Imagine, 900 million people. That is just a massive,
almost incomprehensible number. Right. It's literally
more than the entire population of Europe. Now,
imagine every single one of those people sitting
down, focusing their attention, and clicking
on a single 25 -minute video. And the crazy part
is, that video didn't even exist a month prior.
Really is a staggering scale of human attention.
I mean, when you look at those numbers, you're
not just looking at entertainment anymore. No,
you're really not. You're looking at this gravitational
pull that... We are, of course, talking about
Jimmy Donaldson, better known to the world as
Mr. Beast, and his monumental 2021 video, $456
,000 squid game in real life. It was this full
-scale, completely unscripted recreation of the
hit South Korean Netflix survival drama. Yeah,
the one that took over the world. Exactly. But
our mission for this deep dive isn't just to
recap a massive viral stunt. We are taking the
source material you shared with us to look under
the hood of this whole phenomenon. We're exploring
what this massive production actually reveals
about the modern economics of attention. And
we're also going to examine the you know. increasingly
blurry, chaotic lines between traditional prestige
television and digital content. Plus, we are
going to dive into the fierce, very polarized
debate over the future of the so -called creator
economy. OK, let's unpack this, because to really
understand the cultural impact of this video,
we have to grasp the sheer absurd logistics of
what Donaldson and his team actually pulled off.
Yeah, the timeline alone is wild. It is. Like
in the traditional world of television, making
a blockbuster series is basically like moving
a glacier. Oh, absolutely. Like writers sit in
isolated rooms for months, networks debate budgets
for years, right? And production just moves at
this highly controlled union mandated crawl.
Very slow, very methodical. But in the digital
space, that process is completely out the window.
This entire massive undertaking started with
a single TikTok video in October of 2021. Just
a TikTok. Yeah. Donaldson basically looked at
the camera and said, If this video gets 10 million
likes, I will recreate Squid Game in real life.
Which, given the sheer velocity of his audience,
happened almost instantly. Like overnight. Pretty
much. Yeah. And that set off a ticking clock
that is practically unheard of in traditional
production. Work officially began in mid -October.
Okay. And the final, highly polished video was
published on YouTube on November 24th of that
exact same year. Barely a month. Literally, barely
a month. Barely a month to adapt a high concept,
highly produced, scripted television drama into
a functional, safe, unscripted reality competition.
For 456 real people. Exactly. Real human beings.
The engineering fees required to achieve that
turnaround are honestly genuinely difficult to
comprehend. I mean, just the safety aspect alone.
Right. To pull off the illusion of the show safely,
Donaldson hired a YouTuber and engineer named
William Osman. Oh, right. I read about him in
the sources. Yeah. And Osman's task was to create
explosive blood squibs using fake blood to simulate
the elimination of players. Just to mimic that
brutal visual language of the original Netflix
show. Exactly. But he was given exactly three
weeks to conceptualize, engineer, build, and
test 500 of these remote -controlled devices.
Three weeks? That's insane. And he had to ensure
they are completely safe to strap to the bare
chests of hundreds of civilians. I want to pause
on that, actually, because it highlights a massive
difference in how these mediums operate. How
so? Well, trying to translate a nine hour meticulously
crafted television show into a 25 minute YouTube
video in four weeks, it's not just a matter of
working faster. No, it's a completely different
beast. Right. It requires a completely different
philosophy of production. It's like building
a Hollywood tier movie set while simultaneously
jumping out of an airplane. That is a great analogy.
You know, it's like taking sprawling 900 -page
epic novel and trying to compress all of its
plot and action into a single highway billboard.
You lose the quiet moments, you lose the subtle
character development because the visual impact
has to be instantaneous as people drive by at
80 miles an hour. That is an excellent way to
frame it and the visual impact of those sets
had to perfectly mirror the billboard of the
original IP. They really did. They looked identical.
They meticulously recreated the massive physical
environments. The towering bunk room, that hyper
-colored indoor playground. Oh, a playground
is spot on. Yeah, and the massive raised platform
for the tug of war. They even brought in a visual
effects company. That's so crispy media. Right,
to do the CGI. Yes. to polish the post -production
and seamlessly blend the physical sets with digital
extensions. And they actually ran the games.
I mean, they started with 456 real players competing
for a real $456 ,000 grand prize. A life -changing
amount of money. Totally. And they played red
light, green light. They played the Dalgona candy
game where you have to carve out the little shirt.
The umbrella is the hardest one. Oh, without
a doubt. And they did the marble game, the terrifying
glass bridge. They even included Dakji, you know,
the envelope. flipping game as a formal round.
Yeah, they really hit all the major beats. The
only thing they changed was the final titular
squid game. They swapped that highly physical
game for a massive game of musical chairs, basically
just to prevent people from actually hurting
each other. Right, which makes sense for liability.
What's fascinating here is the immediate industry
validation this frantic billboard style recreation
received. Yeah, you'd think Netflix would be
mad. Right. You might assume the creators of
the original IP would be defensive or protective
of their painstakingly crafted art being turned
into a fast -paced YouTube game show. Totally.
But Hwang Dong -hak, the creator of the original
Squid Game series, was actually interviewed about
the Mr. Beast recreation at the Gotham Awards.
And what did he say? He publicly praised it.
He said the video looked perfect. and noted that
it functionally served as a massive free promotional
engine for his original show. Wow. He essentially
welcomed the adaptation with open arms. But,
I mean, building perfect Hollywood tier sets
and handing out nearly half a million dollars
in cash on a three -week timeline, that requires
an astronomical amount of upfront capital. Oh,
a staggering amount. Russian construction means
paying massive premiums. And this brings us to
the financial mechanics of this stunt. And I
have to admit, when I was reading the source
materials, some of these numbers felt like they
were from a completely different planet. The
raw financial data is where we really see how
modern content funding is fundamentally shifting
away from legacy media. Break it down for me.
So the total production budget for this 25 minute
video was three point five million dollars. Good
Lord. That breaks down to two million dollars
spent entirely on the physical sets, the engineering
and the production costs. And then one point
five million dollars dedicated exclusively to
the cash prizes given to the players. And obviously,
three point five million dollars is a massive
amount of money. Huge. But a journalist named
Matt Pierce over at the Los Angeles Times did
some math that completely recontextualizes that
number. The per minute breakdown. Yes, he calculated
the cost based on screen time. According to Pierce,
the MrBeast video cost $134 ,600 per screen minute
to produce. He then looked at the original premium
prestige global phenomenon Netflix show and calculated
that it only cost approximately $43 ,500 per
screen minute. Wait, how does a YouTube video
cost three times more per minute than a premium
prestige Netflix drama? And how does anyone actually
make money off that? It is a stunning comparison
to see a YouTube video demanding three times
the permanent budget of a flagship streaming
drama. Okay, I actually have to push back on
Matt Pierce's math here though. Go for it. Because
I think that per minute comparison is a bit,
well, intellectually dishonest, or at least it's
comparing apples to oranges. Oh, so? A premium
Netflix show has massive invisible overhead that
a YouTube video completely bypasses. Netflix
has to pay for months of post -production. They're
paying union residuals. They have to dub the
audio into 30 different languages. That's true.
The global localization is huge. Exactly. And
they spend tens of millions of dollars on global
billboard marketing campaigns that just aren't
factored into that strict per -minute production
cost. Right. The marketing budget is separate.
Meanwhile, Donaldson doesn't have any of that
overhead. He drops the video to an existing subscriber
base of hundreds of millions of people who have
already opted in to receive a push notification
the exact second it goes live. Instant distribution.
So while $134 ,600 a minute sounds insane, it
is purely money on the screen. not money caught
up in Hollywood bureaucracy. You are entirely
correct to point out the structural differences
in how that capital is deployed. Yeah. The metric
is provocative, absolutely, but it ignores the
heavy machinery of traditional distribution.
However, even if we accept that the overhead
is different, we still have to answer the fundamental
question. Which is? How does a 23 -year -old
creator financially justify sinking $3 .5 million
into 25 minutes of completely free entertainment?
Yes. How does anyone avoid going bankrupt operating
like that? The answer requires us to understand
the ROI, the return on investment of pure spectacle
in the modern attention economy. OK, so how does
it work? Traditional television relies on an
interruption model. You watch a show, the show
stops, and a commercial break plays. Right, and
everyone goes to the bathroom or looks at their
phone. Exactly. But in the digital space, viewers
will simply click away. if they're interrupted
like that. So the commercial is no longer a break.
The commercial is integrated directly into the
stunt itself. Oh, like the sponsor pays for the
video to exist? Yes. This video was heavily sponsored
and partially funded by Supercell, which is a
Finnish video game developer, specifically to
promote their mobile game Brawl Stars. So the
sponsor is literally the enabler of the content.
Instead of the audience being annoyed by an ad,
they're practically grateful to the brand for
making the massive cash giveaway possible. Precisely.
It completely flips audience sentiment. That's
brilliant, honestly. It really is. And if you
are wondering if dropping a few million dollars
to fund this video was a sound investment for
Supercell, the metrics from the source material
are definitive. I'm guessing it worked out well
for them. To put it mildly. Within just six days
of the video's release, the mobile game Brawl
Stars saw a 41 % increase in global downloads
and a 54 % increase in raw revenue. What? That
is an immediate, massive surge. When you factor
in that the video hit 100 million views in its
first three days alone, you begin to see why
brands are just clamoring to underwrite these
massive budgets. Because it works. Exactly. From
a marketing perspective, paying a few million
dollars for that level of hyper targeted, deeply
engaged global attention isn't expensive at all
compared to buying a Super Bowl ad. It is a phenomenal
bargain. So let's look at the board here. The
creator gets to build a legacy defining spectacle.
The sponsor gets a 54 percent bump in global
revenue in less than a week. Incredible ROI.
And the audience gets a highly produced, wildly
entertaining event completely for free. It feels
like an unprecedented, unquestionable win for
absolutely everyone involved. You would certainly
think so. But this exact triumph, the sheer scale
and efficiency of this video, is what sparked
one of the fiercest, most polarized debates we
have ever seen regarding the future of digital
media. And it all kicked off with a single tweet
from a tech executive, right? Yes, it did. John
Usche, who formerly served as YouTube's head
of creator product marketing, looked at the massive
metrics of the video and tweeted out this heavy
praise for MrBeast. He pointed out that the YouTube
video had a higher view count, a dramatically
shorter production time, and operated with fewer
gatekeepers than the original Netflix show. And
he framed this entire endeavor as the promise
of the creator autonomy. And the internet immediately
and fiercely. rejected that premise. Oh man,
it was a massive wave of backlash. It got so
heated that he eventually had to delete the tweet
entirely. The core of the pushback was that Yusha
was fundamentally confloating two very different
acts of creation. Right, creating versus copying.
Exactly. Critics argued he was completely ignoring
the profound difference between creating an original
piece of art from scratch, developing the world,
writing the narrative, pitching the concept,
designing the unique aesthetic, and simply adapting
a concept that had already been proven to be
a massive global cultural hit. But the criticism
didn't stop at just calling out a tone deaf tweet.
Journalists and cultural commentators started
using the video itself as a flash point to diagnose
a much larger structural problem with YouTube
as a platform. Yes, it became a much bigger conversation.
Beata Jackson, writing for Vice News, and Hussain
Kazbani over at Polygon argued that this video
highlighted a fundamental rot in the system.
They criticized the content as wholly unoriginal
and derivative, stating that it was essentially
just profiting off the heavy lifting of someone
else's original artistic vision. Yeah, because
Vani actually went as far as to describe the
Mr. Beast video not as a triumph, but as the
grim logical conclusion of this creator economy.
And beyond the artistic critique, there was also
a deeply structural economic critique regarding
how this ecosystem actually functions. Right,
the TechCrunch article. Exactly. Amanda Silberling,
writing for TechCrunch, made a vital point about
the mechanics of the algorithm and creator's
sustainability. She noted that creators operating
at this elite level are often working on razor
thin margins. Which sounds crazy when we're talking
about millions of dollars. It does, but they
are pouring almost all of their revenue back
into the next video. Donaldson himself is frequently
admitted to this exact strategy. Right, because
if you stop escalating, the algorithm stops rewarding
you. Exactly. Soberling explained that to keep
viewers from becoming desensitized, creators
are forced to constantly, relentlessly escalate
their budgets and the sheer danger or novelty
of their stunts. It's a treadmill you can't get
off of. It is. This isn't just a stylistic choice.
It is enforced by the mechanics of audience retention.
If a video doesn't hook a viewer in the first
five seconds, and if the visual pacing doesn't
constantly stimulate them, the retention graph
drops. And when retention drops, the algorithm
buries the video. Precisely. Therefore, Silberling
argues that this constant high -stakes escalation
is ultimately unsustainable for independent creators.
She suggested that the real ultimate winners
of this economic model aren't the creators taking
all the financial risk. Who is it then? The massive
platforms like YouTube or even Netflix, who seamlessly
reap the benefits of the massive web traffic
and cultural relevance without taking on that
individual creator risk. Here's where it gets
really interesting, though, because as a side
note to Silberling's point about platforms being
the ultimate winners, we have to look at what
Donaldson actually did next. Right, his pivot.
Yeah. After years of dominating the purely independent
digital space, he eventually pivoted toward those
exact traditional gatekeepers. partnering with
Amazon Prime Video to develop a massive reality
television series called Beast Games. It kind
of proves to the point that eventually you hit
a ceiling on YouTube and have to jump to legacy
media to keep scaling. It is a fascinating migration
back to the traditional models that digital media
was supposedly disrupting. But I want to go back
to the critics for a second because I have to
offer some genuine pushback against this idea
that the creator economy is some bleak derivative
wasteland. OK, let's hear it. I hear journalists
calling this video a dystopia. But let's look
at the tangible reality of what occurred on that
soundstage. Yes, it was derivative of a Netflix
show. Yes, only one person won the grand prize
of $456 ,000. Right. But Donaldson gave every
single eliminated player at least $2 ,000 just
as a consolation prize. He handed people two
grand just for showing up and playing a glorified
game of tag for a few hours. That is true. The
payouts were generous. When you look at the actual
human impact, is it really fair to label a system
that distributes millions of dollars to regular
people a dystopia just because it relies on an
algorithm -driven form of entertainment? If we
connect this to the bigger picture, we can clearly
see why both sides of this argument are so deeply
entrenched. It requires us to look at the landscape
impartially. On one hand, you have the undeniable
promise of true democratization. A kid who started
filming videos in his bedroom can now marshal
millions of dollars in corporate sponsorships.
Without needing a studio's permission. Exactly.
He can hire his friends, build massive engineering
teams, and create content that completely eclipses
network television and global viewership. All
without ever needing an executive green light.
That is a profound historical shift in the democratization
of media power. Power is entirely in the hands
of the creator and the audience. But on the other
hand, The critics are highlighting the immense,
often invisible pressure of the algorithm that
dictates that power. The dark side of it. If
the only way to succeed and survive in this newly
democratized system is to engineer content that
is consistently louder, faster, more expensive,
and directly piggybacking on existing popular
IP just to keep their attention graphs high,
then how free are these independent creators
really? Are they actually breaking the mold of
traditional media, or are they just building
a much more stressful, highly accelerated version
the old Hollywood machine, with an algorithm
acting as the most ruthless network executive
imaginable. Which is a perfect segue, honestly,
because this debate over the pressures of audience
retention leads us directly into the most prominent
and honestly most fascinating criticism of the
entire video. The thematic clash. Yes. It is
the accusation that in the pursuit of optimizing
this video for the algorithm, in perfectly copying
the visual aesthetics of Squid Game, the YouTube
version entirely missed the actual soul of the
show it was imitating. The thematic dissonance.
between the two works is incredibly stark. The
original Netflix series created by Hwang Dong
-Hook is globally recognized as a high -minded,
deeply cynical social commentary. It's really
dark. It is a very dark look at the brutality
of extreme wealth inequality. In the fiction
of the show, indebted, desperate people are literally
competing to the death, completely stripped of
their humanity entirely for the casual amusement
of ultra -wealthy VIPs. It is a fundamentally
anti -capitalist narrative. It is a warning.
Exactly. But the YouTube recreation, by the sheer
necessity of being a real -world event, strips
away all the risk of actual bodily harm or punishment.
Right. No one is actually getting hurt. Yeah.
And with that risk gone, Critics argued it also
lost all of the emotional resonance, the dread,
and the suspense that made the original art meaningful.
Matt Pierce described it brilliantly, actually.
What did he say? He said the YouTube video replaced
the show's dark social commentary with the Mr.
Beast House style of upbeat stunt philanthropy.
You can see that dissonance just in how the video
is constructed, right? Like the editing is fundamentally
different. Oh, completely. The original Netflix
show takes its time. It's moody, it's atmospheric,
and it allows you to really sit with the horror
of the situation. It builds tension. Right. But
the YouTube video uses heavy, relentless fast
cuts. The camera angles changes constantly. There
are constant music shifts, bright pop -up graphics
on the screen, and those classic, highly polished
American reality TV sound effects. The swooshes
and booms. Exactly. It's entirely designed for
what Pierce called narrative efficiency. The
goal is not to make you think. The goal is to
keep your brain constantly stimulated so your
thumb doesn't swipe away to the next video. And
this tonal shift deeply bothered some cultural
critics who felt it bordered on offensive. Really?
Offense? Yes. Geeta Jackson at Vice News went,
as far as calling the recreation, entirely perverse.
Jackson argued that by putting on this massive
game for millions of viewers, Donaldson was essentially
playing the exact role of the villain from the
original show. Oh, wow. So he's the VIP. Exactly.
The wealthy orchestrator who watches desperate
people compete for life -changing cash purely
for his own amusement and profit. I mean, that
is an incredibly heavy accusation to level at
a 20 -something YouTuber. It is. But then you
have voices on the other side of the aisle saying,
hey, let's step back and look at the reality
of the situation without the academic lens. Tyler
Wilde, writing for PC Gamer, offered a really
compelling counter perspective that challenges
that criticism. What was his take? He essentially
pointed out the hypocrisy of the outrage. He
argued that it is very hard to confidently declare
that spending $3 .5 million to give away life
-changing cash to regular people on YouTube is
somehow morally bad, while simultaneously arguing
that spending $21 .4 million of corporate money
to simulate the brutal murder of poor people
on Netflix is somehow morally good. That is a
very sharp point. Right. Wilde flatly pointed
out that the YouTube video was about as accurate
as you can get without actually shooting anyone.
It perfectly highlights the absurdity of trying
to judge a real world algorithmic philanthropic
stunt by the exact moral standards of a fictional
dystopian narrative. Exactly. They are completely
different vehicles operating with completely
different goals. So what does this all mean?
I want to put this directly to you, the listener.
Think about your own habits for a second. Yeah,
consider your own viewing. When you sit down
with your phone or your TV at the end of a long
day, do you actually care more about the deep
intellectual themes of the media you consume?
Or are you, like most of us, just there for the
sheer immediate entertainment value of the spectacle?
It's a tough question to answer, honestly. Because
the numbers we are looking at do not lie. 900
million views powerfully suggest that, for a
vast majority of the human population, the game
matters far more than the message. This raises
an important question about the nature of our
modern attention spans. It is a profound irony
that we have to sit with. What's that? A piece
of television media designed explicitly to critique
extreme wealth inequality. and the exploitation
of the desperate was flawlessly adapted into
a digital vehicle to generate immense personal
wealth, drive corporate brand engagement for
mobile game, and capture the global attention
of nearly a billion people. It's wild. All using
highly effective hyper -optimized clickbait marketing
strategies. It is genuinely incredible. It's
almost like the algorithm took the heavy anti
-capitalist message of squid game. chewed it
up, stripped out all the subtext, and spat out
the most perfectly optimized, highly profitable
capitalist product imaginable. And we all eagerly
clicked on the thumbnail. We did. 100 million
of us in the first three days alone. So let's
take a step back and look at the massive territory
we've covered today. We've covered a lot of ground.
We started with the sheer, breathless awe of
the production 500 exploding blood squibs engineered
and strapped to real people in just three weeks.
We dug into the jaw -dropping economics, debating
the reality of spending $134 ,600 per screen
minute and whether that makes YouTube more expensive
than prestige TV. And we negated the explosive
cultural debates over deleted tech tweets, asking
whether this video represents the glorious gatekeeper
-free goal golden age of independent creators,
or if it's just a hollow derivative echo of original
art designed to feed an insatiable, retention
-hungry algorithm. And as we wrap up this deep
dive, it's crucial to remember your own active
role in this digital ecosystem. Every single
time you click on a piece of content, every time
you watch a 25 -minute video instead of swiping
to the next one, you are casting an economic
vote. That's right. You are directly telling
the algorithm. the corporate sponsors and the
creators, exactly what you value. You are shaping
what the future of our entertainment looks like
in real time. Which leaves us with one final
lingering thought for you to chew on. We talked
earlier about Amanda Silberling's point that
this specific creator economy model structurally
relies on continuously escalating budgets and
wilder, more dangerous stunts just to keep you,
the audience, from getting desensitized. The
treadmill. Exactly. So what happens next? What
happens to the creator economy when we inevitably
reach a point where no amount of money, no massive
set build, and no multi -million dollar cash
prize can hold our collective attention anymore?
If we're already building the parachute while
simultaneously jumping out of the airplane, what
happens when we finally hit the ground?