Angelo DiTocco
Over the past few years, the name “MrBeast” has become synonymous with battle royale style competitions, expansive philanthropic projects, and extremely large sums of money. As the biggest YouTuber to ever exist, the man behind the channel, Jimmy Donaldson, seemed invincible. But that all changed in late July of this year when he was suddenly slapped in the face with a never–ending stream of allegations by former employees: running illegal lotteries, scamming children, rigging contests, nepotism, mistreating his workers, and having not one, but two pedophiles on his team. Although I find this unlikely to be the end of MrBeast’s career, he is still in some hot water.
Now, I’m not going to pretend to be the most informed person on the situation, but this drama is quite intriguing to me because I was actually in one of his videos. Though, I didn’t have the kind of role you’d expect. I didn’t participate in any contests, nor did I receive money or any kind of prize. I didn’t even get to see Jimmy in the flesh. In fact, the part I played in this MrBeast video was one that brought with it only mockery and copyright infringement accusations. You see, although MrBeast is known for his over-the-top editing and production value, his content used to be vastly different. To show you, I’ll need to take you back to a simpler time.
The year was 2017. Trump had just taken office, every radio station was simultaneously playing “Shape of You” on repeat, and replacement remixes like “We Are Number One” were all the rage within the memescape. I was smack in the middle of 8th grade. MrBeast’s channel at this time was a lot more humble. Although there was still a partial focus on extreme spending and wacky stunts, it was way more realistic. For example, “Tipping Pizza Delivery Guys $100” and “Counting To 100,000 In One Video” are things the average person could do if they really wanted to. The production value was much closer to that of the average YouTuber, and his subscriber count was a relatively modest 1 million.
Jimmy also had an ongoing series called “Worst Intros on YouTube.” The formula was simple: he’d play a poorly made intro by a small YouTuber, make a joke about it, and repeat that for a few minutes. Perhaps the bad intro in question was a seizure-inducing flash of colors around a bouncing 3D text block, or perhaps it was a kid holding a piece of paper up to the camera with his name on it. The series would later be discontinued and eventually scrubbed from Jimmy’s channel as a whole in an effort to sanitize his public image. But I liked the “Worst Intros” series as well as Jimmy’s other content at the time, so I was subscribed to him (Where’s my cookie?).
One afternoon, I got home from school, finished my homework like a good boy, and then went on YouTube to see that MrBeast had uploaded a new video: “The Worst Intros On Youtube #65 *cringe*.” And what do I see almost two minutes into the video? My own intro!
Now, I didn’t make this intro to be genuine. It was on a viral shitpost of mine—a satirical Top 10 list video that I had made a month earlier. But Jimmy either didn’t notice that or didn’t care, so he proceeded to play the intro and make a joke about me stealing WatchMojo’s homework.
I didn’t care that I was in a “Worst Intros” video. In fact, it was kind of an honor to me. But soon after, my video got flooded with comments from MrBeast’s viewers. Many of them were just pointing out what had happened, but others actually took my video seriously and decided to send hate comments.
“do a normal intro you fucker,” said one random commenter. “Make your own intro fat big fat fat fat,” said another. “why did you =put [sic] your name over watch mojo chanel [sic] dick head,” said yet another. This was my first insight into how young and impressionable MrBeast’s fanbase was at the time—perhaps a foreshadowing of what was to come.
To make a long story short, these comments eventually subsided, MrBeast moved on to more extravagant, professional content, and as a result, I unsubscribed. Then I blinked and he had over 200 million subscribers all of a sudden.
Whether it be your favorite TV show or your favorite restaurant, seeing something you love turn to shit is never a good feeling. That’s why it’s such a shame that MrBeast abandoned his more humble roots. His mission to become the biggest YouTuber ever required more than just increasing the prize money and upgrading the equipment—it also meant getting rid of his personality as a whole. The carefree, edgy teenager filming himself in his room evolved into “WHOEVER STAYS INSIDE THIS BALL STRETCHER MACHINE THE LONGEST WINS 100,000 DOLLARS.” His overstimulating editing style came to be known as “brainrot,” and his young audience probably got even younger. If he had stayed true to himself instead, I doubt he would have gotten himself into the trouble he’s in now.
I can tell that I’m not the only one to have this opinion; others have set out to cancel MrBeast in the past, albeit unsuccessfully. Specifically, when Jimmy paid for 1000 blind people’s sight-restoring surgery and had 100 wells built in Africa, some people claimed that his content was exploitative of those in need despite all the good deeds he’d done. I don’t personally agree with this view, but I can see why they’re so eager to go after him. I don’t want a guy who makes soulless, corporate slop to be the face of YouTube either. But that’s just how things are, so I guess we’ll just have to deal with it.
Oh yeah, and I’ve also tried the MrBeast Burger as well as the Feastables candy bars. They were both MID!