The old spirit of YouTube is dead – and in its place “bread and circuses” reign in the digital battle arena. Nero, the emperor who once let Rome burn, would really enjoy today’s YouTube spectacle culture. Juvenal, the Roman satirist, summed it up back then: “Bread and circuses” is enough to appease the masses. Today it’s no longer gladiators fighting for their lives in the arenas, but content creators competing in Mr. Beast’s absurd competitions for millions of dollars. And the audience? It craves more.
The YouTube arena of the 21st century has nothing to do with the free space in which anyone could become a star with a simple idea and a camera. Instead, Mr. Beast outdoes himself in increasingly grotesque competitions. A million dollar prize money per video? A piece of cake. It’s about pure overwhelmingness. “Bread and circuses” 2.0 – now with viral algorithms instead of a Roman audience. The production cost of a Mr. Beast video is now two million dollars – more than an episode of the most expensive series in television history, “Game of Thrones.”
But what does that do to YouTube? It becomes an arena in which the fight is not just for attention, but for the spectacle itself. A fight to the death for the clicks – in a metaphorical sense. “The first few minutes of a video are the most important,” Mr. Beast says in his leaked document. The “Gladiators” have to deliver, otherwise the number of clicks will fall like the thumb of the audience judging them.
Juvenal’s warning remains. We live in an era where the masses demand nothing other than the next spectacle. Instead of Roman gladiators, there are now YouTube heroes who throw themselves into the arena with absurd challenges and prize money worth millions. And Mr. Beast is the Nero of this digital world, the master of games who cements his own power with absurd productions. His empire is growing, and the rules are clear: “It’s not about making the best video. It’s about making the best YOUTUBE video.”
The old YouTube spirit, which thrived on creativity and freedom, is crushed by the demands of the algorithm. “CTR, AVD, AVP” – these are the new standards in the digital arena. Anyone who doesn’t deliver will be sorted out. A monstrous system that allows no mistakes and shows no leniency. Mr. Beast himself describes his employees as “A players” or “B players” who have to work their way up, while the “C players” who can’t keep up are “toxic” and should be replaced immediately. This is how we develop a network society with a nose ring.
This is no longer the YouTube we knew. The new spirit of the platform is permeated by an absurd seriousness that stifles all spontaneity and creativity. Mr. Beast builds his videos like a military commander, planning every second meticulously. “The first 60 seconds are crucial,” he explains. If you lose viewers during this time, the video is dead. And that’s how it works in the arena: No room for mistakes, just spectacle, just clicks.
The days when YouTube was an anarchic, wild playground are finally over. Welcome to the new era of bread-and-circuses machinery, where gladiators fight for millions and the algorithm decides who lives and who dies. Juvenal would have been right: the masses only want one thing – bread and circuses.
