Five contestants competing on a MrBeast-hosted reality competition show have filed a proposed class-action lawsuit against the YouTube star’s production company and Amazon, claiming they were denied pay, forced to participate in unsafe conditions and subjected to a “culture of misogyny and sexism.”
The lawsuit was filed Monday in a Los Angeles court by participants on the Amazon Prime Video show called “Beast Games,” which was announced in March. It features “over 1,000 contestants, $5,000,000 prize, and many other world records,” the creator MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, said at the time.
The 54-page document describes allegations of players being subjected to “unreasonable, unsafe, and unlawful employment conditions” that led to “several” contestants being hospitalized. Plaintiffs said they were fed “sporadically and sparsely” and not given “adequate access to hygienic products or medical care.”
A spokesperson for MrBeast told the Times that the shoot was “unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather and other unexpected logistical and communications issues” and that a formal review of the show had started.
Yes. You put people in the hospital because of what happened with CrowdStrike.
Jesus Fucking Christ, this guy is awful. I hate philanthropy pornographers.
Am I the only one who has always been weirded out by this guy? He gives off a vibe of having a thin veneer of nice guy, but under it is an unhappy guy who hates doing this stuff. Plus, his smile is creepy.
I don’t know if he hates it, but it’s definitely tied to something almost compulsive:
His mother urged him to go to college, but he dropped out of East Carolina University after two weeks. Instead of going to class, he spent most of his time on campus editing videos in his car.
“That’s all I ever talked about at school. I thought I was a freak of nature,” he told content creators and podcasters Colin and Samir in September. “People would tell me, ‘All you do is talk about YouTube videos. You’re too obsessed with YouTube. Get a life…’”
…In past interviews, Donaldson has said he studied the YouTube recommendation algorithm and other creators’ stats meticulously to come up with a recipe for making his videos popular.
Woah that’s ininteresting. He specifically gamed the algorithm to get popular, then probably didnt know exactly what to do at that point. No wonder he comes across as disingenuous.
