This is my attempt at narrating the atrocities I’ve witnessed in the past 6 weeks on MrBeast’s new gameshow on Amazon Prime—Beast Games. If I get into a groove, I’d release this in a series so let me know if you enjoyed reading this!.
My interest in game shows
I’ve never seen Squid games, maybe the first couple episodes of the new season when I was lounging in my friend’s house. I was not paying attention to what was going on, so as far as I’m concerned—I’ve never seen the show.
I decided to not see it because it was all everyone could talk about at the time. Yes, I’m one of THOSE. I lose interest in something the moment it becomes the talk of the town. For instance, I’ve skipped every video related to Aaron Pierre on the internet, since he became the internet’s rave. I’ve never even heard the brother talk outside the four walls of a cinema (He voiced Mufasa).
Reality or no?
I started watching more reality TV recently because I struggled to focus knowing the story sold to me in fictional shows wasn’t real. I understand, letting your imagination soar can reap so many benefits but I’m just not interested.
I piqued interest in more documentaries, cooking shows (or brawls), infotainment, podcasts e.t.c. Why? It’s real. I can’t put a finger on it but it feels comfy, watching how Heather and her husband stole billions of dollars in the Bitfinex hack, seeing a Jamaican chef completely obliterate the sacred Jollof rice recipe on IronChef and many more jaw-dropping moments.
I enjoy them because they’re organic and if I want to learn more, I only have to do some digging and I’d go as far as I’m ready to find out. My learning doesn’t stop when the writer decides to stop writing, you know.
Beast Games.
I piqued interest in Beast Games because I know MrBeast, not personally, but I know of him. He’s made some breathtaking videos on his YouTube channel so it was only natural I checked this out.
What is it?
It’s a reality game show that started out with a thousand players, all in the running to win a grand prize of $5m. The moment I realized this, I thought what any other warm-blooded animal would think:
What would I do if I won five million dollars?
To quote my very good friend here: “I don’t know what I’d do but there’d be signs. big ones”.
Disclaimer🚨🚨🚨
This post includes spoilers so if you want to watch it later without me spoiling the show for you, now’s your time to stop reading.
At first glance
You stayed, nice. If you’re familiar with MrBeast-style videos, you’d know they’re very fast-paced and short. He had an episode on the Flagrant podcast where he spoke about viewer retention and how he tries to keep his videos 26 minutes or less (I might be butchering the time here).
Each episode is about 50 minutes on average so I was eager to see how he was going to work around this. I will say, it’s still fast-paced. You see elements of his OG style fused with storytelling for the characters in the show, keeping the suspense and that innate ability he has to just keep you glued to your screens. Immaculate.
The bribe
The first game was a simple one. I did not expect it because I felt if you were giving away 5 million dollars, you’d want anyone that leaves with even a penny to have worked for it.
In the first game, he gave away a million dollars to anyone who would eliminate themselves but they had to share it amongst themselves. So if 10 people eliminated themselves, they leave with $100k each, which is pretty good money in and of itself.
A lot of people were reluctant at first, also because you don’t want to rush into eliminating yourself. There was a timer and folks left it till the last few seconds to eliminate themselves.
Finally, 52 people took the bribe and shared $19k each, good money I tell you, good money. If I got $19k now, I’d go into my shower and wash all the poverty away from my body for the last time.
And then there were 948.
The eliminations
The second game was wild (stay tuned, it gets worse) and it was each row you see here had to have someone eliminate themselves for people in the row to stay in the game.
It was crazy and this was where I started getting sad. Some people felt the need to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, some got pressured into eliminating themselves and knowing myself, I’d probably just walk out because I cannot deal with that much toxicity, please 😭
There was a twist (of course), the last 3 rows that fail to sacrifice someone would be eliminated completely and this was time-based too, which meant, they had to figure something out quick.
I hold a lot of respect for people that eliminated themselves in this game because it takes so much courage to cut your journey short just so others can carry on in the game. Some rows obviously had stubborn participants and those were the ones that got eliminated.
What I found surprising was people shouting: “Press the button!”
Girl, what’s wrong with your own hands? Press it too, my dear. 😭
This girl got pressured into pressing the button, and I was pretty sad she caved.
And then there were 705.
The block stacking
This is why I said at the start that although the episode was 50 minutes long, it was still very fast-paced. Game after game after game. For this one, they had 10 minutes to stack a set of shapes perfectly and if the blocks fell, you got eliminated.
They continued until 100 people were eliminated so if your blocks fall off after a 100 people’s blocks had already fallen, then you have a chance of staying in the game. There was not too much manipulation in this game since it was an activity dependent on your ability to remain tranquil.
The arena was silent, and you could hear a pin drop. Two major events that happened were:
Bouncy boy
This brother was one of the first people to completely stack his shapes, and as his brain would have it, he decided to stress-test the sturdiness of the blocks by foolishly bouncing on the platform 😭
The blocks clattered right in front of him and he got eliminated. If that happened where I’m from, we’d say his village people are working overtime to get him into trouble. Such an idiot.
Can’t help you, mate.
There was this lady that was slowly building her tower but one of the blocks fell outside her platform. She asked her neighbour who had already completed hers to hand it to her and her neighbour declined.
I get it, it’s an individual game. It’s just so cut-throat. She didn’t make it, of course.
And then there were 605.
Beast City
Before I started watching this show, there was an inaugural video on MrBeast’s channel that introduced the game with 2000 people. 1000 people from that video made it into the show and he had always said only 500 would make it to Beast City ✨
He spent about $15m on this fairytale city and I found a post on Reddit saying he tore it down right after the show ended.
Taking this moment to declare that God willing, I will have crazy money😭. Let’s carry on.
Another bribe round
There were 605 players left and only 500 would advance to the City. In regular MrBeast fashion, he reeled out another bribe round. 105 people had to leave this round so he decided to bribe people to leave.
With a twist.
Remember these rows?
If you took the bribe, you eliminated everyone on your row. My body and soul is not made for heart-wrenching moments like this, I was surprised I kept watching from all the stress the show was dishing out.
It got toxic very quickly. People started making it known that they did have a number (as they should) and if they got bribed with that amount, they couldn’t care any less about the others on the row.
Chase the money, chase the money.🎵🎵
I can’t remember if the bribe started at $10k or $20k. Anyways, someone took a bribe of $20k and eliminated everyone on his row (8 people)
The bribe went up to $50k and two people took the money eliminating those in their respective rows.
After these rounds, they needed 83 more eliminations.
Temporary allegiances
What I found fascinating during this round was how people started introducing themselves by name in a bid to form a more concrete relationship with their neighbors. For someone that finds psychology so interesting, that put me under so much stress 😭
You don’t like me, you don’t know me, but you’re introducing yourself because you’re scared I’d take the money and eliminate you. It’s one hell of a social experiment and watching it was wild.
People also started verbally declaring their intent to NOT take the money and this was crazy for many reasons. If you convinced your neighbors to not take the money and you were the loudest in the room, there’s a chance others would feel safe — leaving you with the money at the very end if you wanted to take it.
These guys said they won’t be taking the money, no matter how much it was — giving a sense of security.
$80k
After the 50k mark, I expected MrBeast would stop. It was almost insulting to keep offering more money to people thinking they would rather take their chance to join 500 people for a shot at a grand prize they might never win.
It went up to $80k and obviously, people took it. After this round, 91 people had been eliminated in total.
$100k
The holy grail. $100k. I expected people to take it, but I was surprised by the ones who did. The first person to take it was this boy that promised everyone he was not going to 😭
It got complicated, the boy took the bribe and eliminated 13 people on his row. Problem was, 14 people had to go. This meant one more person had to take the money to eliminate more people. Guess who took it?
You guessed right 😭.
My hope in humanity sunk so deep after I saw this and it made me think if a gentleman’s agreement even means anything nowadays. It would eat me up forever if I made that decision but again, everyone was there for themselves but playing your cards so close to your chest only to snake others was too much for me.
Moral lesson
This was such a chaotic episode, and I learnt that you should trust no one.
I recommend seeing the show if you haven’t already. I will be writing more reviews in the coming weeks so stay tuned if you’d rather read my ramblings.
L4TL ❤️
great read. Enough pressure to give conscience a backseat
😭😭 $100k is too much money to pass up.