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MrBeast is on a Viral Path to Nowhere · Mini Scroll

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This episode of Infinite Scroll is brought to you by Coach Love,
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them. Again, reserve your free spot
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for the event at the link below. On October 11th, 2021, Jimmy
0:57
Donaldson took to TikTok with a proposal for his audience.
1:00
Help get this video to 10 million likes and he will
1:03
recreate the smash Netflix series Squid game in real life.
1:06
With a proposition like that, his TikTok quickly reached 10
1:10
million views and within a day Jimmy was on the hook for a
1:13
project that felt way too ambitious for any digital
1:16
creator. But luckily for viewers, Jimmy
1:19
is not just any digital creator. Jimmy Donaldson is the man
1:24
behind Mr. Beast, the biggest channel on YouTube by a single
1:27
person. And if there's one thing fans
1:29
know about Jimmy, it's that no idea is too big and no video is
1:34
too expensive for Mr. Beast. By mid-october, Jimmy and his
1:38
team got to work. They partnered with finished
1:40
video game developer Supercell to help fund the video, which
1:43
ultimately cost a whopping $3.5 million to produce.
1:48
The team recreated several sets from the show, like the
1:51
Contestants Bunk Room, the Tug of War Platform and the Indoor
1:54
playground, and Jimmy cast 456 contestants to compete in a
1:59
series of games for a $456,000 winning prize.
2:03
While players in the Netflix show were eliminated from the
2:06
game via death, Jimmy awarded his eliminated contestants with
2:10
a $2000 cash consolation prize, A classic Mr. Beast move, Mr.
2:16
Beast's Squid Game Challenge was released on his YouTube channel
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just one month later on November 24th, 2021.
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Within days, the video helped Jimmy break four major YouTube
2:26
records for a single creator, including the fastest video to
2:29
reach 100 million views and the most subscribers gained in one
2:33
day. At 1.4 million subscribers,
2:36
nearly every mainstream media outlet was covering Mr. Beast's
2:39
Squid game video. With such algorithmic success,
2:42
criticism was sure to follow. Many called his version
2:46
dystopian and felt that it completely missed the point of
2:48
the original series, barely scratching the surface of the
2:51
show's message about hyper capitalism and wealth disparity.
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But despite the criticism, one thing was now for sure.
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Mr. Beast had solidified himself as YouTube's most powerful
3:01
creator, and it only took him nine years to get there.
3:06
From Centennial World, I'm Lauren Meisner and this is
3:09
Infinite Scroll, a podcast about Internet culture, the creator
3:13
economy, and how social media is shaping Gen.
3:16
Zed. Welcome back to Infinite Scroll,
3:19
everyone. I wanted to take a minute to
3:22
thank all of you for all of your love and support on last week's
3:25
episode. I know the style is so different
3:29
now from before and I so appreciate you guys sticking
3:32
with me while I figure out how to perfect this and navigate the
3:37
addition of the music and the different editing style and all
3:40
of that. As you know, I do basically all
3:42
of this myself and Annabelle helps me research and put it all
3:46
together. It's just me, so it will take a
3:49
little while as I figure out you know how to do it properly.
3:53
So as always, Please remember to rate, review and subscribe.
3:56
It means so much to me when you guys leave reviews.
3:59
I got some great feedback last week and it just helps me grow.
4:03
It helps me keep going, you know?
4:05
And Please remember to sign up to our newsletter as well, also
4:08
called Infinite Scroll. On Wednesdays we send out a
4:12
bigger opinion piece, like an essay about a creator or a viral
4:17
topic happening that week. And on Fridays, we round up the
4:19
five biggest think pieces or opinion pieces on the Internet
4:23
that week. And also please join our Geneva
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group. That is where you guys can chat
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with other people who are also obsessed with Internet culture
4:30
and creator drama and tea. OK, I'm going to read some
4:34
reviews every week. Again, I'm still going to keep
4:36
this going because it brings me so much joy.
4:39
So here are just a few that I received this week, Tara says.
4:42
Found this one so interesting. Great EP Hottie, Rach says.
4:46
Honestly, perfection. I loved this episode on Apple,
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one says. Well done Lauren.
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Great kickoff to your new podcast format.
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Look forward to seeing what else the podcast entails and then we
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got some feedback in Geneva as well, Emily said.
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Lauren, I just want to pop in and say that the episode was so
5:02
good for the first solo, Can't wait for next week's and Jessica
5:05
said agreed. Bravo Lauren, If I'm being fully
5:08
honest, so much of what I loved about The Pod where you and
5:10
Jordan's banter, but you brought the same energy solo with the
5:13
info provided in an entertaining nuance and thorough fashion.
5:17
Jordan will be missed and I look forward to her guest
5:18
appearances. But you totally got this.
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That was so kind. You guys, thank you so much
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truly for sticking with me through this transition.
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Mr. Beast is far from an overnight success.
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The 25 year old YouTube grew up in North Carolina where he was
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raised by a single mother after his parents divorced in 2007.
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In the documentary The Origin of Mr. Beast by Stream Curiosity,
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Jimmy's mother said he would hyper fixate on projects from an
5:42
early age. His early obsessions included
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Lego and baseball, but as he entered his preteen years, Jimmy
5:49
would find the thing that he would hyper fixate on for the
5:51
next decade to come. Though Jimmy loved watching
5:54
YouTube as a kid, he didn't consider it something for him.
5:57
That is, until he saw one of his favorite gaming creators quit
6:01
his job and go full time on the platform.
6:03
Jimmy was 12 at the time, and that's when he realized that
6:06
creating YouTube videos could be a job.
6:08
I have a memory of this one video I watched back then where
6:10
one of my favorite creators, Woody's Gamertag, quit his job
6:13
and went full time on YouTube. And this is like before, like a
6:17
lot of people didn't even know you could make money on YouTube.
6:19
Back then. I remember seeing that I was
6:21
like 12 and it kind of just clicked in my head.
6:24
I was like, wait a minute, you can make money doing this?
6:28
Jimmy created his first channel where he engaged in sub for sub.
6:31
This was a popular tactic in the early days of YouTube where
6:34
creators would subscribe to each other's channels to help their
6:37
sub counts grow. Jimmy quickly had over 7000
6:40
subscribers, but his video views were dismal, like less than 10
6:44
views of video. So he scrapped the channel and
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started a new channel called Mr. Beast 6000, named after his
6:51
randomized Xbox gamer username. In February 2012, at thirteen
6:56
years old, Jimmy's early content was very 13 year old boy, as
7:02
Ryan Broderick put it in the Garbage Day newsletter.
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He was quote a teenage PewDiePie fan making gameplay videos.
7:10
Some of the titles of his early videos include Best Minecraft
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Castle Ever, How to Get Unlimited Diamonds, Minecraft
7:18
Brackets, X-ray, Most Epic Thing in Minecraft with a Million
7:23
exclamation Marks and Question Marks.
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A close childhood friend of Jimmy's, Chris Tyson, helped him
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start the Mr. Beast channel. She soon became an important
7:31
part of the Channel Co hosting and appearing in many of the Mr.
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Beast YouTube videos. Note Chris now uses she her
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pronouns but was using he him at the time that Jimmy started the
7:41
Mr. Beast channel. On the beginnings of Mr. Beast
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Chris says quote, he started making commentary style YouTube
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videos which is like you have somebody playing a video game
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then you're just talking over giving your opinions about
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stuff. He started doing that for a
7:54
while which kind of turned into a new series that he started
7:58
where he was talking about Youtubers and how much money
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they make. Jimmy also tried his hand at
8:02
skits and comedic videos, but didn't find much success with
8:06
this style of content. He would later joke about his
8:09
attempt on the Colin and Samir show, saying he is not naturally
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funny, which is why these videos, which were wildly
8:16
popular at the time, just didn't stick for him.
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One of the most endearing things about Jimmy that I found in
8:21
researching this episode is his tenacity.
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He did not have a fast track to YouTube success, but persevered
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for years Despite that. Two years after starting his
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channel, Jimmy posted a video revealing that it took him
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75,000 views to make his first $100 off of YouTube.
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He said quote I am making around $30.00 a month.
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That is what I am averaging right now throughout high
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school. Jimmy will launch two series
8:47
that helped his channel grow. One, as I mentioned before,
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where he would talk about what he presumed other Youtubers were
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making from Adsense, and another where he poked fun at the worst
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YouTube video intros. In a March 2016 video that was
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part of his worst video intro series, he opened up about
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feeling the push and pull between doing YouTube for growth
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or simply because he enjoys it. Jimmy finished high school later
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that year in 2016 before starting college at East
9:14
Carolina University. Jimmy's mother was insistent on
9:18
him attending college if he was going to stay living under her
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roof, and she wasn't yet aware of his double life as a YouTube.
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So Jimmy went to college to appease his mom, but instead of
9:28
attending classes, Jimmy spent most of his time editing and
9:30
making videos. It was around this time when his
9:34
viewership started rising and his Adsense was finally enough
9:37
that he could afford to move out of his mom's house.
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This growth was largely thanks to his switch to challenge based
9:44
videos like filming himself cutting a table in half with a
9:48
plastic knife quote. I just stopped going to classes
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and I just didn't tell my mom I would film videos while I was at
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college. But somehow when I got there,
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maybe I got a big spark of motivation and went harder.
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But that's when things actually clicked and my viewership did
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start to go up quite a bit. After just a couple of weeks,
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Jimmy told his mom he was dropping out of college and
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would move out the next day. As his channel grew, Jimmy hired
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four of his childhood friends, Chris, Chandler, Garrett, and
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Jake. In January 2017, Jimmy had his
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first breakthrough moment. Five years after starting the
10:20
Mr. Beast channel, he posted an almost 24 hour long video
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counting to 100,000. Counting to 100,000 actually
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took him 40 hours, but Jimmy had to keep the video under 24 hours
10:34
for editing purposes, so he speed up parts of the video.
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This marked the beginning of the Mr. Beast we now know, a channel
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specializing in insane challenges.
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He went on to post videos like microwaving a microwave, reading
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the entire B movie script, watching its everyday bro for 10
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hours straight, and saying Logan Paul's name 100,000 times quote.
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That's when I kind of just realized, like, if I go all in,
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I really be creative and unique and I do things that just no one
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else would do because they're so hard and take so much effort,
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right? People have no choice but to
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watch it because it's just so interesting.
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While Jimmy embraced stunt based content at the beginning of
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2017, the philanthropic twist to his videos came a few months
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later. In mid 2017, Jimmy was offered
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his first brand deal with the app Quid.
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The brand offered him $5000, which he ended up turning down
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instead. Jimmy asked for $10,000 so he
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could give it to a homeless person and film the interaction
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for YouTube. He said it took a lot of
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convincing, but the brand finally agreed, so long as the
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video went viral. On June 16th, 2017, Jimmy
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released the video titled Giving a Random Homeless man $10,000,
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marking a significant turning point in the Mr. Beast Channel
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and in Jimmy's career. This is not clickbait.
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I'm going to give a random homeless guy $10,000 today.
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He went on to make several similar videos that year, like
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others where he gave more money to homeless people and one where
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he tipped pizza delivery drivers hundreds of dollars.
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This started Jimmy's cycle of using the money he made from one
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video to reinvest in the following video.
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Not only did these videos do really well, but Jimmy later
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said that once he saw the impact he could make through his
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content, he realized he wanted to do more philanthropy.
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Quote I want to use brands to allow me to help people.
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By November 2017, Mr. Beast reached 1,000,000 subscribers.
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Jimmy met Talent manager Reed Dusher in 2018, and they began
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working together. When they met, Reed said Jimmy
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was giving away basically all of the money he was making.
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This earned Jimmy the title of YouTube's biggest
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philanthropist, having given away over $1,000,000 in one year
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of these charity videos. 2018 was also the first time when
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Jimmy really flexed his wealth and influence during the
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PewDiePie versus T Series rivalry, which was essentially a
12:59
competition between creator PewDiePie and an Indian record
13:03
label to become the first channel to reach 100 million
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subscribers. Jimmy publicly and financially
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backed PewDiePie, buying billboards and numerous
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television and radio ads to promote Pewdiepie's channel.
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During the Super Bowl that year, Jimmy also bought multiple seats
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for himself and his team whose shirts spelled out sub to
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PewDiePie. Though T Series ended up winning
13:24
the battle, Jimmy's ability to help the most popular single
13:29
YouTube creator in the world at the time gain millions of
13:33
subscribers was a wake up call to the YouTube world.
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Mr. Beast was one of the most powerful people online.
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He finished out 2018 with 13 million subscribers.
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Jimmy took his philanthropy to the next level in October 2019
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when he announced Team Trees, a fundraising challenge on YouTube
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with the goal of reaching $20 million to plant 20 million
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trees to celebrate 20 million subscribers on his channel by
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January 1st, 2020, giving himself just two months to hit
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that fundraising goal. Jimmy collaborated with NASA
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Engineer and YouTube Mark Rober on this project.
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Together they tapped into their network of influencer colleagues
14:16
and many promoted the initiative for them for free on their
14:19
channels. Notable business people like
14:21
Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, and Susan Wojcicki also donated to
14:26
the cause. By December 19th, Team Trees had
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raised $20 million, which they donated to the Arbor Foundation.
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Team Trees later led to Team CS, a similar initiative by the two
14:38
Youtubers, with the goal to raise $30 million to clean
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30,000,000 lbs of trash out of the ocean.
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The project was in collaboration with Ocean Cleanup, and this
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partnership was highly controversial, as Molly Taft
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writes for Gizmodo Quote. But before the team sees
14:55
campaign even began, it was a source of controversy with some
14:59
scientists in the YouTuber community.
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That's because it's being done in partnership with the Ocean
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Clean Up, a group that has come under widespread criticism by
15:07
scientists for its techniques to scoop up plastic from the open
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ocean. In September 2020, Jimmy doubled
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down on his Do Gooder reputation and launched a new YouTube
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channel called Beast Philanthropy.
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It was through this channel that he would raise more than $1
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million in supplies for food banks to help service those
15:25
around the country who suffered during COVID.
15:28
In the Curiosity Stream documentary, Jimmy describes
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Beast Philanthropy as a food bank funded by YouTube channel.
15:35
Following the success of his new career launch, Jimmy dabbled in
15:38
other business ventures outside of YouTube like Mr. Beast Burger
15:41
and festivals. Launching IN2020IN partnership
15:45
with Virtual Dining Concepts Mr., Beast Burger was initially
15:48
a delivery only American style fast food chain offering
15:51
burgers, sandwiches and fries. The first two years were a
15:54
massive success for the YouTuber with Mr. Beast Burger opening
15:58
over 300 delivery only locations across the United States and
16:02
selling over 1,000,000 burgers and less than three months.
16:06
As Alicia Kelso writes for Forbes Quote, within its first
16:09
quarter Mr., Beast Burger launched in partnership with
16:11
Virtual Dining Concepts, had about 300 locations available on
16:15
digital marketplaces, and hit its one millionth burger sold
16:18
milestone. The brand swiftly became the
16:20
most downloaded app on both iTunes and Google Play and was
16:24
one of the top five most popular Google searches worldwide.
16:28
Mr. Beast Burger instantly proved it could find success
16:31
without a prominent storefront or convenient drive through or
16:34
hefty marketing budget leverage by many of its global burger
16:37
peers. Soon the YouTube proved that
16:39
their delivery model wasn't the only path to success.
16:43
Opening the first brick and mortar Mr. Beast Burger store in
16:45
Rutherford, NJ last year, the store was an instant hit with
16:49
Mr. Beast Burger, breaking the record for, quote the most
16:53
burger sold in a single day by a single restaurant.
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Jimmy has since distanced himself from Mr. Beast Burger
16:59
after noting issues with quality control in a deleted tweet from
17:02
June last year. Jimmy wrote quote.
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I started Mr. Beast Burger to help restaurants make more money
17:07
during the pandemic and it worked.
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But sadly, when working with 2000 restaurants that I don't
17:12
own, it's impossible to guarantee the order quality.
17:15
When asked if he plans to retire Mr. Beast Burger and close
17:18
specific locations, the influencers shared that due to
17:21
contractual obligations, he has limited control over the future
17:24
of the business. Festivals, on the other hand,
17:27
which is Mr. B's brand of chocolate bars that launched in
17:29
2022, has been a success. The Chocolate bars are sold in
17:33
grocery and department stores worldwide, and in 2023, Jimmy
17:37
announced that festivals had teamed up with the Charlotte
17:40
Hornets to debut a new logo and become their official jersey
17:43
patch sponsor of the 2023-2024 NBA season.
17:48
Now, it wouldn't be the story of Mr. Beast if I didn't cover the
17:52
criticism and questions around his philanthropic content.
17:55
So if you're a Mr. Beast simp, I suggest you click out now.
18:00
Despite his success on YouTube for years Jimmy struggled to
18:04
break into the mainstream. His audience was largely made-up
18:07
of preteen boys who like to play video games and other creators
18:11
who admired his dedication to the craft.
18:14
His 2021 Squid Game video changed all of that, but with
18:18
more notoriety amongst people who had fully developed
18:21
prefrontal cortexes, Jimmy started to face a level of
18:24
criticism he was not previously used to.
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And this criticism has shown the cracks in the Mr. Beast facade.
18:31
The criticism against Jimmy actually starts at the root of
18:34
what he claims to care about most philanthropy.
18:37
Now, whenever somebody questions Jimmy's intentions, that person
18:41
is met with a gaggle of fans who say, undoubtedly that charity
18:46
equals good. So if Mr. Beast is doing
18:49
charity, no matter how he does it, it must be a good thing.
18:54
And if charity work is a good thing, then Mr. Beast must be a
18:57
good person. And if you're criticizing Mr.
19:00
Beast, you must be a bad person. So while yes, the money that
19:04
Jimmy has given away and the work that Beast Philanthropy has
19:07
done has no doubt changed lives, let's zoom out for a minute and
19:12
consider the problems with philanthropy as an industry.
19:16
Private philanthropy has increased dramatically in the
19:18
past 20 years, with nearly 3/4 of the world's philanthropic
19:22
foundations being established during that time.
19:25
British journalist Paul Vallely reports that between all of
19:29
them, these foundations control more than 1.5 trillion USD.
19:35
One of the main issues with private philanthropy is that
19:38
it's always an quote expression of power.
19:42
It's a super rich individual picking and choosing the causes
19:45
that matter to them, as opposed to, say, paying their fair share
19:49
of taxes. It lets the Super rich live out
19:52
their God complex. They believe the answer to the
19:55
world's problems is private philanthropy because they
19:58
believe that they know where the money should go, that they know
20:01
better than governments or local members of that society.
20:05
This can sometimes contradict or undermine the priorities of a
20:08
community. David Callahan, the founder and
20:11
editor of Inside Philanthropy, puts it this way.
20:14
Quote When donors hold views we detest, we tend to see them as
20:18
unfairly tilting policy debates with their money.
20:20
Yet when we like their causes, we often view them as heroically
20:23
stepping forward to level the playing field against powerful
20:26
special interests or backward public majorities.
20:30
These sort of a la carte reactions don't make a lot of
20:33
sense. Really.
20:34
The question should be whether we think it's OK overall for any
20:37
philanthropist to have so much power to advance their own
20:40
vision of a better society. We see this God complex
20:44
mentality through Mr. Beast's content and we also see those a
20:48
la carte reactions to Mr. Beast's content from his
20:50
audience. Jimmy doesn't ever address wider
20:54
systemic issues at play in his videos, and he absolutely always
20:58
centers himself in the videos. His videos are about him giving
21:03
back, not about the issues that he's covering in his videos.
21:07
YouTube The Tabernacle puts it like this quote.
21:10
Mr. Beast uses poverty as a backdrop to make himself look
21:14
better. He'll show himself giving money
21:16
to homeless people, tipping minimum wage workers, hundreds
21:19
of dollars, giving people free food at his food bank, paying
21:23
for medical procedures for people.
21:25
But he doesn't touch on why these people, most who live in
21:29
America, the richest country in the world, need a millionaire
21:33
YouTube to help them afford basic necessities.
21:37
He says one of his biggest motivators is helping people.
21:40
But one off handouts from a millionaire on camera doesn't do
21:44
anything to help society as a whole long term.
21:47
And his audience plays into this.
21:49
There are several videos on the Mr. Beast channel that take us
21:53
through people's living conditions, show us their car,
21:56
paint a picture of vulnerability, poverty and
21:59
desperation, and then to make us feel better about Americans
22:03
living in these conditions, Jimmy swoops in and saves them
22:06
by handing them a wad of cash or an iPad or something.
22:10
And as viewers, we connect with the struggle of these people, so
22:14
it's easier for us to see Mr. Beast, as Callahan put it,
22:18
heroically stepping forward to level the playing field.
22:23
But this general acceptance of Mr. Beast?
22:26
Charity porn, It feels so opposite of what we accept from
22:30
other people. It wasn't that long ago that a
22:32
TikTok creator basically got run off the platform for filming
22:36
herself handing a sleeping homeless man some food.
22:40
So why do we accept this from Mr. Beast?
22:42
Two other major issues with private philanthropy are the tax
22:45
incentives and the threat it poses to democracy.
22:49
Nicholas Lemon for The New Yorker writes, quote, donations
22:52
to nonprofit organizations are tax deductible, and only people
22:56
who itemize their deductions, that is, affluent people get
23:00
this advantage. Foundation endowments are not
23:02
taxed. What's more, donors often try to
23:05
leverage their gifts to influence the direction of much
23:08
larger flows of government spending.
23:11
So while Jimmy claims to, you know, give all of his money away
23:15
and that he loses money on every video, there have long been
23:18
questions about his tax breaks and his business write offs,
23:22
especially following the formation of Beast Philanthropy.
23:26
Now you might be thinking, well, Mr. Beast Philanthropy is at an
23:30
individual level. He's giving away lots of money
23:33
to individual people, as opposed to writing donations for bigger
23:36
causes that could influence government spending or public
23:40
policies. So that must be less insidious,
23:43
right? Well, let's look at his most
23:46
controversial video to date and his reaction to that
23:48
controversy, because how he responded to the backlash really
23:52
showed his cards. In January 2023, Jimmy posted a
23:57
video quote UN quote curing blindness in 1000 people.
24:02
In the video he paid for 1000 surgeries for blind patients
24:05
where the surgery is not available or accessible,
24:08
including the US, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam,
24:12
Kenya and Jamaica. In this video, he also gave away
24:16
$10,000 to select patients, $50,000 to someone about to
24:20
start college, and a Tesla to a patient who always wanted a car.
24:25
This video was a turning point in the public perception of Mr.
24:28
Beast. Twitter user at LOL Overruled
24:31
shared a screenshot of the video writing.
24:33
There is something so demonic about this and I can't even
24:36
articulate what it is. That tweet went viral and
24:40
thousands of people quote tweeted it, sharing their own
24:42
thoughts on Mr. Beast's charity for views brand of content.
24:46
Many said that Mister Beast's content can be exploitative for
24:49
those involved. Others noted that his altruism
24:51
is both publicized and monetized, often making millions
24:55
of dollars from these videos, whether he personally pockets
24:58
the money or not. Quote, if he was doing this out
25:00
of the goodness of his heart, he wouldn't publicize it.
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The fact that he's clearly doing this for content gives me the
25:06
feeling that he is involved in some truly evil shit, wrote at
25:10
Kaiser Beams. Alex Kranz, managing Editor at
25:13
The Verge, compared Mr. Beast to an early 2010's Elon Musk
25:18
because quote, he's a wealthy man who loves to market his
25:21
altruism as entertainment to build himself more wealth.
25:25
This comparison to Elon Musk is something Jimmy gets a lot, but
25:28
he himself is an admitted fan of Elon Musk, or at least used to
25:32
be, so I doubt he takes this comparison as a bad thing.
25:35
Tech journalist Steven Aquino said that as a blind person
25:38
himself, the video rubbed him the wrong way.
25:41
Quote. There's a new video out from a
25:43
highly prominent YouTube on curing blindness that really
25:46
rubs me the wrong way. It's literally a bunch of abled
25:49
people effectively shouting that having a disability is bad and
25:53
less than This is your problem, abled friends.
25:56
You keep conflating altruism with ableism, and we get let's
25:59
cure people like your Jesus. The video didn't address any
26:02
larger problem, like what factors may lead to this type of
26:05
blindness, or the systemic issues that prevent people from
26:09
affording this very quick, simple surgery.
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A surgery that is covered by universal healthcare in many
26:14
countries, as Twitch streamer Amy C3 put it.
26:17
Quote If your content revolves around you proving that you are
26:21
a good person by finding people who are incredibly vulnerable,
26:24
exploiting them, and then humiliating them in front of
26:27
millions of people, I don't think that you are really
26:30
spearheading any real movement other than your own goals of
26:33
advancement. And about those random prizes
26:36
that Jimmy gives people throughout the video, in
26:38
addition to paying for the eye surgery.
26:41
That is a calculated move to increase retention on his
26:43
videos, which he openly discussed on the Colin and Samir
26:47
podcast. As his video faced increasing
26:49
criticism online, Jimmy took to Twitter in what journalist Ryan
26:53
Broderick called a charity tantrum.
26:55
Jimmy wrote Twitter Rich people should help others with their
26:58
money. Me.
27:00
OK, I'll use my money to help people.
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And I promise to give away all my money before I die.
27:06
Every single penny. Twitter Mr. Beast bad Despite
27:10
millions of comments of people praising him for helping these
27:13
1000 people see again, Jimmy could not handle that there was
27:16
a subset of people online who were critical of his video and
27:19
skeptical of his intentions. This is a bizarre reaction to
27:23
have given. Mr. Beast is now the largest
27:25
YouTube channel on the platform by a single creator with over
27:29
237,000,000 subscribers. It should not be controversial
27:34
to critique and question the influence of the largest digital
27:37
creator of our time. Not to mention, two things can
27:40
be true at once. Jimmy can be changing lives
27:43
while also exploiting those same people's lives.
27:46
He can be changing lives while also feeding his own ego and
27:50
building his own wealth because his philanthropy comes with
27:54
strings attached. You have to agree to be in a Mr.
27:57
Beast video. You have to agree to open
28:00
yourself and your circumstances up to millions of people for
28:03
consumption and judgment. Jimmy is not giving a homeless
28:07
person $10,000 cash without filming it.
28:10
One day after he threw his charity tantrum quote, UN quote,
28:13
on Twitter, he tweeted a poll. Would you vote for me if I ran
28:18
for president? Yes or no?
28:23
Jimmy's reaction to the backlash was incredibly telling.
28:26
Not only did it solidify that he does have political aspirations,
28:30
and therefore his philanthropy is meant to sway public opinion
28:34
on him and does extend beyond an individual level, but it also
28:39
gave us insight into what actually motivates Mr. Beast.
28:44
Jimmy's motivation is one of the most contentious topics online.
28:48
That's because he regurgitates the same two talking points.
28:50
When asked about why he creates videos and what his end goal is,
28:55
he says number one, that all he cares about is helping people,
28:58
and #2, that he loses money on every video.
29:03
Jimmy has managed to convince his audience, and thus the
29:06
greater online community, since his audience is so large that
29:09
he's YouTube's Robin Hood. He's this heroic outlaw who
29:13
stayed in his hometown instead of moving to LA.
29:17
He uses rich corporations that fund his videos to give money to
29:20
poor or sick or vulnerable people.
29:23
And he wants nothing in return. But when you pay closer
29:27
attention to how Jimmy talks about his career in interviews,
29:30
documentaries, and even on his own social media, you'll notice
29:34
there is one message he pushes even more than helping people
29:38
that all he really cares about is making the best videos
29:42
possible. But what does that mean?
29:45
The best videos possible is such a subjective metric.
29:48
Well, to research Mr. Beast is to discover how deep his
29:52
hyperfixation on virality is. His goal from the start, back
29:56
when he was just thirteen years old and 1st learned that you
29:59
could actually make money on YouTube has been to game the
30:02
algorithm. And despite some mixed
30:04
messaging, Jimmy hasn't been so coy about his motivations.
30:09
When asked about his goals on the Colin and Samir podcast, he
30:12
said frankly quote, what's the point of making a video if no
30:16
one watches it? As mentioned above, he also told
30:19
the duo he gives away random money and prizes throughout his
30:22
videos, not because he's the most selfless philanthropist,
30:25
but as a type of subplot to hold viewer attention and ensure his
30:29
retention rate is always above 70%.
30:33
On this same podcast and throughout other interviews I
30:36
watched, Jimmy openly discusses his first kind of charity porn
30:40
video when he gave a homeless man $10,000 as part of a brand
30:43
collaboration, a sentence that feels so disturbing to say out
30:47
loud. He doesn't speak about that
30:49
moment, saying that he was motivated to give back or help
30:52
someone out. He speaks about that video in
30:54
relation to its success, as in he promised the brand that if
30:59
they gave him $10,000 instead of $5000, the video would go viral.
31:04
Mr. Beast measures his success based on views, engagement and
31:08
virality. His idea of the best video
31:11
possible does not include artistic expression,
31:14
storytelling or a greater creative purpose, motivations
31:18
that are typically the backbone of a creator's vision.
31:21
In fact, he did note in a recent interview that he has been
31:24
working on his storytelling purely because of audience
31:27
feedback. So while Jimmy might not be
31:29
personally pocketing all of the money he makes from viral
31:32
philanthropy or his challenge videos where he's giving away
31:34
money, his content is feeding the Mr. Beast ego.
31:39
Because what motivates Mr. Beast at the end of the day is
31:42
virality, and he and his team have not tried to hide that from
31:45
us. His manager Reid, told producers
31:48
for the Curiosity Stream documentary that when they met
31:51
Jimmy, Quote was going to do whatever he could to be a
31:53
successful digital creator. He didn't say that Jimmy was
31:57
going to do whatever he could to be a successful philanthropist
32:00
and he didn't say that Jimmy was going to do whatever he could to
32:02
build a community of engaged followers that appreciate his
32:05
content. As Ryan Broderick wrote for
32:07
Garbage Day Quote, being unnaturally viral is all Mr.
32:11
Beast really is at this point and it tarnishes everything he
32:14
does. And it's most notable with his
32:16
charity work. Most likely because at this
32:18
point we all know that making purely viral content and chasing
32:21
audience agnostic mass appeal as Mr. Beast does requires in some
32:26
sense being a complete sociopath with no concept of what it means
32:29
to artistically or creatively express something.
32:32
Which is why most creators that go viral eventually settle into
32:35
a baseline. They find an audience and start
32:37
figuring out what their niche is beyond traffic.
32:40
But Mr. Beast never did that, because traffic is all he seems
32:43
to want or care about. If he truly cared about
32:46
philanthropy, for instance, why not just do it and never film
32:50
it? Well, that's because
32:51
philanthropy is just another type of viral content for him.
32:55
And based on how touchy he gets every time he tries and fails to
32:58
be taken seriously, he's clearly aware of how limiting this has
33:02
become for him. Yes, he dominates YouTube, but
33:04
he also can't figure out how to cobble together enough lowest
33:07
common denominator content to escape it.
33:10
At his core, Mr. Beast is not a creator, Mr. Beast is not a
33:15
philanthropist, and Mr. Beast is not objectively the best video
33:19
maker in the world. At his core, Mr. Beast is a
33:23
marketer who found that gifting people, prizes and large sums of
33:28
money on camera will get him the virality and influence he's been
33:31
desperately chasing since he was 13 years old.
33:36
Infinite Scroll is a podcast written, produced, edited and
33:39
presented by me, Lauren Meisner for Centennial World.
33:42
Additional research and reporting is by Annabelle Ben
33:45
David, Thank you so much for listening.
33:48
I love you guys so much and I will talk to you next week.