The Third Question

All eyes are on MrBeast.

Previously.

In my last article on the continued drama surrounding the allegations pertaining to MrBeast and his erstwhile co-star and business partner, Kris Tyson, I laid out three following three questions.

1. What are the allegations against Tyson?

2. Did Jimmy Donaldson know?

3. Why is Tyson not receiving the same decisive public condemnation that other previous internet personalities have in the past when facing similar allegations?

Using the information available to the public, I comprehensively answered the first two. Due to time constraints and simple ease of access for readers, I was forced to relegate investigation into the third to its own article.

So - here we are. Why did it take so long for Tyson’s allegations to manifest consequences? Why are they being downplayed? Why have some come out in his defense?

The answer is two-fold, and both prongs of the bident are as simple as they are straight-forward and uncomfortable.

The first part of the ultimate answer is that Tyson is close personal friends with MrBeast. He’s not just a major player in Jimmy Donaldson’s videos; he’s a close personal friend with over a decade of history with him, and a member of his inner-circle. I’ve explained many times that the story of Donaldson is inherently inseparable from Tyson.

I’ve also explained that MrBeast is not just a big fish in the small pond of YouTube - he’s the apex predator. His enterprise is extremely lucrative. Donaldson is not just currently the highest paid YouTuber, he’s the highest paid YouTuber in the history of the site. Estimates of his personal net worth vary wildly, with some reports claiming it to be seven hundred million, and others upwards of a billion. It’s estimated that his average video rakes in over a million dollars in ad revenue. In one month, he can make YouTube over three million dollars in ad revenue. And that’s just from uploads to his main channel. In total, he runs four channels. Carly Simon said it best - nobody does it better¹.

Some of the most vociferous defenders of Tyson in the immediate wake of the allegations were other members of MrBeast’s crew, and those who hold higher positions in his company. MrBeast employs over two-hundred and fifty people at his studio. None of them want to see the gravy train grind to a halt. Donaldson himself certainly doesn’t. No one wants to see MrBeast remain untouchable more than YouTube itself. YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, which in turn is owned by a larger conglomerate, Alphabet. Keep in mind that companies like Zaxby’s, organizations like the Charlotte Hornets, and many, many companies manufacturing his merchandise are making a lot of money off of the good name of his brand. He even has - or possibly had - a new brand of toys called MrBeast Lab² that were supposed to be released in July.

The glorious roll-out of this new Beast cash cow never came, nor did the San Diego Comic-Con exhibit that was supposed to hawk them, or the aggressive marketing putsch that was to follow. Rather, it looks as if they were quietly released onto Target’s³ online storefront with little fanfare. It seems that his partner in this endeavor, Moose Toys, probably thought twice about dropping the product right into the middle of quite possibly the single worst time to be associated with MrBeast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they wanted to scrap it all together, but hey; when it comes to the Beast, there are no refunds.

The crowned heads at mobile game developer Niantic of Pokemon Go fame don’t seem to think it’s a problem, though. I know because almost every other ad I’ve gotten on YouTube for the past month has been MrBeast or one of his cronies shilling their new cash-grab with the wildly popular Capcom franchise, Monster Hunter, slapped on it.

It probably seemed like a good idea, at the time.

These are just the deals he has in the works now. Who knows what kind of partnerships the Big Beast has fostered behind closed doors.

The MrBeast logo is paying a lot of people’s bills, at the moment. It’s making a fortune for a vast network of partners.

And all of them have a vested interest in keeping it that way. I have no doubt in my mind that the leadership of a company like YouTube, which is tapped deep into the labyrinthine business network of Alphabet, would not be hesitant to reach out to their friends in high places and ask for some favors to be done in order to keep the story as quiet as possible. Given Alphabet’s immense reach and the great influence they exert over a large stable of technology and media companies, it stands to reason that they could likely pull some strings. I’m not saying that there was this massive conspiracy to completely kill the story that ran to the highest echelons of the Reptilian Council from Zeta Reticuli that oversees the operations at Alphabet; I’m just saying that I’m fairly certain that, at some point as the drama unfolded, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan picked up the phone at some point, rang up some buddies, and called in some favors.

There’s a reason it took weeks for the media to cover the story, and there's a reason they did only after public outcry to reach a fever pitch. It was then, and only then, when the backlash overwhelmed the risk-reward ratio of looking the other way. They didn’t want to do address the matter if they didn’t have to. And it wasn’t just for want of money that kept their mouths shut and their fingers off the keys.

The second and more prescient factor in the delayed reaction to the allegations is, as I believe most of you already suspect, that Kris Tyson is transgender.

It really is that straightforward.

If Tyson still presented as a cisgender male, the conversation surrounding his ultimate cancellation and the ramifications for MrBeast’s larger brand would have been equally fascinating, but much less lengthy. There would have been a summary execution of his career that reflected the downfalls of both Cody Ko and DrDisrespect⁴. Both of those men had their careers yanked away from them in a matter of days. The fiasco with Tyson at the center has dragged on for the better part of July, 2024. I’d argue it still isn’t over.

I don’t need to tell you that of all the different wings of the LGBTQ+ bloc, the transgender contingent has rapidly become the most sacred of bovines for the political left. Increasingly, the L’s and G’s have become second-class citizens of their own tribe - especially those with Yakubian lineage - in favor of the Q’s and, more so, the T’s. It’s arguable whether the interest of homosexual and transgender wings of this coalition were ever really all that aligned to begin with, which is a sentiment I’ve heard expressed by most, if not all, of the gay men I know in my personal life, though that’s entirely different discussion altogether.

The fact of the matter is that the transgender bloc, more than any other group, is a protected class in modern America and, in many ways, sacrosanct beyond reproach. Any and all criticism by those of their persuasion is chalked up to transphobia, and effectively written off by any mainstream authority.

For his employer, Donaldson, Tyson has been a Sword of Damocles that has been swinging above his head for the past year, and it has had him firmly wedged between a particularly hard rock and an immensely uncomfortable place. Tyson has long been suspected of banking on this baked-in protection offered by the trans pride flag in his Twitter bio to shore up his job security. I don’t believe that Donaldson had any desire to part ways with Tyson after his transition. Donaldson has defended Tyson vociferously since his transition. I don’t think they were on the outs. But I also think that he was keenly aware that, if they were, and if he did want to dump Tyson, firing a newly minted transgender woman would have ignited a media firestorm around his brand that would have been nothing less than disastrous for his public image. If he was aware of Tyson’s behavior, as so many have alleged, he was in an unwinnable situation; he could fire Tyson and suffer the accusations of transphobia that would have put his company in the crosshairs of progressive partisans, or he could take the black-eye that would come when he was outed as a groomer.

Damned if he did; damned if he didn’t.

And, ultimately, it was easier to keep Tyson around and paper over whatever ill-behavior he engaged in than risk a Category Five Shitstorm erupting if he publicly fired him. And make no mistake - if he ever did fire Tyson, he would have not just been subjected to a struggle session by the media, but most likely a legal one, as well.

North Carolina, where his studio and business operations are based, has LGBTQ+ workplace discrimination protection laws in place. It would have been easy for Tyson to take his firing to court and allege that he was unjustly fired for his transgender identity. Obviously, I don’t know Tyson personally, and I could be misreading his personality entirely, but everything I’ve seen of him suggests that he is both reckless, immature, and most likely conceited; there’s no reason not to believe that he would have no qualms with pulling such a move to save his own skin and collect a bag in the process out of spite, even if it came at the expense of the old friend that had given him everything he had.

Look - we don’t know why Donaldson kept Tyson on his payroll. We don’t know if their friendship deteriorated behind closed doors since Tyson's transition. They could have come to despise one another over the years. Donaldson and Tyson are (and in the latter’s case, were) very private people. Being anything else would be, and has proven to be, disastrous for the MrBeast brand. We still don’t know if Donaldson kept his friend around out of a genuine sense of philios or simple legal obligation. But he chose to play his cards a certain way, and, now, is suffering the worst outcome possible. He was forced to fire Tyson. He’s being called transphobic by those who support Tyson in the media. And he now has the stigma of being someone who employed Tyson and was possibly complicit with his behavior. Everything Donaldson was trying to avoid, regardless of the reason, has come to fruition.

And, make no mistake - the allegations against Tyson have nothing to do with transphobia. None of it. No one is attacking him strictly because of his gender identity, and anyone who says otherwise is acting in bad faith. All of it has to do with the fact that he was acting in an entirely unacceptable way with and around minors. Very few of the content creators that spoke out against him have any bone to pick with the transgender community as a whole. Most of them stated as much. Some of them, like the streamers Pokimane and Valkyrae, both expressed their opinion that it was a tragedy that the transgender community would experience blow back from the allegation’s around Tyson. Despite their attempts to tip-toe around the nettle bush and be diplomatic, Tyson’s supporters pushed them into it headfirst anyways.

In this situation, there really is no playing both sides of the line, especially for major public figures. If you’re silent on the issue, one side will (rightly) accuse you of fence-sitting on an egregious breach of ethical behavior by a groomer. If you speak out against it, you’re a transphobe.

Really, there’s only one moral route to take, here - speak out against evil when you see it, regardless of who may be behind it. I understand the hesitancy a public internet figure who relies on a cash-flow drawn from a large and diverse audience to take a controversial position, but the only people defending Tyson are people that no sane person should want to align with. They’re running cover for a porn-sick groomer that exploited their position of power and influence to act explicitly with and around minors - their convictions are wholly wrong, and their opinions are worth less than dirt. In their defenses of Tyson, I’ve seen the word chud thrown around a lot. Mutahar Anas is a chud. Tim Pool is a big ol’ chud. Pokimane? She’s a chud now, I guess. Charlie? He used to be a golden boy for these people. so long as the parents consented. He’s just a chud, now⁵.

Frankly, if being opposed to the exploitation and abuse of minors make me a chud, I’ll take it as a compliment.

But… that does raise one last little question, here: how exactly are Tyson and those spinning apologia for him defending the indefensible?

Well, the skinny is this - it’s a joke, bro, haha.

In his original defense of Tyson posted to Twitter, the subject of the first leaks - LavaGS - stated that, while inappropriate in hindsight, the fact that Tyson was calling him daddy and big boy was all ironic, edgy humor. That was just how they talked to one another. Everything Tyson said and did was just irony. It was edgy humor. You know. Like Shadman drawing pictures of minors - he doesn’t actually like that kind of thing; it’s just shock humor, no different than a shock jock of yore like Howard Stern or Jim Norton casually dropping the dreaded Hard R on AM radio.

Which, in a way… I see the logic. I disagree fundamentally that there’s anything ironic about Tyson’s love for loli content, but, reading through some of the less egregious, more casual conversations had in his private Discord server, it’s clear that he had a love for crude, often hyperbolic (and usually annoying) humor. His handle on Discord was fucking CHRIS THE MEME GOD - all caps included - which is simply so 2016 that I felt myself get another streak of gray hair just typing it.

I would also be disingenuous to say that, to a degree, that kind of over-exaggerated and crass way of speaking was not how a lot of people communicated online, especially older teenagers and younger adults of a male persuasion. I would know.

I was a young twenty-something around the same time the leaked chats between Tyson and these minors took place and his private Discord was most active. I remember the landscape of online culture. YouTubers like iDubbz, Filthy Frank, and their compatriots dominated the scene with antics that were as crude and tasteless as they were boundary pushing and, at times, shocking.

They were the Jackass of the Millennial generation, and their influence among the demographic of young men and teenage boys in their formative years cannot be overstated.

If you, perhaps, were not of this time, or perhaps were just not terminally online and, y’know, actually had a life, you might not be well acquainted with this type of humor. If you aren’t, I suggest you give this track by the aforementioned Filthy Frank a listen, as I think it encapsulates the entire edgy humor moment in time quite succinctly.

It was all ironic, though. Because of course it was. Who could take any of it seriously? The comedy came from the sheer outlandishness of it all. There’s a very valid argument to be made that the explosion of this type of boundary-pushing, often shocking humor was a direct response to the increasingly censorious forces that were gradually gaining in power and influence across the internet. Between roughly 2010 to 2014, the phenomenon of the social justice warrior began to take shape. Largely, they were regarded as a laughing stock by the wider internet. By the end of Obama's second term, however, things had begun to change, and rapidly. No longer were the pink-haired weirdos on Tumblr labeling themselves as grey asexual demimorphic two-spirited therians just fringe crackpots that could be easily ridiculed and dismissed; more and more of the mainstream was adopting their talking points. They were being taken seriously. Suddenly, a lot of things that were and always had been acceptable to say and do on the internet… just weren’t. And the edgy humor era of the late 2010’s was, in my opinion, largely borne of a natural backlash against this.

If the early 2010’s and the ascendancy of the social justice warriors to complete progressive partisans was the End of the Open Range period of the internet, then the latter half of the decade felt more like the end of the age of the samurai. It was the Satsuma Revolt of the cyber-age - the last gasp of a dying culture, railing in futility against the new and apparently inevitable change of the guard in one last blaze of glory.

This is all to say that, yes - this was the dominant shape of humor and internet culture at the time. Yes, very often even public and influential figures were making comments on topics that would not be considered acceptable, even by those who consider themselves to be edgy today.

This is the defense that Tyson and those around him have leaned upon; that’s just how things were. That’s just how we talked back then.

And, to a degree, that is true.

But, as the old Southern saying goes, I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

None of that changes the fact that Tyson was masking a genuine love for questionable erotica and his porn addiction through comedy. It was never a joke - it was always a joke masking the truth. And even if he did legitimately start off calling minors daddy as a genuine joke… well, how many times do I have to say it?

Yes - the problem with running jokes is they always catch up with you.

There’s also much larger discussion that should be had about Tyson’s gender identity, his definitive porn addiction. One criminally under-discussed facet of the larger conversation about porn and it’s over-saturation, if not ubiquity, is the correlation between body dysmorphia and an abuse of pornographic materials.

Porn addiction itself is a surprisingly contentious topic. Like my Jordans, haters will say it’s fake - if you even look up porn addiction, you’ll see that the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on it calls the concept controversial and skirts around ever giving it any real validation. Which is bullshit. It is a thing. There’s even a fetish for… well, fetishizing porn addiction. If you’ve ever heard a Zoomer make a joke about gooning, just know it’s not as much of a joke as they like to pretend it is, and that there is a very broad, very dark segment of the internet population that literally masturbates to the very concept of being addicted to porn, addicting themselves even more to porn, and quite literally ruining their lives for porn, which ceases to be a thing and becomes, in their eyes, more of a deific entity to be worshipped at their detriment. Of course, it sounds like literal demon worship, and it probably is, but most of the people who are really into this will tell you, It’s just a kink, bro, I can stop any time I want. It’s just for fun. It’s just a joke.

And… well. Do I even need to say it again?

Anyone with any sense or even any past habitual use of pornography knows that it is every bit as addictive as any chemical substance, and anyone who would say otherwise is either deluded, disingenuous, deranged, or some mix of the three. Just like any chemical substance - and I’m quoting Guns & Roses, here - I used to do a little, but a little wouldn't do it, so the little got more and more.

Just like G&A’s beloved Mr. Brownstone, the dopamine high of porn is a diminishing return; eventually, you’ll need to turn to the harder stuff just to get to half-mast. Just like crackheads start doing unthinkable things to get a bump, porn addicts will begin to experiment with paraphilias that they would have never imagined themselves ever indulging it, let alone finding sexually arousing, including… well. You know.

Many of those people looking for the next high will inevitably stumble across a fetish called autogynaphelia, which is a sexual paraphilia that derives arousal for being treated as or presenting as a female - often with copious amounts of degradation and humiliation involved, just for that little extra kick, that little je ne said quois, to really get their porn-soaked brains pumping those endorphins.

Again, the very concept of autogynaphelia is almost verboten in when it comes to the larger trans discussion, but I promise you, if you do enough research into the topic, you will find transexuals admit that this is a fetish that they have, and it is one that they are taking to the logical extreme. This is not to say that there aren’t those who legitimately suffer from body or gender dysmorphia - those are very real conditions - but even refusing to acknowledge the fact that some of these people are doing it as a way of getting their jollies makes it very difficult to discuss the topic of transexualism as a whole without turning it into a political and social landmine.

As I said - that is a larger discussion for another time, but, this is all to say that I do think that there is a direct correlation between Tyson’s excessive consumption of pornography and his transition. I think that there’s a direct correlation between his porn addiction and his explicit tastes in the matter, as well. And the fact that either of these conversations can’t even be had on the broader internet, and that so many people refuse to acknowledge that pornography maybe kinda sort of even a little has adverse psychological effects on par with crack-cocaine, speaks volumes about where we are at the present moment, both as a culture and a society.

Currently, Tyson has fled from the public eye. With this absence, all attention has shifted towards Donaldson, with the Tyson allegations becoming only one of many currently rattling the unstable foundation of the MrBeast-Industrial Complex. Quite literally every day, the situation has reliably continued to deteriorate.

The individual known as Dawson mentioned in my previous post, who posted unverified claims that he worked for MrBeast studios, stunned the internet by dropping an hour-plus long exposé simply titled I Worked for MrBeast, He is a Fraud on YouTube.

I haven’t watched the video yet. If you want to, you can find it here.

Ever since the video was posted, MrBeast’s PR team has been hard at work, especially on Reddit, systematically refuting almost every claim that Dawson made. In the process, they did, indeed, confirm that he was employed by MrBeast’s studio, though his tenure there was both short-lived and contentious, if their claims are to be believed. Truthfully, I’m not sure they are, but I also don’t know if Dawson is as reliable a source as everyone is hoping he is. Given that neither side is providing any tangible evidence to support (most) of their claims, and no other reliable parties have stepped forward to corroborate one side or another⁶, the entire affair has turned into another bout of He Said, She Said mud-slinging and baseless accusations from both camps.

But I have to admit - Dawson’s legitimacy only seems to be mounting as more and more evidence is discovered and testimonies are given; it did not look very good for MrBeast when his legal team slapped Dawson with a certified cease and desist order. His PR team has engaged in an all-out blitzkreig on the comment sections of his videos, diligently and thoroughly scrubbing any and all comments relating to either Tyson or any of the other controversies currently engulfing the Beastverse. Supposedly, they’ve even gone so far as to not remove, but edit the videos in which the smoking gun of the Shadman poster in Tyson’s room appeared appeared, apparently trying to scrub all evidence that it ever existed.

If Donaldson hoped that little stunts would help him save face, it’s only succeeded in doing the exact opposite.

This all comes on the heels of leaked emails that have been certified from the inside of the Beast Compound that reveal Jimmy is shoring up his company’s HR department with some aggressive reforms. New staff, new advisors, and new, mandatory diversity and inclusion training are all on the menu. I imagine that these training sessions will look something like this.

Do you think part of that training will include how to run defense for your loli-loving creep of a co-worker?

If you think that the C&D order would be enough to dissuade Dawson from publishing his follow up video - it didn’t. In this follow-up he drops a ten-gorillion giga-ton nuke of an interview a former employee who claims that MrBeast knowingly hired (and shielded) a registered sex offender. Internet sleuths have since found reason to suspect that the offender in question is the fucking brother-in-law of Jake the Viking - you know, the guy who’s been beating the war drums against Jimmy since this shitstorm was still in its infancy. Turns out he did have a personal vendetta against Kris Tyson, because recently discovered tweets have revealed that, of all people, it was Kris fucking Tyson who first let that little secret about Jake’s brother-in-law out to the public a few months ago, which is a plot twist I don’t think anyone saw coming.

As of this writing, this video and all of that news dropped a day ago. This situation is so volatile that I wouldn’t be surprised to discover MrBeast is holed up in his compound having an armed Waco-style stand-off with the feds by the time I publish this article.

With all that being said, these allegations are not the kind of stain on one’s reputation most can just casually overlook; especially the parents of the children who make up the bulk of MrBeast’s audience. This is a permanent black mark that will forever tarnish the once sterling facade of the MrBeast brand that isn’t going to go away. As the old saying goes, the Internet doesn’t forget; Jimmy can throw as much cash as the screen as he wants, but this episode will hang over his head and that of his brand for the rest of their continued existence… however long that may be.

In short, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the Sorrows of Young Jimothy. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say this is just the first season of what will likely be one of the most hotly discussed dramas of the year. And… well, there’s just a note of irony to it all, isn’t there? Jimmy spent his entire life obsessively chasing attention. He was never satisfied with being Mr. YouTube - he wanted to captivate the world. And now, he has. Just not in the way I think he ever hoped he would. It’s so Faustian in nature I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Mephistopheles has been behind the camera - and his success - this whole time.

How will things play out from here? I suppose we’ll just have to tune in at the same Beast Time, on the same Beast Channel.

Smile for the camera, Jimmy.

Everyone’s watching.

1. Though sometimes I wish someone could.

2. Gotta love how literally everything he does is just Word with MrBeast slapped in front of it.

3. Add Target to the other list of large companies that have a branding deal with MrBeast, by the way.

4. I’ve since learned that the reason that Twitch was unable to explain the reasoning behind DrDisrespect’s permanent ban from their platform was due to the fact that Twitch staff discovered he was engaging with a minor by reading his private messages. This was a breach of their own Terms of Service agreement, and constituted an illegal action. In exchange for DrDisrespect not suing them for this, they agreed to keep the details of his banning private and paid him the remainder of the contract he had signed with him.

5. Also, he’s currently going on an indefinite hiatus because the co-host of one of his podcasts said that he thought it was acceptable to ask an eight year old girl for pictures of her underwear, so long as it was done in jest. Just felt like that was worth noting.

6. Of course, several current employees of Donaldson and other apparatchiks of the MrBeast machine have come out to defend his honor, I can’t say that they make for reliable sources since, y’know - he pays their bills.