ListNook

Thisbymaster Apr 18, 2026 +1671

It is an interesting breakdown of everything wrong with the MrBeast machine.

1671

Specialist_Goat_2354 6 days ago +339

But the question becomes, if it even possible to have long term internet success. I feel like the 10 year olds he hooked in are now 20-25 and over the gimmick and the new ten year olds are into other stuff. And the progression changes. They want to watch the new 19 year olds do stuff not the 35 year olds. So the live of it just finishes. And they obviously don't want it too. But same with 90% of pop stars. All the early 2010 pop star groups are gone. Replaced by the 2020 Chappelle roan olivio Rodrigos. A few hang around but not like their peak. And that's just the life of a famous entity with a fan base of a certain age... They age out of what you are doing.

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whelpineedhelp 6 days ago +160

That’s my thought too. He should have always been planning for an end after 10/15 years, similar to pro sports. It’s just not a business built for longevity.

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Commercial-Co 6 days ago +87

Use the massive income stream and buy up other up and coming artists. This is normal business practice for maturing companies, especially in entertainment industry The fact that jimmy hasnt thought of it is hilarious to me

87

Aggressive_Chuck 6 days ago +29

Why buy other youubers and not just a diverse stock portfolio?

29

Commercial-Co 6 days ago +19

Because i’m assuming he wants to run a business. I’m in agreement - i personally would do a stock portfolio

19

dageshi 6 days ago +39

It doesn't really work on youtube. Anyone who gets to the point where they're successful enough to be on someone like Jimmy's radar is already successful enough to go it alone, the really hard part is done. Beyond that, you can own youtube channels but it's the people on them which attract an audience. Channels like Donut on the US or Carthrottle in the UK have big sub counts but many of their main presenters left and took their audience with them.

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JJMcGee83 6 days ago +73

I was watching Batman the Animated Series and the interesting thing about to me was it aired from 1992 to 1995 and they made 85 episodes which seemed super quick for that many episodes. I looked it up and Gargoyles, X-Men Animated Series, Animaniacs etc all of them ran for 3-5 years and part of the reason was they were considered kids shows and network execs knew kids shows just often don't spend a lot of time on top. The goal for all of them seemed to be to make as many episodes as they could in as short of a time as they could before the kids grew up and moved on.

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herschism 6 days ago +32

this was partly due to economic pressures at the time. Cable TV was new and needed content to fill up airtime as more and more channels started popping up. An easy way to make money was to make 65-100 episodes of something and sell it to syndication. So it makes money on the first run to advertisers as new stuff, and then you sell the rights to broadcast it on another channel and make more money as it has a second life in another space.

32

Low-Programmer-2368 6 days ago +12

That may be part of the explanation, but I suspect greed was a factor as well. After a certain amount of episodes (I believe 65 in this era) contracts would have to be renegotiated in a way which would heavily favor the cast. I’m having trouble corroborating it now, but read or watched something in the past that pointed to this being the primary reason why the Batman and Superman series were periodically renamed.

12

clear349 6 days ago +19

How do you measure success? Success at the scale of MrBeast is likely not possible, especially due to his demographic. But I would consider people like Dan Olson, Jenny Nicholson, Hbomberguy, and Lindsay Ellis as having "long term success". I believe they've all been producing content for over a decade. They can also take a year or more between videos and still get over a million views because they've cultivated a dedicated fanbase that is willing to engage with their content

19

ascagnel____ 6 days ago +8

You're correct, but there's one commonality they all have: they got their start off YouTube, and were able to turn that into YT success. They benefited from a media ecosystem that simply does not exist in the same way today, and the paths they took that allowed them to be long-term successful aren't open to newcomers. I don't have an answer to what the new way is, but Beast Industries was one, and significant cracks are readily apparent in that model already.

8

wartopuk 6 days ago +19

>But the question becomes, if it even possible to have long term internet success. I think so, but you have to grow and evolve. Rhett & Link started a very long time ago, I think 20 years ago this year, and they went from Funny songs to a show format, and even that's been 14 years and is still quite popular.

19

Regvlas 6 days ago +26

I think it's possible, to a point. Dan's run a reasonably successful channel for a while. Red letter media is a success. Chapo trap house pulls down cash with 2 hours of podcast a week, they just hit their ten year. But most of those are pretty low overhead. That's the best part of internet stuff, it costs very little to start. Even Jimmy's first video success was very low cost. But stuff like playing the most dangerous game? That's expensive.

26

joeisokayatrpgs 6 days ago +50

I think the difference is the age it is aimed for - Folding Ideas has been going for a while, but it's definitely aimed for adults while Mr Beasts videos are aimed for kids/teenagers. If someone gets into Folding Ideas while they are 30, they probably aren't going to change too much personality wise by the time their 40 and can keep watching. But someone going from 10 to 20 in the same time will change enormous and not still be watching the same content.

50

I_Do_Not_Abbreviate 6 days ago +19

Yes, they kept their costs under control; compared to Beast Industries, RedLetterMedia is roughly a half-dozen middle-aged men working out of a poorly-insulated community-theater-tier production house in Milwaukee filled with prosumer-grade film equipment, plywood sets, and thousands of thrifted videotapes, who seem to dump most of their net profits into auction bids for old Star Trek props and life-size replicas of naked Sylvester Stallone Pretty easy to keep costs under control when most of your video output is dudes drinking beer and talking about stuff they saw.

19

Coolman_Rosso 6 days ago +5

>They want to watch the new 19 year olds do stuff not the 35 year olds. So the live of it just finishes. And they obviously don't want it too. But same with 90% of pop stars. All the early 2010 pop star groups are gone. Replaced by the 2020 Chappelle roan olivio Rodrigos. A few hang around but not like their peak. So I've seen many permutations of this observation out and about, and while it's correct I do think the pop angle is the best example. Look at Katy Perry, who has been dragged through the dirt over the last 2-3 years and whose style of bubblegum pop kind of either fell out of favor or has been done better by others. Her big album was what? 2011? 15 years is a long time in that space. It's also been a big thing in movie spheres. The trades talk about how Gen Z is driving theater business, but with few exceptions they do not want "their parents franchises". The rise of the video game movie and the outlier that was last year's wide release of Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle prove this. However Mr. Beast, who has controlled Youtube in a sense for ages now and had untold influence in how the algorithm works and how youtube stars are perceived, falling in relevance seems unheard of yet here it is

5

MappleStarsSky Apr 18, 2026 +403

I said this in another listnook thread, but I think the real reason for why Dan got invited, and that Dan proposes as theory but the video validates, is that they are searching for new opinions by people outside of their influence, from content creators with a small but more dedicated fanbase; because they know that Beast enterprise is slowly dying and they have to do something about it, while Mr Beast and the crew keeps asking themself "Why no one did this? Are they stupid?" and then they discover why no one did this and they don' t do the stupid thing anymore. People are both overthink and underthinking this. You don' t stumble into this kind of rich operations by accident, those people absolutely have a plan. Jimmy, Mr Beast, is absolutely someone who knows how to make a business. At the same time, those same people are stupid enough to not always know where this plan is leading. I say this as someone who has worked in illustration and has been part of discussions like this, this entire enterprise reads to me as a shot in the dark. One of those "we' re gonna invest in random shit and see what comes back to us". When I was working in a place like this, they were called "exploratory marketing". They' re not meant to make money or have a tangible effect, but they are a way to diversify and try new stuff and see if it works. Doesn' t mean they are actually doing them right, but as Dan says in his video, the entire enterprise is built on Jimmy going "Woah I didn' t know Feastables chocolate had to have the bars divided in squares, otherwise they would be actually dangerous". In this case, I very much believe in this operation being something like bringing in creators to get their feedback but also doing other stuff, like leaving them free to make videos, and see if it works. It' s a shot in the dark, but a calculated one.

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[deleted] Apr 18, 2026 +128

[deleted]

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whatthewhythehow Apr 19, 2026 +149

I got the impression that they sort of chickened out. Consultants can only do so much and Mr. Beast kinda maxed out on the algorithm gain. I don’t know what consultants could teach his team about this sort of social media. He’s done it better than almost anyone. Instead, they brought out people who were the opposite of their demographic. Who were known for being critical, assuming that this sort of person is what they were missing. But they couldn’t just let them come and give criticisms. They want to be liked too much. And I think if they only heard mild criticisms, then they could pinpoint minor flaws they hadn’t noticed, and then changed those small things. “Your brand is an affront to art” isn’t helpful when designing a corporate strategy. So they buttered the creators up, thinking that if these guys said the show was mostly good, then it had to be mostly good. So it is almost self-reflection, but then swerving away.

149

Dickgivins 6 days ago +12

Oh yes I think this is exactly it.

12

Kaplsauce 6 days ago +28

>Then again, the idea of just inviting random YouTubers to get input on their corporate strategy Idk enough about any of the other creators included, but I think it makes even more sense if he was legitimately just asking content creators with more engagement how they do that.

28

Bloodcloud079 6 days ago +16

Who said they didn’t hire business consultants? For all we know they are currently implementing their strategy. Hell for all we know consult with successful youtubers with dedicated fandom was part of the business consultants plan

16

Bluest_waters Apr 19, 2026 +69

> they know that Beast enterprise is slowly dying from your lips to God's ears please be true

69

SilentCicada 6 days ago +46

As shown in the video, main channel views are on the decline and there's no real "fandom" for Mr Beast to speak of because even though a lot of people watch his stuff, they aren't emotionally invested (a concrete example from the video: for a guy with the most subscribers on YT, Beast's sublistnook has barely any activity)

46

Einveldi_ Apr 18, 2026 +234

>You don' t stumble into this kind of rich operations by accident, those people absolutely have a plan. This I disagree with. I don't think he has a plan. I think he stumbled across a grain of an idea that worked, and is trying to repeat it ad infinitum with diminishing returns. As you point out, he also spends a lot of time throwing stuff at the market and seeing what sticks, that is not a plan.

234

myassholealt Apr 19, 2026 +53

I agree with you. People who make it big on YouTube don’t do so because they are great business minds. Yes, some are, but it’s also not that technical to find a content field that attracts high viewers, which he did with his charity for social media views videos. Once his audience grew big enough the money came pouring in so he’s just trying everything under the sun. And when your primary customer base is social media followers and viewers, they will buy whatever you put your name to. The Ryan toys weren’t popular because they were good toys. Kids loved Ryan and wanted whatever the Ryan channel tried to sell them. Same with Beast branded merch. Eventually, though, YT audiences tend to outgrow the channel and that’s when the house of cards fall if you’re not actually a good business mind and failed to diversify beyond a dependency on that YT audience. Which might be his fate. If there’s nothing special about his candy, or his toys, or whatever else, people are not going to buy it if they don’t care about the Beast brand. And eventually people will stop caring cause that audience grew up.

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Bluest_waters Apr 19, 2026 +55

> Eventually, though, YT audiences tend to outgrow the channel this! Why has nobody said this yet. Those tweens and teens that made his channel big are now in college and they just don't have time for this. Theoretically you'd get the next generation, but maybe the next generation doesn't like Mr. beast stuff. You never know. The audience is a fickle b****

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myassholealt Apr 19, 2026 +43

Usually some new content creator or channel is capturing the next generation instead. I saw it with my own era of YTubers. There were channels I was a dedicated viewer of. Then I got busy with life as I got older, watched them less, and when I’d go back and see what they’re up to I’d often discover their numbers drastically dwindled or they stopped doing videos altogether. And there was a new wave of creators I was unfamiliar with.

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Cerebral-Parsley 6 days ago +10

The audience is ems fickles mistress, Toki. A fickles mistress!

10

Presently_Absent Apr 18, 2026 +98

I think he also finds things with low margins and high sale prices, sees he can make X on Y units, and figures it's basically printing money. Which it is, if you have a really good product and know what you're doing. But he doesn't know what he's doing, and boasts that he does, and then gets exposed. Case in point: "thousands of hours studying chocolate". No. He wasn't studying chocolate for thousands of hours.

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Orchestra_Oculta 6 days ago +55

Alright dude. You can't convince me that Jimmy DIDN'T spend 1k+ hours just staring at a bar of chocolate. Burden of proof is on YOU

55

clear349 6 days ago +13

Perhaps this is my ignorance talking but do you even need thousands of hours studying chocolate to make a chocolate bar? It's likely a well understood science and saying it needs that much effort comes off as an issue on his end

13

Presently_Absent 6 days ago +20

This is the thing, he's constantly at odds with himself. "You only need like a 20.minute YouTube video to learn" "I studied this for thousands of hours!" "We got the basics completely wrong" You would THINK he would just hire people to get it done properly but, as the video says, they're just... Flailing.

20

Cortexiplan 6 days ago +25

It is a well understood science, craft and art. Well documented. There are many experts. But I think he is one of these 'I don't believe in experts' types. He says he doesn't understand why you need to study for degrees, when youtube can teach you in a few hours. I'm so sure people told him how to make a chocolate bar, but he wanted to make a flat one. How on earth did he have to discover this AFTER going to market?

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clear349 6 days ago +5

Do you even need to talk to an expert though to find out what he didn't know? I'd be willing to bet he could read a Wikipedia page or some book about the history of chocolate manufacturing to get a decent enough knowledge base to work from. What were his "thousands of hours of research" if it didn't even put him in the path of such obvious facts?

5

TinyAbsol Apr 18, 2026 +46

I am also sure most of his businesses failed and cost him money. Food chains, the Amazon show, his Lunchables knockoffs, etc.

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CircStar89 Apr 18, 2026 +83

He attracts a lot of dickheads and dudebros, which are his main demographic specifically. He doesn't make female-only competitions, so the mixed gender ones end up pretty quickly becoming sausage fests left with the most obnoxious dudebro asshats who you don't want to win.

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AlbionPCJ Apr 18, 2026 +501

To stick to the television topic given the sub, Beast Games just feels like a poorly designed show from the top down. Starting with that many contestants means none of the games can be that interesting or varied, hence why the challenges had to be reworked on the fly because they were eliminating too many/too few people and/or not being played as originally expected. And the Beast Team doesn't seem cut out to run any games they didn't get from somewhere else. The second season failing to really do anything with the brains vs brawn concept beyond "real life Simon" and "hanging from a rope" really exemplifies that. They just seem to be throwing shit at the wall, both creatively and business-wise, in the desperate hope of optimising algorithm metrics

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whoeve Apr 18, 2026 +281

It's just uncreative people making content that's slop for teenagers to eat up. That's it.

281

Dickgivins Apr 18, 2026 +107

But if the title is to be believed then even the teenagers aren’t eating it up like they used to.

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GrandmaPoses Apr 18, 2026 +159

The original audience grew up, grew out of it, and aren’t being replaced.

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Tymareta Apr 19, 2026 +42

Exactly what happened to PewdiePie.

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moffattron9000 Apr 19, 2026 +39

That and doing a bunch of racist nonsense.

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Nanowith 6 days ago +19

I mean it's not like Mr Beast is free of controversy either.

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RedditPoster05 Apr 18, 2026 +21

That was my thinking I will also add it’s not on YouTube is it? That’s where his audience was or is I can’t imagine very many people going into a paid service.

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Sonichu- Apr 18, 2026 +43

Because they’re growing up. It’s hard to keep content for teens sustainable because your core audience ages out and new teenagers see your content as “for old people”. Mr Beast is almost 30. He’s not going to appeal to 14 year olds as much as when he was 19.

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ghostcider Apr 18, 2026 +35

Also, even when he was applying for a billion dollar valuation for him company, his fans saw him as the underdog. That is solidly gone now. He's lost two things he can't get back and that was a lot of his appeal to his core audience.

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RKNieen 6 days ago +11

That perceived underdog status is I think the thing that makes them keep putting out clips that make them look bad. They are still thinking of themselves as scrappy kids playing in the adults’ sandbox, so when they f*** up, they see it as a fun humanizing anecdote to tell. But they are now handling so much money and have peoples’ livelihoods in their hands that it comes across as incompetent and disrespectful.

11

TotalHeat Apr 18, 2026 +38

And to be honest, 14 year olds almost seem too old for his demographic. Mr Beast appeals to like, literal children.

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MaimedJester Apr 18, 2026 +59

Oh Dan goes over it, theres a market cap. Every 10 year old boy already knows about Mr. Beast. There are only so many English language speaking boys. The only way you get to what Mr. Beast says of the Goal is to be a 100 billion dollar company... is to have a broad market appeal. He goes over the buying of Warner Brothers for 86 Billion dollars and lists the broad range of their content. Mr Beast heavily Saturates a single exact market. It doesnt matter how big you are in a single niche, be it Housewives or like Black Adult men, you dont reach 100 billion dollar company ever with only one target focus group. Edit point: I want to address the Black Adult demographic thing I brought up, because I was thinking of how Genius Tyler Perry is in how he might one of the only entertainment entrepreneurs i believe will hit 100 billion dollar company status as an individual ground up creator. Like most people know Tyler Perry from shit like Madea movies they think are only Black Comedy movies and dont realize shit like the Walking Dead "Filmed in the State of Georgia" brand is a sign of Tyler Perry's influence. And that's because we see his acting/performance character as kinda who he is but he's actually like a system building genius where he creates entire government backed incentives to film in Georgia and get jobs for tens of thousands of people in the local economy etc. And comparing that to Mr. Beast hiring and surrounding himself with only his high-school friend group and thinking thats enough we have money we can figure each individual episode out because we throw money at an idea. Meanwhile Tyler Perry is the guy who you trust to house tens of millions of dollars of equipment when you want to film a movie and have on site union backed professionals.

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AiSard 6 days ago +16

>There are only so many English language speaking boys. To be fair to them, I think they actually tackled this particular issue. All his videos have multi-language audio tracks now (22 languages in a random video I clicked). They're all professionally dubbed. The quality seems pretty high, though it dips in some cases. Notably he got the VA for Naruto to voice him in Japanese. And the dub in my language sounds pretty darn professional at least. The point though, is that these videos get pushed to 10 year old boys in all 22 languages, with their language as the default. Basically just threw money at the idea, but here at least his team seemed to stumble on something that worked. Its not broad market appeal, but it does widen it from just the anglosphere.

16

FoldableHuman 6 days ago +10

One of the things about this: they *were* operating 20-something multilingual Beast channels, but with the new audio tracks feature (which they took credit for) they sunset all of them to push that traffic into the main channel.

10

Comic_Book_Reader Apr 18, 2026 +81

A lot of that is in the second half of the critique from Dan/Folding Ideas. He also made a [separate video](https://youtu.be/2ubYGdMCQTA?is=onBNjfdgaL_uf2KV) on the show itself.

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Emperor-Commodus 6 days ago +41

I think the second video makes it very clear that the primary issue with Beast Games is that the people making it are incompetent and have no idea what they're doing. The games are very poorly designed and that's inexcusable with how much money they have.

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Happy_Little_Fish 6 days ago +17

paid tens of thousands for youtubers to visit and answer questions about fandom, didn't spend any money on people who design games/escape rooms/etc.

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RemnantEvil 6 days ago +9

The idea presented that Beast Games is just a blatant rip-off of Squid Game focused on their defensiveness about that comparison, but missed a wider point: As Jimmy says in his defence, nobody dies in Beast Games. But that's also the problem, or one half of it: Nobody dies in Beast Games. Squid Game had a lot of very basic games, like Red Light, Green Light. But if you remove the mortal danger of that, it's a very simple game... and Beast Games is trying to build itself on very simple games, but without the extra drama that comes from the lethality. Take any of the games from Squid Game and remove the threat of people dying, and it becomes really uninteresting. The fact that s1 apparently frequently had games that ended in stalemates, and a lot of eliminations were just random draw chance, meant they did barely any experimenting to see if the games would work - I assume because all of that time investment couldn't be used for content and therefore would be wasted time. But it was pretty obvious that some games fell apart immediately. (The other point, of course, is that while Squid Game also uses hundreds of contestants, *there's a main character* and a handful of supporting characters, many of whom are named. So it's not just that there are simple games that are lethal, but there's a perspective character that we primarily follow. It isn't so much "How do we solve this game", it's "Will our guy make it through".)

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IsAlpher Apr 18, 2026 +25

Thanks for the link I saw the original and thought the second vid was a patreon exclusive

25

Mr_Shakes 6 days ago +11

It was a really smart way to get me to look at his patreon, and I also understand why its not a main channel video - the show sounds awful, and there's no way to say anything meaningful about every individual episode without just sounding like a takedown piece.

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Agent-Blasto-007 Apr 18, 2026 +142

>And the Beast Team doesn't seem cut out to run any games they didn't get from somewhere else. Yeah he goes into it in the video, where the "best" episode was the Survivor Crossover: where Survivor's production & editing team took over. They know how to run challenges and make the audience give a shit about those involved in the challenges. Their experience made the rest of the series look like amateur hour, because it was. There's a reason Survivor has cultivated a 20+ year audience and Beast Games is a flash in the pan carnival game.

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Lorraine_Swanson Apr 18, 2026 +92

Don't forget Jeff Probst showcasing how you host a game show. Jimmy took a back seat while the master dove the show during the challenges. It shows the difference between someone who was hired to host a show and someone who made their own show to host.

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Cross55 6 days ago +56

There was an unedited clip flying around of Jimmy asking Jeff how he controls contestants/challenges without yelling all the time, and Jeff clapped back with "If you're in control of the situation, you don't need to yell."

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clear349 6 days ago +16

"A king who needs to shout 'I am the king' is no true king"

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pinkynarftroz Apr 18, 2026 +23

The survivor episode was shot by the show’s crew, but it was not edited by them. All episodes were edited by the post production team hired for beast games.

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Rupder 6 days ago +32

I think it goes to show how important pre-production is. Beast Games's edit looks like c*** because the material they're using isn't good to begin with. But with Survivor, the building blocks are conducive to making good television: drone establishing shots, action and reaction shots, rather than 600 GoPros and wide coverage for everything.

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OneNoteRedditor 6 days ago +7

> Their experience made the rest of the series look like amateur hour, because it was. The dog caught the car, and has no idea what to do with it.

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IBJON Apr 18, 2026 +128

I've caught clips of beast games here and there and every round seemed to have the same theme of "throw someone under the bus or risk them doing it to you". I'm all for a good reality competition style show, but Beast Games just seemed eager to lean into the worst traits of people

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bigdaddyt2 Apr 18, 2026 +62

Ya like it’s interesting 1 time. Problem is Mr beast has been doing the same 3 things it’s either that, guess what’s in the briefcase or don’t leave the circle

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MaimedJester Apr 18, 2026 +56

Well that's what Mr. Beast wants for content, but there's a second video besides this one that goes step by step about the game theory of each of these games. And pretty much everyone breaks the games by using collaboration. Unlike children, most adults are rational people and also for most adults the risk reward difference between 5 million and 10 million is not gonna influence your decision making. The second people see a way to cash out with "only walking away with a million" they all happily take it rather than fighting tooth and nail for 10 million that they can get after 3 more games. And it's not like Squid Games were you have some moral quandary because of all the killing, or maybe the other person is desperate for money to treat cancer or some shit. This is adults treating it like a gameshow lol. Like it's no different than someone playing Deal or No Deal or American Ninja Warriors.

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EagenVegham Apr 18, 2026 +49

>Unlike children, most adults are rational people and also for most adults the risk reward difference between 5 million and 10 million is not gonna influence your decision making. Children of certain ages may not be able to comprehend just how much money 5-10 million is, but studies have repeatedly shown that young children still value cooperation over selfishness.

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MaimedJester Apr 18, 2026 +22

Yeah but me personally I just never will comprehend the difference between 5 million dollars in my life vs 10 million. I cant really think of the difference that last 5 million would make. Like 100 k a year is a great end of career income goal for most people. That's 50 years of working, or 100 years of working... no one is working those 50 to 100 years. Now it's just how much money to leave to children, and honestly I wouldn't want to leave children with anything more than a House or maybe 1 million in cash. Generational wealth will more than likely turn my kids into bad or out of touch people.

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Mopman43 6 days ago +23

Not to mention cashing out early means you don’t need to go through more of the grueling filming sessions.

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MaimedJester 6 days ago +14

Yeah it seems like a lot of people because they accidentally fucked up early on and reduced the contestants to 20... I'm happy to leave with just 500k... and He didn't really account for what the f*** happens in that multi-day scenario. In Squidgames they kill you. So you're locked into it or death. And they also only recruited the most fucked debt ridden people in society for whatever reason and they didnt have any choice but this fucked up capitalist parody. Like you only get the kinda shit Mr. Beast expected... from shit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumfights Where for a glorious time MTV tried to pay random homeless people fight like it was boxing to recreate that whole legendary They Live fight scene... But drug addicted or mentally ill etc exploitation for money/content is so fucked up you probably were thr cause of that Jackass waver before every episode saying... these are trained professional stuntmen/clowns etc. Oh yeah surprise giving a 500 dollar fight between two crackheads makes an interesting incentive.

14

toiletting Apr 18, 2026 +88

and it’s even funnier because, just as the video essay says, people tend to work together and prove Jimmy Beast wrong

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Ver_Void Apr 18, 2026 +55

All that money and they couldn't find one game theory/ rules lawyer type to look over things and work out how people would try to play to their advantage

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spaceandthewoods_ Apr 18, 2026 +41

It is crazy to me that with all the money the Beast team throws around, they didn't bother throwing that money at established production teams for gameshows, reality shows and Ninja Warrior when making this shit. There are experts in these fields...maybe go hire them?

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Ver_Void Apr 18, 2026 +30

I've known people who worked on those kind of shows, they would kill to have a project with that kind of budget and scope

30

Korwinga Apr 19, 2026 +28

I mean... are you really surprised? They pushed a product into thousands of grocery stores without knowing that packaging engineering was even a thing.

28

pixel8knuckle Apr 18, 2026 +53

Thats kind of always been his thing. He wants to take a small sample of people and say “see, look how greedy people are” to provide some sort of validation for himself. Lol

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Tymareta Apr 19, 2026 +36

He presumes that everyone is as greedy as him, while also having an incredibly c**** nihilistic worldview, the age old "assholes assume that everyone else is an a******" sort of thing.

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Disastrous_Set_3148 6 days ago +23

That's illustrated really well by the failed color game Dan outlines in the video. Jimmy assumed the players would all lie to disqualify each other despite the fact that there was no incentive to because that's how his shitty little mind works. Funny how the only player who legitimately lost the game only did so because he was such an a****** that the other players plain old refused to talk to him.

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RKNieen 6 days ago +7

He sounded like such a supervillain in that segment, too, demanding that people start lying or he’d make them suffer.

7

lindendweller Apr 18, 2026 +43

The funniest thing is that the a creccuring way the games break because the Mr Beast team never considered that the players could and would collaborate if given the opportunity. They very often design games based around betrayal while rarely giving a good reason for anyone to betray anyone, let alone actively help.

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EsperDerek 6 days ago +13

From the videos I've seen about the series, the games and chances for betrayal seem to amount to one of two possibilities: either situations where cooperation (at least with a few people) is better and easier than straight betrayal, or "Would YOU take a million dollars and eliminate the people you're in competition with and have known for like a day and a half and likely never see again?" So either the betrayal is harder and less profitable than cooperation, or betrayal is so OBVIOUSLY the right choice and not *really* betrayal anyways because you're competitors.

13

__Hello_my_name_is__ Apr 18, 2026 +26

He has a second 1 hour 30 minute video where he goes into great detail about the show itself, and why it is really badly done. It's almost as interesting as the main video.

26

KnotSoSalty Apr 18, 2026 +41

Korean brain game shows ruined competition shows for me. Check out Devil’s plan. Actually smart people trying do actually difficult stuff.

41

teflonbob Apr 18, 2026 +16

Every Mr beast contestant is a parasitic ‘influencer’ or c-level entertainer on the show to push their brand. It’s so transparently hollow and lifeless it hurts to watch them all try and get ‘the big break’

16

ReynardVulpini Apr 19, 2026 +17

There are so many parts where the players don't play the game as intended, and I wonder if part of that is that Mr Beast is so used to making these competition type videos with other content creators, who fundamentally understand the assignment is to make funny/interesting videos, and will act accordingly. These guys are just randos man. They want money and they want to not be total dicks to their friends. They will totally bypass the interesting idea if it's better for them.

17

sibswagl 6 days ago +6

> Starting with that many contestants means none of the games can be that interesting or varied, hence why the challenges had to be reworked on the fly because they were eliminating too many/too few people and/or not being played as originally expected. Yeah there's three reasons actual game shows are never this big. I mean the first is just money/logistics, can you imagine doing Survivor with 1000 people? The second is narrative. It's impossible to craft a narrative with that large a cast. Which is kind of ironic because Beast Games seems to be trying to do a "will they betray each other for the money" thing which would work much better if it was a smaller cast (and had time to get to know each other). And the third is like you said, games for such a large group are hard to design and playtest. Maybe they did playtest some of them. But stuff like the dot-on-head game or even the block stacking have elements that only come out in large groups (betrayal not being useful because you just don't have a partner for the next round; copying other players' stacks). Survivor has a lot of interesting challenges (and does a good job balancing physical and mental challenges) because they make smaller scope challenges which allow them to be tested and designed easier. > And the Beast Team doesn't seem cut out to run any games they didn't get from somewhere else. The second season failing to really do anything with the brains vs brawn concept Honestly they really should've just stolen from Survivor lol. They manage to have pretty varied challenges, with some that show off physical prowess vs. others requiring mental skills/dexterity/etc.

6

Councillor_Troy Apr 18, 2026 +690

It did not at all occur to me until he pointed out but Beast's popularity really is a mile wide and an inch deep. The comparison IShowSpeed’s fandom is really revealing. Folding Ideas poses several answers to why he and several other YouTubers with little in common with Mr. Beast got to take a four and get focus-group’ed but the obvious theory that he never quite spells out is that the Beast people wanted to get insight from YouTubers who are more niche but have genuinely dedicated followings.

690

Anchor_Aways Apr 18, 2026 +309

Seems like the dream for most youtubers (on the insightful or essay side at least) is to get big enough that they can support a patreon and only do 1-3 videos a year or get signed by Nebula I guess.

309

Ver_Void Apr 18, 2026 +114

I think Dan would also like control over a generation for youth, only so that someone else wouldn't have it and he doesn't have to watch the next grift take them for everything they've got

114

BrainDamage2029 6 days ago +68

I mean if he was trying to do that, oddball documentaries on Ralph Bakshi sure are an weird way to do it lol.

68

Mr_Blinky 6 days ago +60

I gotta tell you, it works wonders on mid-thirties nerds though.

60

toiletting Apr 18, 2026 +218

Yeah he doesn’t spell it out but in that way he does. The reality is that Jimmy’s obsession with metrics will never mesh with what gives those other YouTubers dedicated followings. That’s really the conclusion, everything with MrBeast is so thrown together and built strictly for numbers that he doesn’t do anything to gain any actual fandom. He makes “content,” not “content”.

218

elderlybrain Apr 18, 2026 +123

I realise that in the years of YouTube I've never once clicked on a mr beast video and never had the urge to do so. It's just game show stuff right? 4000 diabetics have to stuff their mouth with as many m'n'ms as possible for just 1 vial of insulin!

123

AiSard 6 days ago +26

Its spectacle. Razzle dazzle. The game show format is a paper thin vehicle to deliver that, is all. They can repackage that in to a games format, in to philanthropy, in to travel videos... some of these are on the main channel, some split in to their own. But at the end of the day, the main pillar and draw, has always been spectacle for its own sake. Dan touches on the tension that creates, where game show enthusiasts would want satisfying mechanics and storylines, MrBeast's audience craves spectacle for its own sake. More players. Larger prizes. More absurdity. One Big Moment! That Never Ends! And the channel has slavishly been following that North Star from its inception.

26

Bluest_waters Apr 19, 2026 +66

Never ever ever ever click on a Mr. beast video. The algorithm will shove his videos down your throat for the next 6 months no matter how many times you ask it not to

66

berlinbaer 6 days ago +21

just go into your watch history and remove the video, come on people it's 2026 you should know this shit.

21

Aggressive_Noise6426 6 days ago +44

Also he’s really creepy looking when he smiles.

44

Mr_Shakes 6 days ago +33

You know that theory about how the uncanny valley effect exists because, at one point, we were at risk of being hunted by things that looked almost- human-but-not-quite?* Donaldson smiles like he is imitating the act of smiling and the survival instinct in me yells 'run!' (*its a silly theory. The simpler explanation is that the most common thing you might see that is similar-but-not-quite-right is a dead person, and that revulsion keeps you from wanting to be in a situation where people are dying)

33

Nanowith 6 days ago +12

He smiles like a psychopath that's been told to do so to seem more appealing for metrics-based reasons. It's plastic and inauthentic.

12

Mr_Emile_heskey 6 days ago +9

Yeah he basically came to the conclusion that thumbnails where he smiles are more successful that those he doesn't, which is absolute nonsense it'll always be about the content they produce. He's a nutter.

9

FinallyGivenIn 6 days ago +59

Furthermore, as pointed out in a YouTube content, the people at MrBeast's fanmeets are there hoping for a chance at a giveaway or some random shit but never for him. They see him as a walking moneybag.

59

Nordic_ned 6 days ago +24

The speed vs Mr beast comparison is so stark. I walked into a deli today and the television had Speed on WWE with the staff legitimately interested and engrossed by it.

24

Nanowith 6 days ago +15

I mean whatever you want to say about Speed you can't deny the man is earnest and has a magnetic personality to boot. He has an authenticity which Mr Beast fundamentally lacks.

15

VelociRache1 Apr 18, 2026 +120

The IShowSpeed comparison really struck me as well. Neither he nor Mr. Beast are my kind of content. I have no interest in either of them, nor do I seek them out. But I know way more about IShowSpeed just from browsing listnook. His stuff has hit Popular several times that I can think of, for various reasons. And the only time I can think of Mr. Beast hitting it is the controversy around the "I cured blind people." I'm just one idiot with an internet connection so this is all anecdotal, but that section really surprised me and sort of snapped the whole picture into place.

120

Commercial-Co 6 days ago +67

Jimmy has no charisma. His videos dont rely on him for popularity but what is happening inside the video. Speed has charisma.

67

EbmocwenHsimah 6 days ago +13

Exactly. I reckon he’s foregone an actual personality for YouTube.

13

moffattron9000 Apr 19, 2026 +57

I don’t watch either of them because I’m not a child, but it sure seems like iShowSpeed has an actual personality that I’d expect out of a famous person that people care about. Mr Beast seems like Ryan Seacrest for young boys.

57

Tymareta Apr 19, 2026 +42

Even that depends on how you use listnook, I still use old so my front page isn't driven by algorithm, I have never once heard of IShowSpeed and literally only know about MrBeast via his controversies and the fact that random listnook threads bring him up endlessly. I've never once seen any of their videos on youtube, and haven't heard anyone outside of this site talk about them, ever.

42

Nighthunter007 6 days ago +7

I'd heard of Speed before because he was in my city once and just being there gathered enough of a crowd to make the news like instantly. It's the exact demonstration of the kind of pull he has that Jimmy Beast does not.

7

Disco11 Apr 18, 2026 +132

Dan produces my favorite content on YouTube. The thought he puts into his breakdown is great

132

BrainDamage2029 6 days ago +49

At the same time I do worry he's becoming the "takedown guy" of Web 4.0 bubble nonsense like NFT's, decentraland, the Gamestop conspiracy and now Mr. Beast. I just want more oddball documentaries on weird art and cinema like his one on Ralph Bakshi.

49

ShouldersofGiants100 6 days ago +87

The appeal of Folding Ideas is that Dan follows his interests. He's a guy who will go from a video about the story of some fake fossils to a breakdown of Call of Duty Ghosts to a video on the Jarhead sequels and the Hollywood system that made them to an explanation of why he was invited to see the new Mr Beast show. He never really stays in one rut and he's willing to follow his interests without completely spiralling.

87

[deleted] 6 days ago +13

[removed]

13

grapelander 6 days ago +6

I haven't played in ages, but my favorite Folding Ideas videos in a lot of ways are when Dan decides "ok time for a break from grifter takedowns, media criticism, etc, ima do another World of Warcraft video just because I can," just because it's so clearly Dan making videos on whatever's interesting him at the moment.

6

Daigonik 6 days ago +17

To be fair this is his first video in that vein in like two years

17

rabbitSC Apr 18, 2026 +270

It’s a fascinating video— I was hoping for some discussion about the fact that he was on the junket with the Nostalgia Critic after Dan made a video absolutely ripping that guy apart but alas no!

270

AlbionPCJ Apr 18, 2026 +340

It's mentioned in the description- basically, it was fine, everyone was an adult about it and Doug even gave him permission to use any footage that got coverage Dan didn't. The end credits to this video have a special thanks to The Nostalgia Critic for that reason

340

TyrionBananaster Apr 18, 2026 +127

Wow. Like don't get me wrong, he totally deserved the lashing Dan gave him in that video about the Wall, but even so that's honestly incredibly gracious of him

127

Bignate2001 Apr 19, 2026 +119

Doug is notoriously a good sport about people making fun of him. But even still, Dan's video was extremely brutal towards him even if everything he said was basically true.

119

N0r3m0rse 6 days ago +40

It's also that channel awesome has been revealed a bit of a rotten organization that makes it surprising. He wasn't behind all the shitty stuff it did, but he was one of the heads of the company regardless.

40

TNTiger_ 6 days ago +6

I don't think Doug ever was involved in any of the shitty stuff- he is a video creator, an internet personality at heart, and preferred to be 'one amongst equals' with the other CA awesome team. *At the same time*. he is literally head of the company. He could and should have stepped back, stepped up, and taken control, even if it was not something he was not used to or confident with. It's very a much 'Gregarious king goes off hunting/crusading leaving the courtiers to rip the country to shreds'. Like, yeah, he's personally chill and probably not happy about the way the state's being run, and the buck ultimately stops with them... but when you have the power to intervene and still look away? That doesn't save you as you may think it does.

6

MappleStarsSky Apr 18, 2026 +132

Not only that, Doug also gave Dan his footage too, to be used, in case he missed out on things, and told him he could use all of his clips too. Honestly insane from Doug, bro takes punches like a champ and shows how mature he is. And, if you let him a bit of an off-topic, he' s also an amazing animation critic too. Honestly, I think he should do only that lol, his critiques about animations are always great to actually amazing, I say this as someone who has both worked as editor and illustrator for tv series lol.

132

TheUberMensch123 Apr 18, 2026 +52

IIRC, Doug was an illustrator for his local newspaper before quitting to do Nostalgia Critic full time.

52

Cross55 6 days ago +15

That was more of a side job, the industry that he wanted to break into but couldn't. NC otoh was his hobby he didn't really see going anywhere but ended up taking off. He was a janitor at a local powerplant or factory before NC, where he made the famous quitting video blasting music about how much he hated his bosses in front of everyone before bowing out. He's honestly extremely lucky NC took off a bit before that cause he would've had a b**** of a time getting hired after that stunt.

15

PlayMp1 Apr 19, 2026 +40

Doug isn't the most competent or ethical individual but he's anything but thin skinned.

40

Balzaak Apr 18, 2026 +33

Between this and his relationship with Oney, Doug really seems like the best kinda Internet personality. Dude is the opposite of a lolcow.

33

patrickwithtraffic Apr 18, 2026 +60

Much love to this comment, would’ve never expected to get an answer in the description

60

Cross55 6 days ago +25

Well yeah, that's because, y'know, they're adults whose job it is to critique things. Doug himself acknowledged The Wall was an embarrassment, and he's fine with people criticizing it and him for making it. He's not... the most creatively gifted person in the world, but he's not lacking in self awareness, he has no problem admitting when he's screwed up or playing into a bit. (He's actually friends with Oneyplays now despite years of them making fun of him, because they just think he's a fun and chill guy to have around) Like, funnily enough, them inviting Doug and Dan over was probably the most damning evidence that the show wouldn't work, cause everyone was at worst politely cordial with one another.

25

RPDRNick Apr 18, 2026 +61

I'm sure the only thing more awkward would be him coming face to face with James Rolfe.

61

glootech Apr 18, 2026 +132

The James Rolfe video is Dan's magnum opus for me. And I'm pretty sure James understands that Dan's video is not really about him, it's about Dan.

132

MrGDPC Apr 18, 2026 +44

James understands film. He 100% gets it.

44

Gamma_Tony Apr 18, 2026 +65

Dans video has made me doubt that, unfortunately

65

felis_scipio Apr 18, 2026 +10

Back when he was making the Board James videos I wish he pivoted to horror. The nerd was already getting worn out and it’s a genre he’s passionate about and it could have kept things fresh.

10

spideracrossastar Apr 18, 2026 +32

I don't remember anything insulting in any way in the video about James, idk what could be awkward about it

32

SeventhSolar Apr 18, 2026 +33

I don’t think his video about James Rolfe was nearly as insulting, but I do think it was far more personal and intimate. If I were Dan, I would find talking to James about it quite awkward, but I’m not capable of that kind of unironic honesty anyway.

33

GuybrushThreepwood99 Apr 18, 2026 +20

He mostly criticizes James' filmmaking techniques and writing style. Not necessarily him as a person. His video on Doug felt a bit more personal.

20

spideracrossastar Apr 18, 2026 +24

Probably because after all the change the channel stuff Dan wasn't in the mood to pull punches. Dan seems to respect James despite his shortcomings, but Doug has done nothing to deserve that respect.

24

AvailableDress5505 6 days ago +13

It struck me that there was a frustration that James never grew as a creator. That someone who had inadvertently laid the groundwork for the video essay was still trapped in the YouTube ecosystem some twenty years later and out of either laziness or a lack of intellectual curiosity would never leave that ecosystem.

13

FreeStall42 6 days ago +10

Prob because as nice as Doug acts he was negligent as hell and takes no real ownership of that.

10

lindendweller Apr 18, 2026 +47

I feel like the Rolfe video is pretty tender towards his subject. The nostalgia critic video is... well let's say Dan Olson doesn't really abide the lack of media literacy on display in the nostalgia critoc's video about the wall.

47

Mopman43 6 days ago +38

The end conclusion of the James Rolfe video was basically, ‘He seems to be happy just treating AVGN as a job that can support his family’, and then turning the spotlight back on himself.

38

dagreenman18 Apr 18, 2026 +38

At this point I have to wonder if Doug accepts that The Wall video was a total misfire and takes the criticism with stride. The thing was turbo ass.

38

FreeStall42 6 days ago +23

Seems like he acknowledges it went poorly but avoids really talking about it beyond that. "Haha yes that went poorly lets move on".

23

Mpac28 Apr 18, 2026 +21

It’s really wild how many Internet personalities can trace their origin to the Nostalgia Critic

21

Hopeful-Pomelo4488 Apr 18, 2026 +142

Do his dead shark eyes and lack of charisma contribute as well?

142

Bluest_waters Apr 19, 2026 +58

It's the creepy smile that really gets me. It's a smile but it's not joyful, it's almost like a predatory smile

58

MuriloVeratti 6 days ago +25

Dude, for real, how the hell this guy became this? He's like, the worst enemy of charisma, extremely unfunny. People really have wild different tastes.

25

freezymcgeezy Apr 18, 2026 +194

This actually makes so much sense to me. I can’t watch MrBeast videos or his shows on Prime. I can’t describe it other then they make me anxious, like I cant digest it. It just feels frustrating to watch. They hop from one section to the next with no segway just to aggressively try to retain your attention.

194

TheGreatCthulhu Apr 18, 2026 +160

Segue. Pronounced Segway, which was a product.

160

ElectricalDark8280 Apr 18, 2026 +42

It’s funny, that spelling mistake will likely be the only lasting impression Segway leaves.

42

Dawg_Prime Apr 18, 2026 +52

check out [Mr Beast is what Karl Marx warned us about](https://youtu.be/-Hv-be_KdE0?si=70qIuSGn7t1GjvmA) beyond the philosophy they also dive into the purely algorithmic attitude every spare second is cut, every moment must be frantic action, and on youtube they live edit the videos after they get posted based on metrics so any second that loses attention gets edited out until its just a pure stream of consciousness

52

ChunkyHabeneroSalsa Apr 18, 2026 +60

I love everything Dan puts out and the pictures of him being so confused and uncomfortable during this "tour" hilarious. I've never seen more than 5min of Mr. Beast but I loved this analysis.

60

kenfagerdotcom Apr 19, 2026 +18

I started the video with “I don’t give a **** about Mr. Beast though” and then over an hour later when it finished… thumbs up.

18

bv310 Apr 18, 2026 +109

Dan's one of those channels that I will rearrange my schedule to watch. He's so good at what he does.

109

PassingThruRedditor Apr 18, 2026 +111

That's the whole thing about Mr Beast. His goal from the start was to figure out how to make a career out of YouTube which he did. He knows exactly what to do to get as many views as possible. Algorithm wise he makes "good" content but creatively wise they're lacking

111

toiletting Apr 18, 2026 +89

He knows how to get views and subscribers, he doesn’t know how to get dedicated fans. Part of it is the lack of creativity, the other part is that content is so basic that it’s really good at attracting kids to watch.

89

EliteLevelJobber Apr 18, 2026 +25

When all your videos follow a template of: I survive place for amount of time. Number of thing/people vs Number of thing/people or Number of people/type of people do thing for amount of money. You surely hit a point of diminishing returns where the videos start to become repetitive or uninteresting. I assume people probably go through a phase of binging Mr Beast videos and then drift away. Whereas Dan points out the people watch shows peed because they find him entertaining and will tune in whatever hes doing.

25

kaesura Apr 18, 2026 +29

eh. it's more than Mr. Beast's personal persona is an unattractive combo of slimy, artificial and shallow. It's clearly a performance but not a fun performance Despite the name, his personal performance is not what makes the channel successful they could easily hire another channel host to do what he does better

29

Ver_Void Apr 18, 2026 +45

The thing that kills it in so many ways is he's just not having fun and you can feel it. If the millionaire with free reign to do whatever he wants on that scale isn't even able to enjoy it how can the audience? Hell how can they feel anything but uneasy?

45

spaceandthewoods_ Apr 18, 2026 +37

The fact that all Jimmy Beast cares about is making number go up is the poison pill that spoils all of his content if you're not a child. He has none of the makings of a good media personality for grownups because he's not innately charming, media trained or polished, nor is he particularly interesting or witty as a person. He has none of the spark, banter or joi de vivre of a traditional successful gameshow host or presenter. Becausehe doesn't care about anything other than like go up, none of his videos ever simmer with the sort of passion or fun you get from a youtuber (or even mid tier podcaster) who gives a shit about the thing they're doing. F***, he's not even narcissistic in the fun, car crash kind of way you'd expect from a person as bizarrely driven and insanely influential as he is. He's a vacuum in a horrible suit and trainer combo who would never make it in traditional media and is possibly the thing holding back his own empire from succeeding at this point.

37

juanperes93 6 days ago +17

He also tries too hard to be the main character of his videos, but he makes reality TV stuff and there the host is never the main character but the participants.

17

kaesura 6 days ago +12

It's also that in half of his videoes he's literally torturing the participants but still frames himself as the good hearted money faerie . He acts the same in those videos as the ones where he just buys everything a teacher touches in a store in two minutes Everything, both torture and charity are just for content for him and he acts the same in both Just creepy

12

Georg_Simmel Apr 18, 2026 +58

In the video, Dan points out that Mr. Beast’s first video was him counting to 100,000, which Beast said he did just to get attention while he was doing something else (watching Game of Thrones?). Dan points out how “empty” that is. It’s devoid of any meaning or artistic value. He later claims that Beast is still counting. Oof.

58

FixedFun1 6 days ago +15

Mr. Beast got a lot of popularity for gifting money but now people figure out is all hooey and you'll never get anything from him. In fact, you give money to him no the vice-versa.

15

lindendweller Apr 18, 2026 +47

Just love Dan Olson, I've been watching his videos since at least 2012, back when he was on Chezapocalypse along with lindsey ellis and a lot of the smarter people who had emerged from the Nostalgia critique's orbit. This video is a pretty dark look into the void but Dan is a great narrator and it really makes you wish you were a fly on the wall during those discussions about the beast games preview

47

Druggedhippo 6 days ago +40

This is what American culture is now. @45:00 he talks about how it's clear that Beast doesn't know *what* it's doing, they have ideas but no plan. Now compare to Trump, Doge and the current US government. It's the *same* energy, the same feeling, identical execution.

40

Aggressive_Chuck 6 days ago +19

The most amazing thing about Mr Beast is how he can spend so much money for content that is just so boring. That game show on Amazon is the worst edited thing I've ever seen. Zero dramatic tension, and none of the games were even interesting. The entire novelty is how much money he's throwing around, but that gets boring after five minutes.

19

ripyourlungsdave Apr 18, 2026 +51

His video on the metaverse is worth watching as well. I've been rewatching a lot of his essays today after watching this one. The ones on Call Of Duty Ghosts and the the Jarhead sequels are pretty amazing as well. (It takes a special kind of writer to be able to give an original take on Call of duty Ghosts in 2025.) But my favorite is probably the episode he did about Nostalgia Critic's video on The Wall. The Nostalgia Critic's followers *hated hated hated* him for it, but it's a fascinating video that I think captures something really unique about the desperation for attention that comes with this career.

51

FareweII 6 days ago +30

>His video on the metaverse is worth watching as well I tried re-watching it a week ago, but had to stop, because i felt the weird sense of...irrelevancy and even naievete. It's not the fault of the video, but it's fascinating how already completely idiotic idea of metaverse just got **crushed** by AI. A lof of the promise of "metaverse" was that you if you want to buy a purse or something, you can just put on your headset and "go to the store" that way, but nowadays, tech bros don't want people interracting with each other **at all**, even through shitty mii-avatars, they want one party (or preferably both) being a robot.

30

lindendweller 6 days ago +18

Well yeah it's the logical outcome of techbros all chasing the next big thing. I think AI n it's current form (mostly meaning generative AI and LLMs might be going the way of the metaverse. The underlying tech has decent specialized applications (machine learning in general is a very powerful tool to throw at a lot of problems) and that has allowed the stock of AI to rise further than all that DOA stuff like NFTs and the Metaverse. But by and large AI is just very good at producing spam, and we already had enough of that. Also I'm very afraid at the financial fallout when the financial sector finally realises that producing brainrot content will never be a trillion dollars industry.

18

PaleHecates Apr 18, 2026 +92

Best video essayist on YT currently

92

SSNFUL 6 days ago +39

It’s not even close imo, from real world analysis to movies, he’s excellent at making topics interesting. His analysis of Annihilation make me approach movies and interpretable endings in a new way. Everyone knows his NFT video but honestly the flat earth video is his magnus opus in my mind, the sudden shift to Qanon hit me like a rock.

39

type_rex_ 6 days ago +10

After I saw his Annihilation video I completely reassessed how I criticized movies. His recent Jarhead video was a great spiritual sequel.

10

barkbarkkrabkrab 6 days ago +16

Would never watch mrbeastgames but the amount of money thrown around makes its so uncomfortable and extra squid gamesy. Like I'm not surprised actual adults on this show pretty consistently choose to get $100k or $500k or $1mil and dipped. Why continue to torture yourselves to maybe get more when the payout is already good. My theory is all the YouTubers assembled are somewhat mature and have longevity. While Beast content has like no penetration into anyone over 18 and viewers will age out of the content. Also both videos gave me respect for Survivor. They don't always get it perfect but they understand game design and like, basic group dynamics.

16

Mrfish31 6 days ago +13

>Like I'm not surprised actual adults on this show pretty consistently choose to get $100k or $500k or $1mil Basically the only interesting thing that happened in season one was that a woman was offered $1mil to eliminate her team and *didn't* take it. And the only reason that's interesting is because she's an idiot for making the choice she did, given she gave up a guaranteed 1mil for like a 1:20 shot at best at 5 million

13

Einchy Apr 18, 2026 +35

I always end up watching his whole videos in one sitting. He’s really good at hooking you with a concept

35

UsedToBeaRaider Apr 18, 2026 +95

1. I interviewed to fix their HR system. I was profoundly desperate at the time. I did not finish the interview, and told them there was no way I'd be a part of whatever they were doing. 2. Just finished it. Dan's had my attention since his Annihilation essay, and that's how you build a fandom; having something to say, and taking the care to say it clearly. When I feel sold to, I feel icky, and I've gotten pretty used to sussing out when I'm being sold to.

95

TheFalconKid Apr 19, 2026 +18

What about the interview lead you to walk out?

18

hotdoug1 6 days ago +31

Not OP, but I had a phone interview with them once, they reached out to me shortly after I became unemployed. The recruiter I spoke to was very green, like right out of college, and didn't even have a job for me when I asked why they reached out. They just said they liked my resume (I work in entertainment). I was like "okay.... well call me if you have anything." They never did, and this recruiter has moved on. A number of experienced producers I've worked with in LA over the years have worked them, but it seems like a weird model. They have them fly out to North Carolina for three months (they provide a car and apartment) and then they leave. So no real longevity or growth, it seems.

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Plagueofzombies 6 days ago +14

What's interesting about Mr Beast content is a massive amount of it has absolutely no impact, or staying power. The second most of it is off peoples screens it's just...gone. For every Beast Games, or big philanthropic vide, there's a HUGE amount of stuff that just vanishes without even a whisper from some of his biggest fans. Maybe it's down to the sheer amount of content his team pumps out, or maybe it's because none of it is particularly interesting/engaging when it's not directly in front of you, but it's strange. I worked with a company who had an advertising deal with Mr Beast. I won't lie, I don't know the exact details, but I know they paid him *fat* stacks to run a sponsored event for us. And it must have been a lot, because outside of our initial announcement, and this sponsored video, we really didn't have any other campaigns running. Credit where credit's due, his team put in *work.* The set was really well made, the editing was great, there were a BUNCH of guests there for the competition. It was just a solid advertisement all around. All the comments on the video are pretty positive, and yet despite all this we saw almost no impact on sales, or even interest in our product. About two weeks later there was almost no evidence the sponsored video had taken place, it had already been buried by the wave of content his team produces, and we had almost no one from his audience interested in our product to show for it... Which to be fair is *exactly* what a bunch of us who had boots on the ground expected. It was still quite strange to see though.

14

postsuper5000 Apr 19, 2026 +53

I might be outing myself here... But F-it... I worked in Post on the first season of Beast Games and it was hands down a lesson in how not to do things. I could write a freaking book after that experience.

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SarcasticBastard4457 6 days ago +26

So spill the tea! What made it so bad?

26

lindendweller 6 days ago +11

I think it's somewhat telling that none here came to do any contradictions. Sure sublistnook and subjective matters self select, but you'd think there's be a few people to say "actually I think it's neat/working with jimmy Beast was a good experience etc... But no, it's crickets.

11

BrightLuchr Apr 18, 2026 +33

At an 1h 18m, this is longer than most TV shows. Dan Olson's videos are always thought provoking. This is so well done. A close family member worked on Beast Games and we heard a lot about how fake Jimmy & his crew are as well as how unsafe the production was. We also got enough of those terrible chocolate bars for free that we threw them out. Even though there were hundreds of people on that Toronto production, and people got paid, turns out you don't want that on your resume. Anything to do with Mr. Beast is a black mark.

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Katorga8 Apr 18, 2026 +22

You should watch his supplement video, free on his patreon, where he reviews Beast Games Season 2 as an appendix to this video, and it just shows what a mess it was

22

Bignate2001 Apr 19, 2026 +17

Another banger from the foldable human. Dan Olson continues to be the greatest video essayist on the platform. The man has such an eloquent way of describing concepts that I haven't myself been able to put into words until now. Also the fact that Beast Studios had to review and approve this video before uploading is f****** hilarious.

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lindendweller 6 days ago +6

If anything it gives whoever is tasked to review a proximity to a well thought out vidéo that they wouldn't otherwise have. Might be a breath of fresh air.

6

aardrewn Apr 18, 2026 +25

Mr Beast don't know enough about what they're doing to know what they're doing wrong.

25

MaimedJester Apr 18, 2026 +39

I didnt watch Mr. Beast enough to realize there's no professional or even college educated people in the group. They're all only straight out of high-school and never even worked for like some film studio or whatever professionally. Like Gameshows have been around for decades. For this show, I'd hire like someone who worked on American Gladiator or someone with a decade+ experience running a physical type game show to tell them the basics like why you don't do variable weight based puzzles. So one of the tests based the challenge on a weight proportional to your bodyweight. Ever wonder why Kids are really good at monkey bars effortlessly? Yet adults use it as a military fitness street test? Because our weight isn't just fat to muscle ratio. We have to have these things called Skeltons and organs. So the smaller you are the more proportional to Muscle mass you are. So of course with that you just eliminate everyone of your big strong guys, and now when you have entire physically strenuous group exercises.. uh oh you just got rid of almost all your heavy lifting gym bros.

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Georg_Simmel Apr 18, 2026 +32

I’ve never watched any Mr. Beast content so hearing about his show is just wild to me. In the video, Dan essentially says the “smart” challenges just represent a dumb person’s idea of what it means to be smart and didn’t provide any advantage to the “smart” people in the challenges. And that’s to say nothing of what the Beast team think a “smart” person is…

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MaimedJester Apr 18, 2026 +23

Yeah like holy shit the Trivia one. Like the Question was What is the largest Animal on Earth... and it was Multiple choice... For multiple choice Trivia you have to be at least a little tricky for who wants to be a millionaire. Line which is the largest Largest Reptile, and Put in Komodo Dragon, Alligator, Saltwater Crocodile and Anaconda. And without googling, you need to realize how big a Saltwater Crocodile is compared to whatever Florida Aligator you think of for size. And also Anacondas are not as big as that stupid 90s movie made them out to be lol.

23

lindendweller 6 days ago +7

Idk why I thought anacondas could get close to 30ft in length... The fact that saltwater crocodiles can get 1m longer than anacondas is wild. I think I'm infected with RPG brain where a snake looking elongated means it's longer than the bulkier shaped crocodile.

7

DarthLithgow Apr 18, 2026 +12

Hopefully he doesn't take Survivor down with it. I'm still nervous about his episode.

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Born_Procedure_529 6 days ago +5

Also worth noting that Mr Beast's reputation has definitely gotten worse over the last few years, it came out a lot of his videos were pretty fake, coffeezilla caught his slew of crypto scams and his toyline got laughed off shelves

5

Expando3 6 days ago +5

I never understood the “beast” thing. I guess it’s over before I knew about it. Time and effort saved, I suppose.

5

proviethrow 6 days ago +7

Good video. Mr. Beast was boosted by Covid iPad kids who couldn’t read or write they just click on what is on the front page. His show struggles to have an audience on Amazon Prime, who is putting up major $$, but Prime isn’t YouTube. Amazon is probably ready to cancel this piece of shit which spells doom for Mr Beast Corp which will self destruct if it doesn’t grow. Growing is literally the brand. Platforms are done with directly giving money to influencers, there is no benefit there. But they’re currently trying something new kick for example is literally just dumping millions into astroturfing their own “influencers” they are just hiring people to clip and pay farmers rather than give the money directly to an influencer. Paying for an audience rather than paying the “talent” is too funny.

7

Borgorb Apr 18, 2026 +19

It's a good video, but the big surprise is that there's no real surprise. It's a company that got built off the back of a group of vibes based, charismatic individuals, fading in relevance because they can't adapt. The revelation that counting to 100,000 is, in fact, Mr Beast's entire ethic and identity. His entire career has been number go up, and everyone else is bored of it.

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Folding Ideas video essay about his trip to Beast Studio and his diagnosis of why Beast properties are declining in viewership

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