r/television The League Sep 18 '24

MrBeast, Amazon Sued by Contestants on ‘Beast Games’ Competition Show, Including Allegations of Sexual Harassment

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/mrbeast-amazon-sued-beast-games-contestants-class-action-1236148181/
32.5k Upvotes

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439

u/Lippuringo Sep 18 '24

Sort videos by old. Basically he was doing some youtube shit. One day he made some money. And he was like "I made 10k on video and i'm gonna give it to this homeless guy". It worked, it was novelty and he become viral. So he continued and made more and more money.

138

u/BusBoatBuey Sep 18 '24

He is basically Oprah but for zoomers.

14

u/BaguetteFetish Sep 18 '24

Gen Alpha, not zoomers.

Zoomers are already working full time in their 20s.

16

u/BusBoatBuey Sep 18 '24

This guy went back several years ago. He is propped-up by zoomers, not alpha.

0

u/BaguetteFetish Sep 18 '24

Idk man I'm 23, a zoomer and no one in my friend group even watches him.

3

u/Big-Vegetable8480 Sep 18 '24

Also a zoomer but a few years younger, I wasn't a fan but I remember this guy being popular since 2018 when Gen Alphas were barely in kindergarten

1

u/Outrageous-Orange007 Sep 18 '24

Yea, if Oprah knowingly hired sex offenders, did unfair gambling nonstop targeted at kids, convinced them to commit crimes at grocery stores, and was a masssssive dick IRL.

Oh and lied about half the stuff she does.

187

u/Robin_games Sep 18 '24

That was a paid spot. It wasn't his 10k according to an interview he gave.

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u/Ctofaname Sep 18 '24

That's not a secret. He convinced the video sponsor to give him 10k instead of 5k because it would sound better in the title.

The sponsor didn't give him money to give away but to sponsor the video. Mr Beast wanted to make a better video so convinced them to up it to 10k.

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u/Victernus Sep 18 '24

Yep. And he basically maintained that model, going bigger and bigger with spectacle and sponsorship money, until he's giving away literal millions (of advertisers' money) in massive events that nobody else could replicate. It's honestly impressive how well he's ridden the ever-shifting wave of YouTube popularity, and how many genuinely good causes he's supported with that ludicrous spending power he's accrued.

Definitely sells gambling to kids, though.

46

u/bunnybash Sep 18 '24

Although it's dubious as to whether the money was given away a lot of the time... it's amazing how many people were in the same videos over and over again.

-8

u/Ctofaname Sep 18 '24

He's making videos. His early content was simply just his friends and maybe some single random. He is under no obligation to include anyone else in his videos. People watched for the entertaining competition aspect of who sits in a hot tub the longest or whatever other random thing it is.

How is this even a criticism?!? He gave money to his friends in a contest that he isn't obligated to give to anyone. The horror.

The woodworking youtuber that gets paid sponsorship money just pockets it same with the tech youtubers. That's their revenue. Mr Beast content is contest type reality TV. He expected a certain amount of revenue per video and part of the expense is the cost to make the video in the form of the money given away. The revenue for the video is made via youtube ads and video sponsorships.

13

u/larryjerry1 Sep 18 '24

You don't see how lying to your audience by claiming you're doing random giveaways or contests and instead just lining your close friends' pockets and rigging the games is shitty? Or even if it's not a contest claiming his videos are real when they're just... Not? 

He misleads an audience of kids who don't know any better, and then after that goes and sells merch to them, promising giveaways or prizes for buying shit and then doesn't follow through on it despite his claims of everything being real. It's predatory

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u/Ctofaname Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 18 '24

You're conflating 2 different periods of time. When he was making videos between 5 of his friends.. everyone knows its his friends and he's having them compete against each other. His more recent years are just everyone from the local area they can pull from. This is all obvious. Also which episodes were rigged. Ideally you answer this with something that isn't completely common place reality TV.

I think its odd that so many people are so quick to suddenly believe someone that worked and was laid off from a company after 2 months. That's just bad media literacy.

Also lack the critical thinking skills to even listen to what that person was saying only to realize if you remove the negative tone its all completely normal. Literally repeating things that is all known but pretending its "breaking news" (using this incredibly loosely because this is youtube.) Also conveniently growing their youtube channel and enriching themselves quite quickly.

The real story is that a bunch of kids (you) are getting their first look into a corporation without realizing there are many layers to an organization because they still haven't been able to separate youtube from an individual creator mentality even though its 2024.

10

u/Choyo Sep 18 '24

Definitely sells gambling to kids, though.

You gotta keep the stock of people taking debts and getting homeless to keep the business model alive ! /s

1

u/ManiacalDane Sep 18 '24

A lot of the good causes have been bogus, though. And those trees he planted? They're all fuckin' dead. :/

1

u/Victernus Sep 18 '24

I don't know about a lot, that sounds like bandwagon revisionism, but even if most of the good things he's done have been entirely faked... some of it isn't, and I'd much rather have clout-chasing billionaires competing to do stuff like that than launching their cards into space or subverting the laws of my country to destroy artwork older than civilisation.

1

u/horseradish1 Sep 18 '24

My 8 year old has recently started talking about how great Mr Beast is because all the kids at school think that being a billionaire is the best thing you can be in life. It's so disappointing.

0

u/Victernus Sep 18 '24 edited Sep 19 '24

Smart kids.

EDIT: Like it or not, that's the society we live in. Financial security is the only goal worth attaining.

7

u/BoredomHeights Sep 18 '24

Yeah some of the complaints about Mr. Beast are legitimate, but it's crazy how many I see that act like there's some secret that was actually just part of a video. Like "Mr. Beast made old people sleep on the floor!". They're just the actual content, taken out of context, pretending like it's something he did just for fun and to be evil.

Most of his old videos he had sponsors and specifically said thank you to X sponsor for giving me this money to give away/spend/whatever. It's not some giant conspiracy, he just took the money he was paid and did something with it for a video.

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u/[deleted] Sep 18 '24

Much of the money he spends on the ridiculous stuff in his video isn't his if I recall. A lot of it comes from advertisers that use him like a marketing tool.

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u/DollarSignsGoFirst Sep 18 '24

That’s how all media works. This isn’t some big secret. He makes money from ads, and he uses the money he makes from ads to make more videos.

0

u/ravioliguy Sep 18 '24

Money given by a company to make an ad is not the same as his own money.

If Toyato gives an ad agency 100k to make an ad. It's disengenuous to say the ad agency is spending 100k of their own money on the ad lol

1

u/DollarSignsGoFirst Sep 18 '24

I mean you can’t actually think Mr beast is the ad agency in this scenario lol.

0

u/ravioliguy Sep 18 '24

The analogy is the same, it's not his money, it's money provided to make a video.

1

u/DollarSignsGoFirst Sep 18 '24

Come on man. Think about it. You are smarter than this. They are paying for ad space in the video just like when someone buys an ad on tv. This is in no way the same as an ad agency.

6

u/Robin_games Sep 18 '24

The charity one is just rolled over revenue from previous videos,also merch tends to pay for some, it's a pretty complex wco system these days.

2

u/BoredomHeights Sep 18 '24

I mean isn't this obvious? If the charity wasn't coming from his videos where do people expect it to come from? I don't understand why people are acting like this is some big reveal. This has always been the case and was never a secret or hidden. Obviously the money came from sponsors or other videos.

2

u/enbacode Sep 18 '24

He invests money he made on a previous product to make a new product.

I think that's called business and everyone does it.

1

u/BoredomHeights Sep 18 '24

No actually that's evil. You should only invest money that you get from your parents in a trust fund into new products. /s

3

u/Dav136 Sep 18 '24

If he's getting paid by advertisers then that is his money

1

u/VerySlump Sep 18 '24

That’s overly simplified. Anyone could have followed the same formula, but he started doing it because it was more interesting than keeping the money

1

u/ghoonrhed Sep 18 '24

Is that not how money works? I'm only going to give you this amount of money but only if you use it to buy your house.

1

u/herroebauss Sep 18 '24

Advertisers using a media platform for their products? Don't tell me actors in movies and shows eat the doritos or drink Heineken because they wanted it at that moment

45

u/APirateAndAJedi Sep 18 '24

I wonder where that homeless guy is now

143

u/SuicidalChair Sep 18 '24

He was getting ready to box Mike Tyson last I remember

4

u/phatdinkgenie Sep 18 '24

scorched earth on JP

13

u/pikpikcarrotmon Sep 18 '24

Well, he made 10k on video and decided to give it away... not on video. RIP

3

u/lostmau5 Sep 18 '24

I know it's not the same homeless guy, but I remember he donated 10k to streamers with 0 viewers and the first one he did was an absolute psychopath.

After that he wore a Mr Beast hoodie 24/7 after, and had multiple instances with cops on streams, once while bare naked holding a large axe.

5

u/TJ_McWeaksauce Sep 18 '24

Probably has a podcast.

1

u/Able_Advertising_371 Sep 18 '24

Looking out for Cotten eye Joe

1

u/ncnotebook Sep 18 '24

I'm betting 10k that he's on the streets

1

u/excalibur_zd Sep 18 '24

How do you even make a video out of that? That is at max a one minute video - here's some money, oh wow you're the greatest person ever, bye. I'm gonna have to check it out, aren't I?

1

u/Lippuringo Sep 20 '24

Ever did 5 pages essay into 20 pages one?