The point of beast games The first 60 seconds of the premiere unfold with gruesome brutality. We're told 1,000 people are vying for a $5 million prize, the “largest in entertainment history.” But its host, 26-year-old Jimmy Donaldson, better known as the wildly successful YouTuber Styles “Mr. Beast,” has another way of saying this vast wealth: “generational wealth.” It is called. This may sound like a strangely academic way to explain jackpots, but it's typical of Mr. Beast, who likes to test exactly what people are willing to do for cash. Only if you are not familiar with your wishes.
What the audience hears next beast games Contestants explain their motivations for competing on the show. The first, a black woman, said she grew up homeless and would use the money to help other homeless children. The second person, a young white man, says, “If I win $5 million, I can use it to earn passive income for the rest of my life.''
beast games, The first four episodes are currently streaming on Amazon Prime, and what it's all about is that they show a contestant who probably deserves an award, and a contestant who is far more sinister by comparison. I know what's going on. It knows what it's doing when it shows a pink-haired millennial crying hysterically because it knocked over a tower of blocks, or other examples of adults acting like toddlers. I know it took squid game, A show that suggests taking glee in watching poor people degrade themselves for money may actually be a bad thing has led to the exact opposite conclusion.
beast games It exists to hate you, hate others, and still keep watching. In this respect, it is a phenomenal success.
The gist is that 1,000 people wearing jerseys will take on challenges to win prizes over 10 episodes. They start the contest in a giant warehouse, then move to “Beast City,” which looks like a life-size Brio train set, and then to “Beast Island,” a $1.8 million private island in Panama. . Upcoming episodes will move the remaining episodes to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Despite reportedly costing more than $100 million to make, it features gibberish text, ugly graphic design, and frequent ads for payday loan company MoneyLion, which markets itself as a cool fintech brand. Every moment of the show is designed to grab your attention and hold it, and it really does, even if you hate yourself with every second that passes.
beast games It exists to hate you, hate others, and still keep watching. In this respect, this is a phenomenal success.
The show's logic is so toxic that it does things like when all four of the team captains choose to forgo a $1 million offer rather than betray their teammates that strengthens viewers' faith in humanity. The moment it was designed to make me want to scream at them from my couch. “Don't you know that literally the only reason you're here is to win big bucks?” I wanted to say before remembering that I'm a grown woman beast games.
But this irony is justified when one of its team captains becomes a cult figure among a clique of fellow contestants, spouting bizarre Christian sermons to further his identity as a martyr. be converted into Bearded Jeremy claims God is actually guiding him beast games, And God told him to bring mostly male teammates to the next round, even though he promised to help the women. This leads to a hilarious moment when one female contestant says, “I talk to God every day, and I know for sure that He doesn't say that to Him.”
Those fluent in the language of the beast know that Donaldson typically avoids more complex stories about gender and race, preferring instead to keep the tone simple, at a toddler level. Beast, please give the poor man some money, Beast God! ” Many of his YouTube videos are almost shockingly consistent. Any tension is only superficial.
This is where the Amazon show innovates, pitting men and women, white players and non-white players against each other, forming the show's central narrative. The sight of two brothers gleefully persuading a crying woman to sacrifice themselves for them, or the sight of a white man backing out of his promise to two black men in the same cell, is horrifying and infuriating. (God, this shit is dark.) By the third episode, I was ready to wield a pitchfork to protect the good players from the evil players, but it's all about the world's most famous YouTuber and the bad guys. I completely forgot that it was a false idea orchestrated by. A multi-billion dollar corporation with a long track record of exploitation.
Famously uncharismatic, Mr. Beast is useless when it comes to comforting contestants who have been kicked off the show (and in some cases thrown into the abyss). The scenes where he needs to express human emotion are painful to watch, and not just because he wears an ugly shiny suit over a black hoodie throughout the show.
His crew, cutthroat employees of Donaldson's friends known as the “Beast Gang”, are even worse. They're just a bunch of awkward, timid fellows trying to imitate their amazement at the games they've designed, repeating whatever internet slang they think is most popular (and drinking every time they yell “lock in!”). Masu). None of them are able to interact normally with other humans, which is understandable considering the only time you have to interact with normal people is when they ask you for money. I think so.
This, too, is the logic of the world of Mr. Beast, made up of eclectic, wealthy twenty-something hustling fellow influencers and their army of wannabe copycats. The kind of money jargon used by Mr. Beast and his contestants here, “generational wealth” and “passive income,” is nothing short of gospel. Mr. Beast and his friends are obsessed with rags-to-riches stories, both their own and others', and by flaunting their successes with Lamborghinis, Rolexes, and women, they give viewers the idea of ”financial freedom.” ” is obsessed with dangling dreams. For them, money is the key to everything. It is the be-all and end-all of human life. As Katie Notopoulos wrote on Threads, “The Beast Game is obsessed with money. The first EP challenge is less of a physical challenge and more of a mind game to win money. ” is what a game show is all about entertainment. ”
underlying nihilism beast games Of course, that's nothing new. Emily Nussbaum enumerates the history of this genre: Cue the Sun!: The invention of reality TV; Making poor people kneel on the ground to win cash is older than color television broadcasts. It debuted in 1945. queen for a dayIn this radio show, working-class housewives compete to win prizes by sharing their sob stories with the audience, who decide the winner by an applause meter. Importantly, she writes: It had to be for your premature baby or sick aunt. And the more ostentatiously you deny yourself, the more likely other women will let you win. ”
You could say that there are many reality shows more diabolical than this one. Beast Game — In the 2000s alone, the following ethical disasters occurred: The Swan, Kid Nation, The Imposter, The Biggest Loser, and john and kate plus eight. Ugly enough beast games Look, it looks like things were even uglier behind the scenes. Contestants reportedly had to sign a contract stating, “I understand that such actions may cause me death, illness, or serious injury.'' . In a lawsuit filed against the show, several cast members said they were sexually harassed, felt “degraded” by their experiences, and lacked access to food and medicine. (Neither Amazon MGM Studios representatives nor Mr. Beast have commented on the lawsuit.) Some contestants left the arena on stretchers, and others were hospitalized. “We signed up for the show, but we didn't do it to not be fed, watered, and treated like humans,” one contestant told The New York Times.
Over the past few years, many of us have started to feel a little bit like contestants on a reality game show. On reality game shows, our job is to sell sob stories to squeeze as much attention and money as possible. It's so illuminating to see what kind of people are succeeding on this particular show. beast games, At the very least, it helped me better understand the dark and deteriorating desires at the heart of American identity. It's the beast's world now. Game begins.
