Mr. Beast Continues to Impress
How often are the videos you choose to search online directed right to YouTube? Since YouTube is the second most popular social media platform across the world, more often than not. Jimmy Donaldson from Greenville, North Carolina has the fifth largest following on YouTube at 110 million subscribers. He was given his first Gamertag, Mr. Beast, randomly and has kept the name since. Crystal Abidin would argue Mr. Beast is categorized as an influencer because he is just another “ordinary internet user who accumulates a relatively large following…” (Abidin, 2015, para 1). In 2012, he began his YouTube career with a blank slate, just like every other internet user. He started with video game content but did not achieve success. However, in 2017 he began to blow up for his unordinary stunts, such as spending fifty hours being buried alive. As he continued to grow in popularity, he became wealthier and started spending more money on strange but entertaining challenges. Viewers loved how unordinary the challenges and stunts were, which is why we still see the same style of challenges today. Mr. Beast has amassed a large audience all around the world that appeals mostly to Generation Z. He is twenty-four years old and everyone involved in his videos is young. They enjoy the unordinary content, therefore appealing to Gen Z. His reach to Gen Z includes not only the United States but also other countries. He has many sub-channels that have the same content but are recorded in different languages such as Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and French. The Spanish-based channel amassed 22.6 million subscribers. Mr. Beast has built up a community that can be reached in all parts of the world, therefore continuing to help him grow as an influencer.
One of his recent challenge videos I Gave My 100,000,000th Subscriber An Island has 79.7 million views. He purchased a private island and invited one hundred of his subscribers to compete in a series of challenges to win the island. The video consisted of five separate challenges and after every challenge, half of the individuals were eliminated. Two challenges took place on the island, the challengers were in a race to find his YouTube plague and build a fire from scratch. The three other challenges took place on a small boat where the contestants had to race to cross a finish line, walk the plank, and were voted off randomly. Every contestant who lost was rewarded three thousand dollars for competing. All five challenges followed similar patterns. Every challenge required the contestant to win the challenge to move on, and if not, they were sent home with money. This conveys Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer's idea of standardization “What is new about the phase of mass culture compared with the late liberal stage is the exclusion of the new” (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1944, pg. 6). Each challenge follows the same pattern if you complete the event the quickest you win and if not you go home. The challenges could have followed another pattern by finding different ways to determine who wins or loses. For example, the contestant could win or lose depending on how well they did at a certain challenge, and then the losers can compete to be brought back into the main event. Mr. Beast has a huge following that loves what he does, therefore he runs the risk of losing this following by adding new patterns to this video and his channel. Millions of people dream of being involved in a video or meeting him for a brief moment. Mr. Beast does a great job of building parasocial relationships with his audience. The relationship he creates is a “one-sided interpersonal connection and illusion of intimacy” (Abidin, 2015, para 39). Mr. Beast engages with his viewers through the way he speaks directly to the audience, as well as certain editing techniques. For example, certain pop-ups are edited into the video and Mr. Beast uses those effects to directly ask the audience rhetorical questions about how they think the challenge can be made harder. Certain small sound effects are used to emphasize when a player is eliminated or moves on to the next challenge. When eliminated, the sound of swords slicing appears and when a contestant wins, a cash register sound is used. These small sound effects edited in the video add some entertaining humor to the action happening. He also mentions that anyone who is subscribed can be picked for a future challenge. Whether the relationship is genuine, this video demonstrates how Mr. Beast creates a form of intimacy, forming parasocial relationships with his audience.
In every video, Mr. Beast produces an overall message. In this specific video, two major themes are giving back to the community and spreading happiness. A message taken from this video is to give back to people around you. One of Mr. Beast’s followers John Ragai commented “Awesome sense of generosity. You are a real role model for others, man”. Fans are addressing how he constantly gives back, which ultimately is leading others to do the same. Another message is to spread happiness around the world however you can. In this video, creating such an enjoyable challenge video makes people happy. Another follower of his, Jesse Faller commented “Absolutely love what y'all do. Brings a lot of joy to my life. Very inspiring”. This video is full of energy and enjoyable, and it inspires his followers to go out and make others happy.
The extreme and unordinary use of his content has continuously grown his following. Unlike other internet users, Mr. Beast interacts with his audience through text and visualization, categorizing him as an influencer. The way he engages, through personalistic techniques, creates a feeling of intimacy with his audience. The continuation of the same styles and methods in his video continues to appeal to his audience. If he were to change his style, he’d run the risk of losing his following. His style remains unique from other influencers.
Works Cited
Abidin, C. (2015). Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness. Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media and Technology, No 8. doi:10.7264/N3MW2FFG
Adorno, T., & Horkheimer, M. (1944). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. Continuum. (pp. 1-12).
Hi Rich!
ReplyDeleteAs someone that does not follow Mr. Beast’s content, I really appreciate your background information about his videos and analysis of his style techniques, specifically parasocial relationships and perceived intimacy.
In your blog post, you emphasize Mr. Beast’s status as an influencer using Crystal Abidin’s argument of creator ‘ordinariness’ that has accumulated large audiences. Although I would agree with this analysis, I would also argue that Mr. Beast’s accumulation of support also amounts to ‘celebrity’ status. As described by professor Grame Turner, celebrities surpass their individual impact as they are a genre of representation, discursive effect of these regimes, commodified, and most importantly ‘a cultural formation of social function’ (Turner, 2010, p.14). To explain, Mr. Beast’s platform style is very similar to other give-away Youtube stars, such as David Dobrick, that display these creators as young, wealthy, white men that produce extreme events for viewers. Similarly, these regimes are constantly reinvented through Mr. Beast’s rising platform, which he uses to promote generosity and kindness. These attributes, as you described as his ‘major themes’, contribute to his objectification as a commodity, often through sponsorships from Quidd and Tiktok. These productions, specifically the teasing of opportunity for subscribers in challenges, often generate a field of expectations that many of his young followers employ to the world. For these reasons, Mr. Beast can also be considered a celebrity, in addition to his influencer status.
As a suggestion, I would recommend expanding Crystal Abidin’s argument further, since it’s very supportive of your argument and solidifies Mr. Beast’s influencer status. For example, explanation of textual and visual narration would support your analysis of Mr. Beast’s themes and style of creation. Even so, I thought you presented these connections very well!
Commentor: Madison Bauerle
Work Cited:
Turner, G. (2010). Approaching celebrity studies. Celebrity Studies, 1(1), 11–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392390903519024
Hey Rich,
ReplyDeleteI also made my blog post with Mr. Beast as the topic and agree with a lot of what you stated in your post. I really enjoyed how in-depth you went with the description of the island video in specific. Your detailed explanations of Mr. Beast’s origins, and the way in which he creates each video in a similar way each time do a great job of informing readers with no background knowledge about the basis of what his social media is usually used for.
I think that if we had covered the Is Celebrtiy News, News? and Approaching Celebrity Status lectures by Professor Graeme Turner prior to your writing of this post, they could have been a great additions. Some of the things that he discusses about the idea of what makes a celebrity a celebrity and why, I think fit right in to this origin story of Mr. Beast and where his success truly began. The ideas in particular that Turner discusses that I think could be applicable are the rise of the image and the rise of the internet. These two things sort of go hand in hand because they would not be achievable without each other. But, I think these two concepts are what helped Mr. Beast to achieve his success, especially when he started with no following. Turner discusses how easily things can now spread with the use of the internet and images. Now, Mr. Beast is producing videos as opposed to images, but I believe that the same concepts apply. Without the image or the internet, Mr. Beast never would’ve been able to grow his following, spread his videos, and become the viral youtuber that he is today. The celebrity news aspect can also be tied into these as he is often covered on youtube news videos and other such media outlets.
I thought your connections in the post to our readings and lectures were very good. I actually also used the Abidin reading in my post about Mr. Beast so I really understood that one. Maybe adding this Turner connection in as a third source would help with a little more support, of course, if we had already read it at the time you were writing.
Commentor: Danny Heintz
Works Cited: Graeme Turner ( ) Is Celebrity News, News?, Journalism, DOI: 10.1177/1464884913488719
Commenter: Emmy Keogh
DeleteRich,
Such a great read! Although I would not consider myself a Mr. Beast fanatic, I am a part of the large majority who have casually watched his videos. With over 100 million subscribers, it would be hard not to recognize his name or video content. Your background of Mr. Beast shocked me though, as I didn’t realize how young and how recent his success has been. By amassing the 5th largest following on Youtube, I assumed he was making videos since the platform came out in 2005! Good for him for becoming so successful so early in his career. I can see the appeal; with a name like “I Gave My 100,000,000 Follower an Island,” it’s hard not to be impressed and intrigued.
All things considered, it makes me question his sincerity in all this. You point out that comments have been made praising his generosity, but I believe that could just be a good marketing team behind him deciding on how he brands himself. Psarras writes an article about emotional camping regarding the Real Housewives, and although Mr. Beast and those ladies have very contrasting audiences, I think she has a good point in regards to the idea of self branding. Self branding is described by Psarras as one’s distinct public image for commercial and cultural gain. Mr. Beast and his team branded him so well that I don’t think 95% of his followers would know that his real name is actually Jimmy… I didn’t! He is his brand, and his brand makes millions of dollars doing what he does, which, as you brought up, is why he doesn’t change his style. But after five years of the same type of video, I believe he only continues to do it because it’s his brand now. Unfortunately, because his brand is so interconnected with his identity, it’ll be hard for him to change one and not the other.
Don’t be fooled– I’m rooting for him. I just hope he is paying attention to his self-branding so he isn’t known as ‘that guy who throws money away at random challenges all his life.