When English Department Director Jeanie Griffin led her students’ class discussion during one of her AP English Language classes last year, she was surprised to hear a student mention that a YouTube channel with a focus on charity was among the most subscribed in the world.
“I remember the day in AP Lang when the class somehow convinced Mrs. Griffin to play a ‘Mr. Beast’ video on the projector,” senior Scarlett Edammudalige said. “It was the video called ‘I Built 100 Wells In Africa.’ It was surprisingly relevant to what we were talking about in class that day, but also really funny. I crack up every time I think of that memory, but I can’t help feeling a bit sad and disappointed with all the allegations made against the channel recently. What we see of a content creator online is exactly what they want us to see, but when someone builds a brand specifically about being authentic and generous, it feels much more shocking when it comes out that they aren’t.”
Created and run by Jimmy Donaldson, the channel has taken the first-place spot as the world’s most subscribed YouTube channel, growing to over 300 million subscribers and leading to the creation of enterprises like Beast Productions and Beast Philanthropy. The “Mr. Beast” channel is known for its eye-catching content, with videos that often involve large sums of money being given away through competitions, challenges, and even given away to strangers. Although inherently charitable, the ethics of such content have been debated since the channel first rose to fame.
“I think really it probably depends on intent whether or not it’s exploitative,” Griffin said. “If the people are filming it to try to bring awareness and encourage people to do similar works, then it’s helpful, but if they change and start doing it to gain money and not helping others, then it’d be exploitative. It’s intent, everything always goes back to intent.”
Despite being a longstanding subject of heated discussion, Donaldson and the Beast brand have been further spotlighted by recent controversies. After costar Ava Kris Tyson faced allegations of inappropriately messaging underage fans, a series of scandals followed regarding both general employee conditions and his upcoming Amazon Prime series, “Beast Games,” that have left students polarized.
“[Former employees] came out against ‘Mr. Beast’ for a poor work environment,” senior Mason Terry said. “People have been idolizing ‘Mr. Beast’ for too long in the YouTube industry, when he’s really just like any other content creator. I’ve been a fan since the beginning and I think his channel has grown into a production studio, not just a normal YouTube channel. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he doesn’t treat his employees the same anymore.”
In addition to Tyson, other Beast Productions staff like Donaldson’s former manager Charles Jefferson, former producer Locoya Hill and producer James Warren have been under scrutiny for alleged sexual harassment, and the company has been criticized by former employees who describe it as a generally sexist environment. Former Beast Productions employee Dawson French has been a driving force of the critique against Donaldson, releasing various exposé-style videos as “DogPack404” on YouTube covering a range of topics that include allegations of faking results in challenges or videos, selling fake autographs, conducting giveaways that are considered illegal lotteries, crypto scams, illegal gambling, and the initial source of most claims against Jefferson, Hill, and Warren. In the wake of his videos, various other former staff members have come forward and corroborated many of French’s claims. According to reports by the Daily Mail, Donaldson organized an internal audit of Beast Productions regarding these claims to be conducted by lawyer Alex Spiro, known for previously working with public figures like Elon Musk and Alec Baldwin.
“[Donaldson] is not responsible for what former staff members did,” Terry said. “People also need to remember that Mr. Beast was definitely not always family friendly. People are just now realizing that, and the whole controversy is just a bandwagon because content creators are getting clout from it. Creator after creator are just getting harassed because of this mob mentality cancel culture trend going on right now.”
“Beast Games” is set to break numerous world records, including the biggest cast in a game show of over 1,000 contestants and the largest cash prize ever offered on a television show of $5,000,000. According to the New York Times, various anonymous contestants reported hospitalizations and injuries during unsafe challenges, staff members swearing at participants, lack of food or water, and having turned in belongings and medicines to staff before the event only for them to not be administered or returned as promised.
“I always had a bit of a bad feeling about [Donaldson] because of how hard he tried to be seen as a good person and all the weird, almost performative ‘charitable’ acts he records,” junior Cassidy Corey said. “From what I heard about him and his whole crew, I’m so glad all of them are being exposed and won’t keep getting away with everything. You have to look at the situation in it’s entirety and see how he was acting around Ava, even when he knew she was messaging minors inappropriately in a public discord server and had stuff like ‘loli’ on her wall, which is a Japanese trope that fetishizes children. Even if everything surrounding him is dismissed, you still need to look at who he kept around despite knowing some of the terrible things they’ve done. Most of the time, it’s better to believe possible victims like the ‘Beast Games’ participants over the person allegedly hurting them.”
On Sept. 16, a now-ongoing class action lawsuit was filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court against Donaldson and Amazon on behalf of five unnamed contestants. Despite the show being the biggest scandal Donaldson has faced yet, it is not the first time fans have questioned the safety of his challenge-based content.
“After reviewing a lot of the facts, I think a lot of the things he does are just exploitative,” seventh grader Finn said. “He doesn’t treat any of his contestants well, he’ll oftentimes fake things like challenges and give people less rewards than they were promised, and also just the amount of pain [contestants] have to endure during filming. When the cameras are off, he’ll have everyone sleeping in the same room with no beds, or have them stand in the cold in a red circle for hours upon hours.”
One of French’s videos featured an interview with another former employee, Jake Weddle, who, among other allegations, said he had starred in an unreleased original version of “$10,000 Every Day You Survive Prison” video that was uploaded two years ago to the “Mr. Beast” channel. Weddle said that when agreeing to the video he was promised $300,000 if he stayed for 30 days, and he accepted because of his poor financial situation at the time. He added that when filming began, conditions were poor and the set design was only for visual appeal rather than functionality, as well as that crew refused to turn off the lights to allow him proper sleep or stop filming for privacy because it would alter timelapse shots. After attempting to run a marathon on a treadmill barefoot for one of Donaldson’s challenges and facing injuries, he left early and only earned $110,000.
“He really should have paid Jake Weddle so much more after everything he went through when filming that video,” Edammudalige said. “Sleep deprivation like that is literally a war crime by the Geneva Convention, we’re not even allowed to treat terrorists like that. I really thought [Donaldson] was one of the good guys. I felt so betrayed, how could he do this to me? How could he do this to his subscribers? It’s really sad that these allegations are coming out because everybody believed in him. I miss the old ‘Mr. Beast,’ when he was a good person, or at least seemed to be. People just couldn’t see it for so long because he was like the ‘favorite child’ of the YouTube community. I feel like he started out doing [charity] for good, and then as he made money he realized ‘okay, this works’ and it kinda just became ‘ka-ching’ from there.”
As of September 2024, the “I Built 100 Wells In Africa” video has over 200 million views, and others of Donaldson’s most popular charity videos like “1,000 Blind People See For The First Time” and “Ages 1-100 Fight For $500,000” stand at over 180 million and 380 million views respectively.
“I’m guessing Mr. Beast will lose subscribers because of this whole thing,” eighth grader Conifer said. “I don’t think this will impact YouTube as a whole, but definitely his channel. … What happened with ‘Beast Games’ was so unacceptable. People should have been allowed to keep their things with them, especially medicine and feminine health products. It’s both Amazon and [Donaldson]’s faults, they should’ve taken better care of the contestants. I used to like all the challenges he did because I thought it was cool and interesting to see, but my perspective of him has changed quite a bit because of all this stuff and I do not support him anymore.”
Despite the controversy, the popularity of the “Mr. Beast” channel seems to be unwavering, with its subscriber count only continuing to increase. The second most subscribed channel on YouTube, the Indian music production label “T-Series,” has historically competed with various other channels for the first place spot, and many students said that over the past few years, they specifically subscribed to its competitor channels—like “Mr. Beast”—to prevent a big corporation from holding the coveted title.
“I would hope [Donaldson’s subscriber count] will be affected,” Finn said. “Though, honestly, I’m pretty sure [people who previously subscribed] are just going to forget to unsubscribe if they want to, or he’s already such a big figure that I don’t really think anything can touch him.”
Weddle posted a video in which he said Donaldson texted him an apology for the poor conditions in his video and offered to pay the remaining $190,000 that were promised. Weddle only accepted $50,000 under the condition that he may continue to have the freedom to speak critically of Beast Productions. Contrastingly, French said in his videos and various X posts that he received two cease-and-desist letters from Donaldson’s law firm. Although the Beast Productions PR team has made some statements directly to press outlets, Donaldson only personally responded in July when the allegations against Tyson first gained traction with an X post announcing her removal from the company but has yet to make any other public statements regarding “Beast Games,” his other former employees, and other remaining claims.
“[Weddle] was competing in a challenge, not held against his will,” Terry said. “They always mess with contestants. [Donaldson’s] subscriber count won’t really be affected. If you look at the sub counts, you can see they’re still going up. People turning against Beast is like saying you don’t support McDonald’s because they pay their employees poorly.”
