will no doubt continue trying to quantify his popularity metrics. I am going to go ahead and call myself a fan, and I even recently became a subscriber.
But I’m still left wondering what my kids are really learning from all this. Is it generosity wrapped in spectacle, or spectacle wrapped in generosity? Maybe both. Maybe that’s what the internet does best — blurs the line until it doesn’t matter anymore.
Mr. Beast is a kind of 21st-century folk hero, equal parts P.T. Barnum, Oprah, and Robin Hood. My kids see the fun and the prizes; I see the strategy, the editing, the relentless reinvestment. But in the middle, there’s something undeniably magnetic about someone who can make millions of people, myself included, stop scrolling and watch someone else’s good fortune unfold.
If nothing else, Mr. Beast has reminded me that it’s possible to hold admiration and caution in the same hand. And maybe that’s the real challenge: not standing in a circle for days on end, but standing in the space between joy and skepticism, and letting your kids watch you balance there.
Thanks for reading, friend, and please subscribe if you don’t already. My Substack is a mix of parenting, technology, and creativity, all through my own lens as a neurodivergent disabled writer and mother. Writing for you is a joy, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts about my posts.
Love,
Krystal South
P.S. I have so much more to say about Mr. Beast but I didn’t want to make this too long. Here are some videos to check out if you want to learn more. Also we found Feastables in Australia, and we loved them!