If you predicted ten years ago that Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson would grow his YouTube channel into an empire that spans snacks, toys, an anime meant to sell those toys, and now a theme park, I would very much like for you to come lottery ticket shopping with me. Despite the long odds, it’s all come true, with the latter materializing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia after a frenzied couple months of construction. It looks… really bad! But a lot of things about MrBeast look bad when put under a magnifying glass, like his many recent scandals and controversies – as well as his whole persona of being a Willy Wonka wannabe meets Jigsaw from Saw. On the latest Aftermath Hours, we discuss why none of those issues have managed to meaningfully chip his armor.
This time around, we’re joined by two of the finest internet culture reporters to ever lace up their boots and wade into the muck, Kat Tenbarge and Steven Asarch, to talk about why MrBeast’s new theme park, Beast Land, is so bad – and why quality was never the point in the first place. Spoiler alert: It’s a giant ad, as many so-called theme parks, activations, and experiences are these days. We live in an era of flimsy disposability where nothing – whether it’s a short-form video or a branded IRL pop-up – is built to last.
Then we discuss the latest platform to go all in on invasive age verification tech: Roblox, which will require use of a facial age estimation system and ID checks to access chat. On one hand, Roblox has had more than its fair share of child predation scandals at this point, so it has every incentive to at least perform comprehensiveness here. On the other, Roblox’s real problems run much deeper, and a suite of data-hungry surveillance tools won’t solve them.
Finally, Kat shares a wild story about the time someone commissioned her, then an ASMRtist, to make a video in which she turned them into a puppet.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can build our own theme park in Australia (or maybe just the cozy little countryside office featured in our latest piece of merch, available now!)
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation (edited for length and clarity):
Kat: It’s weird to think that YouTube, in a way, has this incestuous relationship with [MrBeast]. They want the views his content brings, so despite the personal controversy he might start, YouTube as a company are willing to relentlessly promote him and invest in him. The last person I can remember them having that kind of relationship with was Shane Dawson before his fall. The CEO of YouTube would go to his house and hang out with him, and that was not really a relationship YouTube had with a lot of people.
But I think with MrBeast, we’re almost in a post-controversy era, because previously in a different decade, you’d think major multinational corporations would be scared by the types of things MrBeast has been credibly accused of doing. But now they’re actually less scared of working with him even when now the general public consensus around him is that he’s kind of a bad guy.
Nathan: Why do you think that is? What do you think made brands in general go from being very squeamish around these creators – being very brand safe in their approach – to being like “Now that people’s opinions have soured, this is actually safer for us”?
Kat: When we were talking about MrBeast’s controversies, it’s like, in a certain sense, now that he’s had them, they know that it doesn’t really matter anymore. Of course there are still worse things he could do; there are still things that could bring down the empire. But I think these companies and brands realized over the past five years in particular that the longevity of the influencer does not depend on how bad the controversy gets.
I imagine that the lesson from Logan Paul, for example, was [that cancellations don’t stick]. At a certain point after the suicide forest video, it seemed like Logan would never make money again. But the reality is that he makes exponentially more money now than he ever did before or during that controversy. In a weird way, I feel like the brands almost push the creators more than the audience pushes the creators.
Steven: Cancellation in general when it comes to this style of influencer is now a myth. I don’t think an influencer – outside of an extreme grooming or sexual assault scandal – can’t bounce back from any sort of controversy at this point. Trisha Paytas is doing better than she’s ever done before. Jeffree Star is still thriving.
Nathan: Dr Disrespect still exists.
Steven: Guy Beahm is doing photoshoots and thriving with his weird audience. You can’t really be cancelled anymore, because all it takes is a weird niche audience that can fund your content for a really long time. You don’t need to go mainstream. Guy Beahm – I’m not calling him The Doc, I refuse – is never going to hit that same level he hit in the pre-2020 TwitchCon era. He’s now sort of cemented himself as an anti-cancel culture warrior, and the audience that’s fallen for it is willing to give him enough that he can survive. Influencers don’t need to be for everyone anymore. They can find their niche and thrive in a way that didn’t work just five years ago.
I think when it comes to MrBeast, his scandals only reached the level that they did because he couldn’t talk. He claims there was a law firm looking into his company. I believe that from talking to people inside. But in general, these influencers can’t be canceled. There’s no such thing. Brands are full of older folks who see a big name and think “Oh, I can throw my thing behind them.” I don’t think Jack Link’s Beef Jerky – which is now doing a MrBeast collab – really cared too much about the Ava [Kris Tyson] controversy from last year when they signed that seven-to-eight-figure deal to slap his name on a bunch of meat sticks.
Nathan: Just to give people an idea of what we’re talking about here – especially as you have been kind of the chronicler of MrBeast’s many scandals – what are the most egregious things he’s done?
Steven: I’ve been reporting on MrBeast since 2018, when I interviewed him about a real-life battle royale he decided to do. I would say up until 2024, MrBeast was uncancellable. Criticism was not even allowed of MrBeast because he did philanthropy; he helped people. He helped cure blindness singlehandedly, according to his video thumbnail.
But in the summer of 2024, it came out that Ava Kris Tyson – who was his second in command and his closest friend – had been talking inappropriately with minors on a Discord and had allegedly sexually assaulted their assistant while they were working. This led to a series of other controversies coming out. A YouTuber named DogPack made a whole bunch of videos. Other YouTubers came out claiming they were tortured trying to film a video.
All these controversies grew on top of each other to the point that when the first season of The Beast Games came out, I reported that the crew members were treated very poorly. They were underfed, they were overworked. One crew member I spoke with was hit by a 200 lb piece of wood that fell on his neck, causing him to fall backward and hit his head with blood shooting out of his mouth. He is still recovering. His left side doesn’t work very well. When he was in the hospital, a MrBeast executive offered him $1,000 in Uber Eats and DoorDash gift cards as a way to make amends.
In general, all those controversies didn’t really mean much. MrBeast was sort of able to just continue posting content and wave it all away with a law firm investigation into the company that found, yeah, there was some bad stuff, but overall they did their best. You’ve gotta remember that MrBeast for a while was just a bunch of teenagers running around and doing wild stuff. Now it’s a major corporation that has just hired a bunch of executives from Shopify and NBC to try to change their image, and it’s clearly working. I would say if Ms Rachel is for the really young kids, MrBeast is for the young kids. Scandals are now unimportant when looking at MrBeast, because they didn’t really stick.
