GREENVILLE, NC – Mr. Beast, the most subscribed individual creator on YouTube, has reportedly announced massive, widespread layoffs among his subscribers. According to leaked memos those affected will be laid off from watching, competing in, or even subscribing to his videos, effective immediately.
“Today is a sad day for everyone here at Mr. Beast,” Jimmy Donaldson, the creator known as Mr. Beast said in a leaked internal memo sent to subscribers. “Without our dedicated fanbase, we wouldn’t have anyone to trap on desert islands in both the videos we release and also the ones which go poorly that we don’t release (RIP).”
The subscriber cuts, coming just months after the creator passed the 200 million subscriber mark, has shocked the YouTube community. More importantly, millions of his younger fans are now having to face the shocking reality that they may not be randomly selected to run on a human-sized hamster wheel for 100 hours in order to win $50,000.
“Now I’ll just have to fight for my life for an Xbox from Kai Cenat,” said Kyle Stephen, a 10-year-old Mr. Beast fan from New Jersey. “Without the opportunity to have faceless sponsors fund my personal suffering for a relatively short amount of time for a life-changing amount of money, I now need to reconsider everything I knew about my career.’”
Analysts worry that this may have ripple effects across the influencer industry, but provide a hopeful picture of what’s to come.
“What we see here is simply unprecedented growth in viewership that couldn’t be sustained any longer by simply increasing the brightness and detail on Mr. Beast’s teeth in thumbnails,” John Fraik said in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday. “Although this is unfortunate for the small handful of subscribers affected this week, we believe its a necessary step to reach 300 million subscribers and the right move for Mr. Donaldson.”
At press time, those impacted by the subscriber reduction were offered a severance package of one 10% off coupon, applicable for one Feastables chocolate bar at any participating Walmart Supercenter™.
