You Shouldn't Aspire to Become as Successful as Mr. Beast
The recent Mr. Beast drama shows the dark side of content creation.
This article will be a more candid piece than what I usually post here.
If you haven’t heard, there’s been a lot of controversy around Mr. Beast - the biggest creator on YouTube. The guy has crossed 300 million subscribers, and every video he puts out is automatically put into the trending tab on YouTube and accumulates millions of views in a matter of hours.
The catalyst was allegations made online against Ava Kris Tyson - a long-time best friend of Jimmy (a.k.a Mr. Beast) of grooming and making advances toward minors. The Internet Anarchist created a few good video essays explaining the whole thing. Here’s the latest one:
Mr. Beast came out with an announcement on Twitter explaining he disavows the whole thing, and the Beast company and Ava Tyson are parting ways while a private investigation will be underway:
Once that announcement came to light, a few things started to surface. One of which was the video below that went viral:
As of writing these words, that video earned over 10 million views.
That video made many allegations, but I won’t go into them because that’s not the point of this article.
What is the point of this article? Let’s talk about that next.
What Do We Learn From This?
Mr. Beast was seen as a role model YouTuber. He learned how to work the system and ensure every video is a success. Content creators from all corners of YouTube envy his success.
But do we really?
Mr. Beast is no longer that child who recorded himself for fun and wanted to succeed on YouTube. Mr. Beast is now a multi-million dollar business with hundreds of employees.
Do you really want to be the CEO of your own content company? For me, Mr. Beast is the perfect example of a creator who boxed himself into a corner. Now it’s no longer about creating videos for fun. It’s creating videos because the business needs to run smoothly, and there are employees that need to be paid a salary.
Now, it’s no longer about creating a video because you want to; it’s about creating a video and having experts help you determine whether the idea will work or not.
Now, it’s no longer having a personal life. There’s not a single place in America where Jimmy can go without receiving a request for a photograph.
Becoming a Big Creator Has Its Risks
When you become a big creator who employs more people, you now have more people under your name that you need to trust. As we’ve seen with the information presented above, if any of it is true, Mr. Beast has not been as diligent as he needs to be in adding dependable people to his team.
The other part of being a creator is dealing with Criticism, and Mr. Beast was not successful in dealing with all of this drama. Instead of issuing a statement about the fraud allegation video, he sent the guy a cease-and-desist letter. Why would you send a cease-and-desist letter if you think you can successfully refute the claims?
That’s the dark side of content creation: Mr. Beast probably believes that most of his audience are not even aware of what is happening and that in two weeks or so, nobody will keep talking about it the same way they do now. So… because you’re so big, you can now dodge the consequence bullets from shitty behavior? Maybe. Or maybe that’s what the Mr. Beast team believes when most of their audience are teenagers or younger.
Honest Work With a Small Team is The Way to Go!
Just look at Justin Welsh! That guy is making a living as a Solopreneur, which means he’s doing all or most of the work alone without hiring anyone to help. He has a great community, fantastic content, and courses, and he prioritizes living his life over working—something Mr. Beast can’t say he’s doing.
If I had to choose what path I wanted to take as a content creator, I would choose Justin’s path over Jimmy’s path. While Justin’s path is more freeing, Mr. Beast’s path involves trading a day job for working 24/7, and as a millennial, I can’t handle that. Maybe it works for Jimmy, but I’m not attracted to the idea.
To put my nerdiness on full blast, the recent allegations against Mr. Beast remind me of the ending of the Trespasser DLC on Dragon Age Inquisition. Spoilers follow in Italics and strikethrough. The ending of the DLC makes you choose whether to disband the inquisition or not. During the game, you realize the small inquisition you built throughout the game has become too big and now houses many spies for people who want to hurt you.
This is exactly what’s happening to Mr. Beast. His small organization, which once included just him and his buddies, has grown to become something much bigger than them. The recent allegations cast doubts on Mr. Beast ability to control this growth while remaining YouTube’s biggest star.
Thank you for reading. What do you think about all of this? Let me know in the comments below!