Previously on… The ADog Blog: But let’s not be complacent. Especially since, truth be told, for every masterpiece of a video that is published, some are at the bottom of the barrel either because they represent everything my favourite channels are not, the creator behind them has a dreadful personality, or the genre they belong to does not appeal to me, personally. That was how I concluded my post on YouTubers I like. Now it’s time to explain who qualifies as YouTubers I don’t like.
I’m not going to rehash who is and isn’t a YouTuber in my eyes. Read my last post to understand where I’m coming from on that point. Instead, I’m just going to get straight into it with the YouTuber of the Moment who exemplifies everything that makes a YouTuber terrible in my eyes. And that’s MrBeast, who needs no introduction, especially if you’ve seen anything he has produced over the last 7 Years at least. And that’s where I’m going to fire my opening shot.
You see, whenever I see the cold opening of any MrBeast video, two words come to mind: Sensory Overload. Instead of a gentle glide into the madness or a snappy but concise explanation of the video’s objective, it’s straight into the action. From there, that action is non-stop and wall-to-wall with no room to absorb, no time to properly understand where the narrative is heading, nor why, and no idea where individual players’ heads are really at in any particular moment. And while this method of presentation may deliver exactly what the title implies, it also makes me wonder if the participants were forced to drink a whole crate of Monster Energy beforehand. Especially since, in reality, most people don’t talk at the speed & pitch MrBeast does for a sustained period of time. They don’t attempt challenges on the scale MrBeast does, especially in the time frames he sets. And they probably wouldn’t even attempt to accomplish those same crazy goals unless the money on offer spoke louder than he does.
Compare this to most Sidemen videos. A prime example that comes to mind is when they played The Chase for the first time. Ethan is asked a Bradley Walsh Question (the kind of question that almost guarantees Bradley will lose the plot for our amusement), namely: What do cows drink? He puts the Milk they produce as his answer! This causes a chain reaction of Harry screaming “YOU FUCKING IDIOT! YOU IDIOT!”, Tobi literally rolling on the floor in hysterics, Vik the Chaser guffawing “You’re joking, you’re joking!”, Josh telling Ethan to stop ‘flexing’, the rest of the Sidemen piling on top of each other in disbelief and Vik adding the cherry on top with the line “That has to be the best way anyone has lost 50 grand in their entire life!” After several minutes, order is restored, and Vik reveals the correct answer he needed to catch and exclude Ethan from the Final Chase. My point is that in this example, it was an over-the-top reaction that was allowed to flow like lava and give everyone watching a good laugh in between some mediocre quizzing. With a MrBeast challenge, the opposite is the case. And I think the YouTuber Donna said it best in her video about the genre where she identified what MrBeast videos lack:
“As I watched upload after upload [from OGs like Casey Neistat and Emma Chamberlain], it became clear that the MrBeast genre feels empty because they are missing two components that allowed YouTube to break into the market in the first place: Vulnerability and Authenticity. … If all we really cared about was spectacle and being entertained, television and film would have gone parabolic.”
And when I think back to the Sidemen in general, even if you don’t like the current direction they are heading in, she’s not wrong. Yes, some of their videos are a spectacle of sorts in terms of location and execution, but the general runtime appears to be sufficient so that a lot of things that a MrBeast video does not carry can exist. This, to me, includes chaos, whether intended or not, being absorbed by the audience in a decent amount of time before the next wave hits. The characters they play for the purpose of a video being consistent and only breaking whenever someone (usually W2S) drops a one-line howler you have to be literally stone-faced not to laugh at! And each individual Sideman having a base personality that distinguishes them from each other.
Can you honestly think of a MrBeast video where any of the above applies? Probably not. Unless you were consuming his content around the time that some narrative arcs, as pointed out by some commentators, did persist. But I think that was more in an era when MrBeast and those that featured regularly seemed like genuine friends pushing concepts beyond practical limits. Nowadays, it looks to me like it’s just Jimmy making the top lines (views and retention) get bigger and bigger with each upload while trying to fulfil his ultimate dream of dying with practically nothing in his Bank Account. But at least he is pursuing it ethically, right?
The ADog Blog 