The viral Korean Netflix show, Squid Games, took the world by storm when it first was released on Sept. 17, 2021. For the few people who haven’t watched it, the show follows 456 contestants as they play games to win money. The catch— if they don’t win the games, they die. The last person left wins the money that is accumulated throughout the games, which is 45.6 billion won, roughly $31 million USD. After the incredible success of the show, many famous youtubers and even Netflix themself turned to creating real life simulations of Squid Games. However, none have taken it as far as Mr. Beast, who not only has made multiple youtube videos recreating the popular TV show, but also created his very own competition called Beast Games.
Personally, I have been watching Mr. Beast for a couple of years now, after he went viral due to his video “Counting to 100,000” which gained him much fame and attention and launched his career. When I first heard about Beast Games, I was very intrigued to see how Mr. Beast, who’s real name is Jimmy Donaldson, would top his past adventures and crazy competitions. Now, with the final episode of the series having aired on Feb. 13, I want to look at the show and its comparisons to Squid Games as well as what it means for humanity, both with the contestants in the show and the people finding entertainment with it.
Firstly, we must talk about the premise of Beast Games. 1000 contestants battle it out for the grand prize of $5 million dollars, the biggest prize in TV history, through the course of multiple games— some of which include backstabbing other contestants and some working as a team. People saw an immediate connection to Squid Games with the contestants all being assigned a number, which in turn takes the place of their name.. Another part of the show that I think is eerily similar to Squid Games is the masked guards. Mr. Beast’s guards are a lot more relaxed and don’t do much besides stand around bringing in money and other game items, but the fact that they are all masked does remind me a lot of the guards in Squid Games. Nonetheless, I enjoy the fact that Beast Games is not a direct copy of Squid Games. The games are different, the set up is completely different, the final prize is different, and Mr. Beast has found a way to keep the game interesting by giving out smaller prizes to other contestants throughout the show. At the beginning, he offered different amounts of money to contestants to just leave the game right then and there with at least some guaranteed cash; four contestants were offered an insane one million dollars to eliminate their team (none of them took it though), nine contestants battled it out to win a private island and the winner got to stay in the competition even after winning the island, Lamborghinis, Teslas, and even more money were offered to contestants throughout the game, which is very different from Squid Games were only one contestant leaves with the cash and their life.
However, many people’s biggest concerns with Beast Games have been the allegations that have come forth about the terrible conditions that the contestants were placed under while in the competition. Five contestants have each come forth to say that they were subjected to inadequate meals, and had complaints about medical supplies, care, and lack of hygiene. The contestants said that they were only fed small meals twice a day during filming, while a Mr. Beast spokesperson states that all the contestants were offered three full meals a day. The contestants alleged that the meals that they were given were a small portion of cold oatmeal, a few pieces of raw vegetables, and a single hard-boiled egg. All the allegations led to Mr. Beast and Amazon being sued in Sept. of 2024 for chronic mistreatment and sexual harassment made by contestants of the show that have opted to stay anonymous. The attorneys for the contestants stated: “Several contestants ended up hospitalized, while others reported suffering physical and mental complications while being subjected to chronic mistreatment, degradation and, for the female contestants, hostile working conditions.” These allegations have created another parallel between Beast Games and Squid Games, that being the frontman and his mistreatment of his contestants. While the two aren’t completely comparable, Mr. Beast isn’t finding joy in watching the contestants die, both of them are almost untouchable despite their actions. Of course, all of these accusations are just allegations, yet many have decided that the Beast Games should not be watched based on the lawsuit.
Another major critique of Beast Games is that Mr. Beast completely missed the point of Squid Games. The show wasn’t created to inspire real life recreations of it, but instead to demonstrate how conflict can occur between and inside both the rich and poor classes over monetary power, and to bring awareness to the dangers that can occur when greed gets the best of people. However, in Beast Games contestants are encouraged to backstab others for their own personal gain. For example, in one of the games a contestant was chosen by the others and had to choose between getting an extra prize, like a Lamborghini or a Tesla, or saving three other contestants, which the leader chose. To the surprise of no one, the contestant chose the Lamborghini, eliminating three other contestants who had no way of saving themselves. Or for instance, in the final ten contestants, Mr. Beast offered the contestants $1 million dollars for them to split amongst themselves. In a perfect world, that would mean that each contestant would receive $100,000, which is still a large sum of money, and while some tried to stick to that equality, other contestants took this as a chance to gain as much money as they could. One contestant shook the rest by taking $650,000 leaving the other contestants with very little money, and one contestant ended up with absolutely no money. This greediness that is encouraged amongst the contestants truly shows the worst sides of humanity, especially when some contestants wanted the money for better reasons than others. One contestant, Jeff, wanted the prize money so that he could donate it to the research to find a cure for his son’s rare disease, which other contestants knew, but that didn’t stop people from trying to get him eliminated.
However, I do want to note that there were a few moments in the show that I believe demonstrated how good humanity can be. These include when four contestants turned down $1 million dollars to save the contestants that elected them as leaders, when people sacrificed themselves for friends in the show, small moments of the contestants sharing a meal together while becoming friends, or when contestants became so close that they told each other that they loved them and cheered them on after being eliminated. I don’t believe that this show was completely evil, after all Mr. Beast was offering these 1000 people the opportunity to be set for life. Especially after a legendary coin flip doubled the prize money, making it $10 million dollars. I am also very happy to report that in the end, it was Jeff who won the grand prize, promising to put much of it towards the research of his son’s rare disease.
At the end of the day, while I don’t think that Mr. Beast, despite saying that he took inspiration from Squid Games, completely understood the message that the Korean show was trying to uphold, I also think that he wasn’t completely in the wrong. He has spoken out about the allegations claiming them to be false and also stating that he has tons of behind-the-scenes footage that will show his innocence, but he couldn’t release it at the time because it would spoil the show. All I can hope now is that the winner of Beast Games is able to get the cure for his son that he won the money for and that he continues to uphold his strength, integrity, and honor that he demonstrated in the show. I am also sure that this will not be the last that we see of Beast Games, with Mr. Beast claiming multiple times that this is just the beginning of the show, and that Jeff was just the first winner, not the only. Money, more than anything else, is known to make people selfish, narcissistic, and rude. And when you have so much of it, you only crave to find the ways that you can continue to increase that number in your bank account. I’m sure that Beast Games was not founded to destroy the goodness in the contestants, but I cannot say that I’m not afraid it will. However, I do think that it’s very interesting to see how as humans we are so entertained by watching people battle it out for a cash pot, just like the VIPs in Squid Games, so while we judge, we might be the problem too.