In just 24 hours MrBeast’s Squid Game generated 42 million views and in four days had over 100 million views becoming one of the most successful videos ever uploaded to the YouTube platform. I’m an author of a dozen science fiction thriller novels and I love analyzing the stories that shape culture and become the center of the conversation.
With millions making a comparison between the Netflix hit Squid Game and MrBeast’s Squid Game IRL and controversy swirling around the irony of flaunting millions to produce a remake of a show about wealth inequality, I wanted to dive in and talk about the storytelling of MrBeast.
Story is a force throughout history that has built empires, sowed division and destruction, and brought happiness and love to billions. MrBeast, like all creators, is a storyteller. And his high-stakes action-packed storytelling has propelled him to a status as the ruler of the YouTube world. He has more weight in shaping narratives and creating impact at scale than almost anyone. But if he wants to hold onto this power and continue to grow his reach he will have to master the most important part of storytelling that he often neglects: character building.
Let’s dive into it…
So MrBeast Squid Game opens with an enticing hook. But it’s quite jarring. I’m not sure this kind of opening is enough to get me to really care about the characters or the why behind any of it. It doesn’t create any sort of narrative drive that makes me ask bigger questions about the who, what, and why, the questions that make people not just keep watching but get trapped inside the world one is creating. But that was only the first 10 seconds, luckily there is another 25 minutes in the video, so let’s see where he goes from there.
Unfortunately, in the next 15 seconds, we just jump right into the game. We don’t have any exposition as to why this is happening or a narrative that ties the individual characters and their fates to the stakes of the game. In this way, it feels more like a burst of adrenaline rather than a story with narrative drive.
And to break that down, narrative drive is a combination of a story’s premise, a character’s desire, and its opponent. It’s essentially a character’s motivations combined with the plot that creates a momentum that carries the viewer forward to the end of the story. It’s that one feeling you get where curiosity and tension make it impossible to stop watching or reading something.
In MrBeast’s Squid Game, plot is everywhere. In fact, MrBeast may be a master of plot at a level that few other storytellers ever have been. Every few seconds there is another cut in the action with new stakes being introduced every few minutes. This is what makes his videos already so fulfilling to watch and generates him hundreds of millions of views a month on his main channel alone.
But the characters are where MrBeast lacks. Just look at the ending.
His excitement is infectious, but the payoff really means nothing to the audience. Why should we care that he won 456k instead of 45k or 4k or 4 million dollars? We don’t even know his name but instead, he is labeled by 079 the entire way through. I understand this was inspired by the Netflix production of Squid Game itself, but in the end, we don’t connect with this character or really care that he won.
And this is true for nearly everyone else in the Squid Game.
Except, when over 20 minutes in to the 25 minute video, we finally get a view into the motivations behind our characters during a steak dinner. But even then, these motivations are akin to the motivations behind most of MrBeast’s audience. In fact, it seems as if MrBeast relies on his young audience watching his videos thinking as if they will be in it themselves. He even marketed MrBeast Game merch used to fund the Squid Game video by noting that those who buy have a chance to compete in the real game.
But only 456 out of MrBeast’s 70 million-plus fans can actually compete. And this is in his biggest video yet. Thus for 99.99% of his fans, competing in a MrBeast video is an illusion, yet this desire seems to be the driving force behind connecting and resonating with the characters in his videos.
Ultimately, if MrBeast can’t figure out a way to make us root for the protagonist of his videos and care about the stakes as it pertains to each character from the beginning, his grand productions lose meaning.
I’d recommend after filming, his production team take some of the top competitors and work with them to craft their own story and motivations and splice it into the narrative, not unlike famous reality TV shows and game shows already do. This will allow his audience to root for the competitors in MrBeast’s Squid game, making the plot more engaging, increasing narrative drive, and ultimately making the payoff in the end that much bigger.
And ultimately, this injection of emotion and character development into this Squid Game video, which is already filled with an engaging plot and high-stakes situations will enable deeper themes and messages to be embedded into his videos. This will further engage his audience and give each concept strong reasoning WHY behind it, which will lead to him building a brand not just as a guy who spends money but creates unbelievable stories.
And it’s those stories, that will catapult him into an even greater spotlight and spark conversations that can change this world.
So for any creators reading this, the big takeaway is that people watch videos, not due to flashy editing or amazing set design. All of that helps, but people want to keep watching due to a combination of curiosity and tension, or narrative drive. They want to feel, to cry, and to have their heart tugged in every direction. On YouTube IRL challenge creators like MrBeast have propelled big ideas with engaging plots forward, but they haven’t done a proper job at developing their characters, and this may ultimately lead to some of the biggest creators on one of the most popular niches on the platform declining in popularity. And for those that can master this, it may lead to a new generation of IRL challenge creators taking the crown.