The recent flood of negative headlines surrounding YouTube giant MrBeast may have irreparably damaged the internet megastar’s image.
MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, has come under fire recently for a number of personal and professional issues that have thrust him into a far harsher spotlight than he is used to. With his recent Amazon Video reality series Beast Games, The New York Times reported that more than a dozen attendees had spoken out about unsafe conditions and a lack of access to food and medical care. Earlier, Donaldson herself had been forced to speak out about earlier “inappropriate language” that drifted into overt racism. A former employee, Ava Kris Tyson, was accused of inappropriate behavior toward minors.
The most serious allegations came from a YouTuber named DogPack404, who claimed to be a former employee of MrBeast. He claimed that various videos produced by the channel were fake, as were various contests designed to attract subscribers. Another former employee claimed in one of these videos that he was manipulated and abused for the purposes of a video, causing him long-term problems. They also criticized Donaldson for allegedly employing a registered sex offender who appeared in some of his videos.
When asked by The Daily Beast for comment on these and other allegations, a spokesperson for MrBeast referred to a memo Donaldson sent to his team last week about an investigation into “inappropriate behavior by employees at the company.” While Donaldson noted that the investigation is ongoing, he announced, among other things, the introduction of sensitivity training and hearings, an “anonymous reporting mechanism” and the planned hiring of a human resources director.
“I want you to know that I am optimistic about the future of the company and value all of your input,” Donaldson wrote. “I am fully committed to completing the investigation process and implementing the recommendations. We will be in touch again with our findings and any necessary changes.”
Still, it is an embarrassing fall for the darling of one of the most important websites in Internet history. MrBeast was previously defined by his large-scale video projects that mixed Looney Tunes mayhem with Hollywood productions. His offbeat games, such as reenacting Squid Game or crushing a Lamborghini, were coupled with extravagant donations to charity. Donaldson always seemed to be handing out huge sums of money, whether to his fellow YouTubers, to Ugandan villages in need of wells, or to people on the street who were smart enough to subscribe to his channel. But these recent developments are unfortunately not surprising either. Donaldson redefined YouTube, but he couldn’t prevent himself from becoming the very problem the site embodied.
MrBeast poses with a fan at the opening of the first physical MrBeast Burger restaurant at the American Dream on September 4, 2022
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for MrBeast Burger
It is difficult to overstate the enormous popularity of MrBeast and the impact of his brand. Donaldson is only 26, but he has, according to Forbesan estimated net worth of $500 million. Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. insider wrote that Donaldson’s rise has transformed the site, moving it away from the traditional vlogging style to more sophisticated, elaborate experiences designed to outdo film and TV. With over 309 million YouTube subscribers, no one has ever had as many as he does – if MrBeast were an autonomous state, that number would make it the third most populous country in the world after India.
On a platform where 15.7 percent of users are under the age of 24, this brand behemoth has completely redefined what it means to be a YouTuber. It’s MrBeast’s site and we’re just looking at it.
Faced with a personality making money on their site, YouTube executives were happy to accept Donaldson. Former CEO Susan Wojcicki snuggled up to him at events such as Brandcast. Current CEO Neal Mohan congratulated him when he reached 300 million subscribers. For many, he is the face of YouTube, a symbol of how the platform can be both a democratic way for anyone to become famous outside the traditional entertainment system and how it can be used for the benefit of others.
The myth of Donaldson is that of a struggling Gen Z who lucked his way to the top and decided to share in his good fortune. But that was never true. He has spoken openly about how he spent his youth finding ways to trick YouTube’s algorithm to figure out what goes viral and why so he could emulate it for his own success. It worked. He dominated algorithm mania so ruthlessly that his videos are considered abject failures if they get fewer than 10 million views a week (his latest video, “Survive 100 Days in a Fallout Bunker, Win $500,000,” currently has 134 million views).
He has spent countless hours obsessing over every detail of his content, right down to the brightness of his own face in a YouTube thumbnail to get as many views as possible. Each video is created with the express goal of going very viral and making the profits that go with it. He has even admitted that “personality” in his work would be bad for growth if views were all that mattered.
Viral content in the style of MrBeast is a mix of carnival games, poverty porn and bitter humiliation. His work doing philanthropy for clicks has long been criticized for engaging in poverty porn and exploiting underprivileged people. It’s easy to get a queasy feeling when an apparent act of altruism is cut into a video with ads and a thumbnail that has tears photoshopped onto the face of a cataract patient.
Such “generosity” often goes hand in hand with Donaldson’s endless requests for people to “like” and subscribe to him, or outright bribing his fans to boost his numbers by offering gifts and cash prizes to those who sign up (stunts his former employee claimed were set up).
It became easy for fans to defend Donaldson against criticism by pointing to his charitable causes. Surely it doesn’t matter how it’s done, if it’s done at all, right? Of course there are arguments for it, but helping the less fortunate with the caveat that they allow themselves to sob on camera and make Donaldson richer is ethically questionable to say the least. And that’s without even considering that, as Donaldson himself admits, his audience consists largely of children and teenagers.
Looking at Donaldson’s myriad problems, it’s clear how many of them are also those of YouTube, an all-powerful monopoly in online video sharing that has never been able to shed its problematic elements. Experts have denounced YouTube’s role in the algorithmic radicalization of young people for years, something they first publicly warned about in 2018. The white supremacist who killed 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, was radicalized by online hate groups, including through YouTube. While reports suggest YouTube’s crackdown on this issue is having an impact, it’s hard to ignore the damage it has done and the length of time it has taken to respond at all.
And then there’s the issue of child exploitation on the site. We’ve been inundated with stories over the past decade about family vloggers whose picture-perfect lives on YouTube hid heinous child abuse and manipulation. There are no legal or industry protections for children forced to broadcast their lives for profit. They don’t have to follow SAG-AFTRA rules about pay or hours. YouTube wanted to disrupt the entertainment world and open it up to everyone, but ultimately it just allowed the same cycle of exploitation as traditional media to continue, but without the cushion of union protection.
While Donaldson doesn’t employ children, his business tactics are based on their naive interactions with his brand and on parasocially attracting them to his channel. If you were six years old and the guy who owns his own chocolate company told you to buy a few bars and get rich, wouldn’t you do it?
Irish YouTuber Seán “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin faced severe criticism last year when, while hooked up to a lie detector, he admitted In his opinion, MrBeast ruined YouTube because “it was more about views, money and popularity than about fun.”
Fans attend the opening of the first physical MrBeast Burger restaurant at the American Dream on September 4, 2022
Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for MrBeast Burger)”
That’s perhaps a bit of a romanticization of YouTube’s early days, as it was always a place for business. But it also captures the miserable, relentless grind of Donaldson’s work, which signaled a change in mood on the platform.
A single person can still become a star on the site, but in the current ecosystem, that’s much harder because the algorithm prioritizes works like Donaldson’s, which are expensive to produce, or Hollywood studios showcasing their latest trailers. In a podcast appearance in 2023, Donaldson said, “People shouldn’t be like me. I don’t have a life, I don’t have a personality.”
To falsify a quote from networkDonaldson is the embodiment of YouTube: indifferent to pain, impervious to joy. Everyday life is a comedy of content. It’s all about the video, it’s all about the clicks. If you have to bribe, lie, hurt, or be forgotten to get it, go ahead. YouTube will reward you handsomely if you’re willing to go down that rabbit hole. They want more MrBeasts on their site, not fewer. After all of the terrible news of the past few weeks, MrBeast’s videos are still at the top of the site’s trending page.
