MrBeast has been the biggest creator on YouTube for a while now, but that has not stopped the criticism from building up over the past year or so. Between the fallout with former crewmate Ava Kris Tyson and a content style that a lot of people feel has become repetitive, there has been a growing conversation about whether Jimmy Donaldson’s videos still have the same energy they used to.
Most of that criticism comes from large creators or commentary channels, but this time it came from a YouTuber with 1.4K subscribers, and MrBeast not only acknowledged it but agreed with it. He pointed to how Donaldson’s style shifted after his viral ‘Squid Game’ recreation in 2021 and argued that since then, MrBeast has lost his own creative identity. MrBeast showed up in the comments and said he has been feeling the same way.
Defen Argued That MrBeast’s Content became A Copy Of ‘Squid Game’
Defen’s central point was that after the ‘Squid Game’ video, everything about MrBeast’s content started pulling from that same aesthetic. He called out how contestants now wear matching tracksuits with numbers on them pulled straight from the show’s look, and that Donaldson now plays this overseer role with uniformed guards carrying out commands around him.
“Stylistically, the guards are the Temu versions of the ones from ‘Squid Game’,” Defen said. Defen also went into how Donaldson has dialed back his on-camera personality since the Ava Kris Tyson fallout, and that the massive scale of his projects has stopped landing with viewers the way it used to.
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The video covered all of this across 51 minutes, which is a lot of effort from someone with barely over a thousand subscribers. “After the ‘Squid Game’ video, MrBeast no longer feels like he has his own identity,” Defen said.
MrBeast Wants Defen To Help Him Get Back To Making Original Content
MrBeast left a comment on the video that caught a lot of people off guard. He wrote, “I’ve been feeling the same, to be honest. I followed you on Twitter and would love to have you help me get back to boys’ content with more originality! This has been my priority for the year and something I was already trying to fix. Maybe you can help inspire me.”
The exchange blew up on X after someone posted a cap of the exchange, and Donaldson jumped into that thread as well, writing that “feedback when it’s from a place of fandom and wanting to help is worth its weight in gold. Always searching it out.”
None of this is that surprising if you know how Donaldson operates. He has never been shy about admitting when something is not working. He said in a 2025 interview that he is effectively out of money on a personal level and had to borrow from his mother for his own wedding because everything he earns gets funneled back into production.
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So the idea that he would sit through a 51-minute critique from a small creator and take it to heart tracks with who he is. Whether anything actually changes in his content is a different question.
