"Early this April, Chris Tyson, prominent member of the explosively popular YouTube channel, MrBeast, revealed on Twitter that they’ve been undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy to better align with their identity as a gender nonconforming person. Chris has been receiving a lot of backlash from fans of the MrBeast channel for their courage to come out, which is especially shocking as they have already been open about their bisexuality as far back as 2018." -- AVa Rukavina, 10th Grade
!!Content Warning!! Brief discussion of: transphobia, sexual assault homophobia, ableism, racism, misogyny, islamophobia + links to potentially upsetting content
In recent years, Jimmy Donaldson, close friend of Chris, and the face of the MrBeast channel, has practiced a sort of balancing act to make his videos as apolitical as possible in order to appease every one of his 145 million subscribers. Just a few hours after Chris came out on Twitter though, Jimmy replied to Chris’s coming out Tweet, showing his support. This action is not, or rather should not be considered, a political one, he is merely sharing that he will stand by his friend through their transition. Even so, Jimmy is still risking a lot by even acknowledging his friend’s gender identity, because much of his fanbase, especially his earlier subscribers, harbor some less open-minded opinions.
Though he makes a point to keep his own beliefs quite ambiguous, Jimmy’s content has always felt a little right leaning. Take for example, the fact that he refers to his friends as “the boys'' an allusion to the Barstool Sports catchphrase, “Saturdays are for the boys” which is often associated with, if not conservative ideology, at least toxic masculinity (many argue that “Saturdays are for the boys” is a form of positive masculinity, a symbol of male bonding, but it’s really more of an exclusionary boy’s club that discourages women from taking part in sports or other “masculine” activities). This on its own isn’t especially concrete evidence of MrBeasts current or former biases, but this is all information he’s offered to his audience. What’s far more concerning is what he’s hidden.
Jimmy has been uploading videos since he was 13 years old, and at this age he certainly had some problematic opinions. To maintain his current centrist appearance, he had to scrub his channel of some unsavory content he made as a teenager. In old videos recovered by the lost media wiki, as well as some old tweets that have resurfaced online, Jimmy and his friends can be seen casually dropping slurs and perpetuating racist, misogynistic, and homophobic rhetoric, including an 8-video-long-series titled “Replying to comments like a [r-slur],” as well as two lost videos, “How Many Genders are There???” and “Should Women be Allowed in the Gaming Industry????”
In a 2018 article from The Atlantic, Jimmy was questioned about numerous Tweets in which he used the f-slur, as well as his tendency to make queerness into the butt of the joke. He responded, “I’m not offensive toward anyone… I’m not offensive in the slightest bit in anything I do. I’m just going to ignore it. I don’t think anyone cares about this stuff.” He proceeded to delete the Tweets containing the f-slur and asked if The Atlantic could just run a positive article on him instead.
He has not addressed the videos, tweets, or the article since.
Unfortunately, MrBeast was not alone in his problematic behavior. Chris has often been referenced as a longtime friend of MrBeast, and is even cited as his channel’s first subscriber in this recovered video. Chris has appeared in many old MrBeast videos, including one not-so-cleverly titled “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.” Even this isn’t the worst of his behavior though – in 2021, dozens of Chris’s old Tweets resurfaced, these were a series of “jokes” mocking Islam, the disabled, victims of sexual assault, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and several Tweets where he uses and defends the use of the n-word.
Chris has since apologized, stating, “I will not make any excuses because I am completely responsible for my actions and words… As I’ve matured I’ve realized that edgy jokes can do so much hurt to people. Growing up in the south I picked up on many views and opinions that I now strongly disagree with and have since re-educated myself on… I also wanted to address the transphobia directly because it needs context. I’ve been seeing a lot of people say that I’m transphobic and I wanted the transgender community to please realize that I was struggling with discovering my own gender during that time in my life and I turned that hate and confusion towards others.”
It’s good that they’ve addressed it and they did so in a relatively decent way, but the severity of these Tweets, combined with the fact that most of them are from as recently as 2017, is not something that can be so easily forgiven.
All of this is not to invalidate Chris’s trans identity or say that their queerness shouldn’t be celebrated. However it is important to contextualize these events and recognize that due to their extreme success, neither Jimmy nor Chris have really faced any consequences for the harmful things they’ve said in the past. Influential people are not incapable of being influenced themselves by their own internal unaddressed biases, in fact, they are the ones we should be most wary of.
In recent years, Jimmy Donaldson, close friend of Chris, and the face of the MrBeast channel, has practiced a sort of balancing act to make his videos as apolitical as possible in order to appease every one of his 145 million subscribers. Just a few hours after Chris came out on Twitter though, Jimmy replied to Chris’s coming out Tweet, showing his support. This action is not, or rather should not be considered, a political one, he is merely sharing that he will stand by his friend through their transition. Even so, Jimmy is still risking a lot by even acknowledging his friend’s gender identity, because much of his fanbase, especially his earlier subscribers, harbor some less open-minded opinions.
Though he makes a point to keep his own beliefs quite ambiguous, Jimmy’s content has always felt a little right leaning. Take for example, the fact that he refers to his friends as “the boys'' an allusion to the Barstool Sports catchphrase, “Saturdays are for the boys” which is often associated with, if not conservative ideology, at least toxic masculinity (many argue that “Saturdays are for the boys” is a form of positive masculinity, a symbol of male bonding, but it’s really more of an exclusionary boy’s club that discourages women from taking part in sports or other “masculine” activities). This on its own isn’t especially concrete evidence of MrBeasts current or former biases, but this is all information he’s offered to his audience. What’s far more concerning is what he’s hidden.
Jimmy has been uploading videos since he was 13 years old, and at this age he certainly had some problematic opinions. To maintain his current centrist appearance, he had to scrub his channel of some unsavory content he made as a teenager. In old videos recovered by the lost media wiki, as well as some old tweets that have resurfaced online, Jimmy and his friends can be seen casually dropping slurs and perpetuating racist, misogynistic, and homophobic rhetoric, including an 8-video-long-series titled “Replying to comments like a [r-slur],” as well as two lost videos, “How Many Genders are There???” and “Should Women be Allowed in the Gaming Industry????”
In a 2018 article from The Atlantic, Jimmy was questioned about numerous Tweets in which he used the f-slur, as well as his tendency to make queerness into the butt of the joke. He responded, “I’m not offensive toward anyone… I’m not offensive in the slightest bit in anything I do. I’m just going to ignore it. I don’t think anyone cares about this stuff.” He proceeded to delete the Tweets containing the f-slur and asked if The Atlantic could just run a positive article on him instead.
He has not addressed the videos, tweets, or the article since.
Unfortunately, MrBeast was not alone in his problematic behavior. Chris has often been referenced as a longtime friend of MrBeast, and is even cited as his channel’s first subscriber in this recovered video. Chris has appeared in many old MrBeast videos, including one not-so-cleverly titled “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter.” Even this isn’t the worst of his behavior though – in 2021, dozens of Chris’s old Tweets resurfaced, these were a series of “jokes” mocking Islam, the disabled, victims of sexual assault, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and several Tweets where he uses and defends the use of the n-word.
Chris has since apologized, stating, “I will not make any excuses because I am completely responsible for my actions and words… As I’ve matured I’ve realized that edgy jokes can do so much hurt to people. Growing up in the south I picked up on many views and opinions that I now strongly disagree with and have since re-educated myself on… I also wanted to address the transphobia directly because it needs context. I’ve been seeing a lot of people say that I’m transphobic and I wanted the transgender community to please realize that I was struggling with discovering my own gender during that time in my life and I turned that hate and confusion towards others.”
It’s good that they’ve addressed it and they did so in a relatively decent way, but the severity of these Tweets, combined with the fact that most of them are from as recently as 2017, is not something that can be so easily forgiven.
All of this is not to invalidate Chris’s trans identity or say that their queerness shouldn’t be celebrated. However it is important to contextualize these events and recognize that due to their extreme success, neither Jimmy nor Chris have really faced any consequences for the harmful things they’ve said in the past. Influential people are not incapable of being influenced themselves by their own internal unaddressed biases, in fact, they are the ones we should be most wary of.