Featured Image Credit: Instagram/@mrbeast
Topics: MrBeast, YouTube, Squid Game
Jess Hardiman
YouTuber MrBeast has revealed how his biggest ever video actually saw him end up losing money, despite reeling in the numbers.
The online star, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, famously went ALL OUT for a 2021 video that saw him recreate tasks from hit Netflix series Squid Game.
He had vowed to take on the mammoth project after promising to do so if a post received 10 million likes – which, of course, it did.
At the time, Donaldson claimed that more than $1.5 million in prizes were to be given away, bringing in 456 contestants to mirror those in the show and putting them up to real-life versions of the games such as Red Light, Green Light; the Tug of War; the marbles game; the glass hopping challenge; the honeycomb game and the final showdown – a game of high-stakes musical chairs.
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Instead of contestants potentially coming to any harm, rounds such as the Glass Bridge game had foam pits placed beneath the walkway to prevent any injuries from occurring.
Although, to recreate the show as accurately and vividly as possible, dye packs were put on the contestant’s tracksuits to mimic the effects of being shot and subsequently eliminated.
Speaking on The Yard podcast a few months ago, Donaldson reflected on the impressive and ambitious stunt, admitting that he actually ended up losing money from it.
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“$4.2 million to make Squid Game... They said that he made $1.5 million ad revenue, $2 million from your sponsor for it, and then $700,000 for merch – aka you made $4.2 million, so then you would’ve gone even, true or false?” the YouTuber was posed.
Donaldson then replied: “That video definitely lost money, if you factor everything in.
“That was supposed to be a $2 million video, which was crazy for us. We’re like, ‘We’re gonna go f**king balls to the wall, we’re gonna spend $2 million on it’.
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“And then you spend $1.5 [million] and you’re like, ‘Oh, s**t... This is gonna be a $3 million [project], and now it’s $4 million and it’s just like, it keeps going up’.”
Within 60 minutes of its release, the video had gained over five million views, and it now has a not-too-shabby 399 million views, at the time of writing.
However, after the video's release, some other users didn’t find it as amusing given the underlying true meaning of the series and its impoverished contestants, with household debt in South Korea rising massively in recent years and a widening income gap.
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One viewer wrote:"Sad to see people playing this sh*t in real life and they don’t know what is the hidden messages of squid sh*t."
Another said:"I will say, I don’t hate MrBeast or care what he does, but the irony of spending all of this money to mimic a show where the message was about money just speaks volumes.
A third commented: "I don’t think you understood the point of Squid Game James."