The "internet's nicest man" is being sued, reports the BBC, the latest fallout from various scandals and revelations about his business and his collaborators. The intense selective pressures of YouTube found the perfect human avatar, and now he is holding the bag for the cultlike organization he built to serve them.
Five female contestants on upcoming Prime Video show Beast Games are launching legal action against his production company MrB2024 and Amazon in Los Angeles. Billed as the largest ever reality competition series, 1,000 contestants are set to compete for a $5m (£3.7m) prize when the show airs – or if it airs. The lawsuit has plunged the show into crisis. Among many redacted pages, the legal document includes allegations that they "particularly and collectively suffered" in an environment that "systematically fostered a culture of misogyny and sexism". It cuts to the core of MrBeast's image as one of the nicest guys on the internet. I flicked through the document, which includes suggestions that participants were "underfed and overtired". Meals were provided "sporadically and sparsely" which "endangered the health and welfare" of the contestants, it is claimed.
Philanthropic marketing really wires some people, the guys that want to be a part of something but have internalized the idea that being political in any way is disreputable or naive. It's also a Rorschach test revealing people whose confidence is ticklish. So we have yet another venn diagram with mooks in the middle; they get upset when you remind them that the third circle is wealth they'll never have.
My favorite map of Beastlander's emotional landscape is the space between the "shocked music hall entertainer" YouTube thumbs and the formal "please don't scream I don't like it when you scream" PR portraits. In person it would not be uncanny, as it always was with, say, Mark Zuckerberg.
From the leaked PDF, "HOW TO SUCCEED IN MRBEAST PRODUCTION," instructing employees how things work:
NO DOES NOT MEAN NO
When dealing with people outside MrBeast Productions never take a No at face value. If we need a store to buy everything inside of and you call the local Dollar tree and the person that answers says "No, you can't film here". That literally doesn't mean shit.
