In 2017 Felix Kjellberg used a racial slur during a gaming livestream. The Swedish YouTuber, who was then the platform’s most highly paid star, called another player a “f**king n****r” to more than 30,000 fans. Millions more would watch the clip later. Such abuse might be all too common on some videogame servers, but his prominence meant it rattled a lot of cages. As did allegations of anti-Semitism.
At the time, Kjellberg, better known to fans as PewDiePie, had almost 60 million subscribers on YouTube and had earned a reported $15 million (€13.5 million) from the site the previous year. He was preparing to cash in on a lucrative deal with Disney, but the company ultimately cut its ties, as did YouTube. The PewDiePie “bridge incident” – named after the in-game bridge gunfight that prompted Kjellberg’s appalling comments – threatened to derail his career.
How many YouTube subscribers does he have today? More than 110 million. In the end his audience stuck by him, voting with their clicks, and Kjellberg avoided the kind of purgatory suffered by celebrities operating in more traditional public arenas.
This unlikely turnaround, reflecting his audience’s eventual agnosticism, will be of deep interest to Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast. Donaldson and staff at his US-based channel, the most heavily subscribed on YouTube – PewDiePie’s is eighth – have been the subject of rolling controversies in recent weeks that span allegations of fraudulent lotteries, sexual misconduct, hospitalisation of challenge contestants, and conditions akin to torture during a video shoot. Like Kjellberg, Donaldson has come under fire for using racial slurs in the past.
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This influence comes with a level of scrutiny that’s hard to evade. If Kjellberg’s YouTube channel was in hot water, Donaldson’s production empire is in a bucket of lava. It almost sounds like the premise for a characteristically outlandish MrBeast video. Fans have already started memeing his downfall.
In recent years Donaldson has become the undisputed top dog on YouTube, with an annual revenue of as much as $700 million across his companies. He has gained traction with his extravagant video concepts and fast-paced execution. There are cash prizes, mansions, superyachts, explosions, celebrity cameos, giant pizzas and all sorts of ridiculous challenges. He leans full tilt into clickbait, and overdelivers therein. If Donaldson says he’ll host Squid Game in real life, he’ll host Squid Game in real life. (His version is more carrot than stick, with a cash prize replacing the threat of death.)
MrBeast video titles include 50 YouTubers Fight for $1,000,000; I Built 100 Houses and Gave Them Away!; I Spent 7 Days Buried Alive; and Lamborghini vs World’s Largest Shredder. It’s hard not to click on these, and Donaldson knows it. He has even worked with Paddy Galloway, a YouTube strategist from Carlow, to increase his viewership. Last year Galloway told The Irish Times that Donaldson was “very analytical and very into this ‘mad-scientist approach’ to making content”.
As well as making videos, Donaldson has launched his own chocolate bar, merchandise empire, tree-planting organisation and global fast-food chain operated from ghost kitchens. When you Google MrBeast, the first suggestion is “How do I contact MrBeast for money?” He has forged a philanthropic image that will be difficult to shake among his fans – they often see him as a kind benefactor who might lift them out of financial potholes – but not impossible.
Ava Kris Tyson, who had long worked with Donaldson, stepped down from the company last month after the leak of inappropriate messages between her and a collaborator from when, according to Rolling Stone, they were 20 and 13. Around this time Donaldson, who was then 19, chimed in to make a joke, during a conversation about penis sizes, in an online chat that minors were also taking part in. Leaked messages show that teenagers used the forum to discuss pornographic content, and at one point it had a dedicated NSFW section. (The initialism, which stands for not safe for work, is commonly used to denote sexual content.)
More people came forward thereafter. Nathan Weyman, who says he had informally worked for Tyson in the past, posted a video on X claiming that Tyson “used me, manipulated me, and did very inappropriate things with me” when he was “about 15 years old”. Weyman said Tyson brought up sexual topics with minors in a private Discord group and frequently used them for free labour equivalent to a full-time job.
A former executive assistant to Tyson alleged on X that she sexually assaulted her and “took advantage” of the fact that she was “too scared to directly ask for anything in return”.
The numerous allegations against Tyson suggest a culture that normalised inappropriate behaviour. Tyson said on X that she has “never groomed anyone” and apologised for “any of my past behavior or comments if it hurt or offended anyone”.
This episode prompted further allegations against the MrBeast monolith. More than a dozen participants in Beast Games, an upcoming Prime Video show led by MrBeast, which features what Amazon claims, at $5 million, is “the biggest single prize in the history of television and streaming”, told the New York Times that they had not received enough food or medical care during a shoot in Las Vegas last month. Several contestants said they witnessed peers vomiting, passing out and being hospitalised. Now this feels more like Squid Game.
A spokesperson for MrBeast told the New York Times that the shoot “was unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather and other unexpected logistical and communications issues” and that the company has launched a formal review of the episode.
To add fuel to the fire, a self-styled journalist claiming to be a former MrBeast employee has released two videos on YouTube with evidence that he claims points to a toxic working culture, faked videos and fraudulent lotteries.
One of the two posted videos features a frank interview with a former MrBeast writer and comedian named Jake Weddle, who recounts participating in an unaired challenge that rewarded him with $10,000 for every day he spent alone in a room with the lights constantly on, comparing it to a form of torture. He also claims to have been encouraged to run a marathon on a treadmill with no prior training, sustaining leg and foot injuries.
“Dawson”, the self-styled journalist, publicly shared a cease-and-desist letter he says he received from MrBeast’s legal team; the videos were still live at the time of writing.
Though Donaldson has posted on social media about the Tyson controversy, there was much anticipation among MrBeast fans over his next video. Would he, like many before him, upload a frank apology video and hope all was forgiven?
Nope: “Survive 100 Days in Nuclear Bunker, Win $500,000″.
It appears that, although MrBeast has ordered an assessment of the internal culture of his companies, according to a leaked memo obtained by the Associated Press, the US news agency, it remains business as usual for the channel.
The introduction of an anonymous reporting mechanism and sensitivity training is welcome, but one can’t help but feel this is the response of a leader who has been forced into action rather than deciding to take it independently.
The next few weeks will determine if Donaldson’s empire is too big to fail or if it will instead succumb to the public beast it has attempted to tame. One imagines that any decent adviser would be coaching him, first, in how to control the damage and, second, in how to create a comeback arc that his devotees can get behind. Because if there’s one thing we love more than cancelling a celeb, it’s a shocking fifth act to move the saga along. Isn’t that what we watch MrBeast for anyway?
MrBeast did not respond to a request for comment, but after Tyson’s allegations last month Donaldson said on X that he was disgusted by and opposed to the acts she is alleged to have committed, had removed Tyson from the company, and had hired “an independent third party to conduct a thorough investigation”.
A spokesperson for Donaldson recently told the Associated Press: “When Jimmy was a teenager he acted like many kids and used inappropriate language while trying to be funny. Over the years he has repeatedly apologised and has learned that increasing influence comes with increased responsibility to be more aware and more sensitive to the power of language.
“After making some bad jokes and other mistakes when he was younger, as an adult he has focused on engaging with the MrBeast community to work together on making a positive impact around the world.”
