The Price Of Fame

A YouTube creator's latest game goes wrong with deadly consequences.

It was supposed to be his most elaborate and costly stunt ever. So far. James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, aka MrBeast, was an unstoppable content creator. He knew the right formula to build an audience on YouTube who would watch his videos, the best performing ones where he subjected someone to a game to win money - perform a task with the promise of a large cash prize at the end if they complete it.

It was like we were watching the embryonic beginnings of The Hunger Games, or The Running Man, cheap titillation and humiliation under the guise of ‘entertainment’. I guess, as a species, we got what we deserved because we sat glued to it, and he got richer for it.

When he announced a collaboration with author James Patterson and co-wrote a thriller with a bunch of ghostwriters that sounded like it just came out of one of his YouTube shows, most of the writing community rolled their eyes. Patterson hadn’t written anything interesting in years, and on hearing it was just another ‘Squid Game’ type thriller, unless you were under thirteen, most didn’t turn up to buy the book.

Patterson didn’t publish again after this. But it didn’t stop Jimmy. Jimmy saw an opportunity to up the stakes. He devised a new philanthropic game for his YouTube channel.

He called it “The Write Stuff”.

It seemed simple enough. Lock twelve struggling, aspiring authors in a maze made of bulletproof glass with no way out. At the centre of the maze sat Jimmy on top of a disgustingly large pile of cash. More money than any of them would probably ever make in their lifetime if they published a book. But it wasn’t as simple as just finding your way through the maze. I mean, it was made of glass so they could see their way through it.

Where’s the fun in that?

Now, we get to the clever parts. At the end of every pathway to the centre of the maze was a sliding glass door made of bulletproof glass. Next to each door was a small writing desk, chair, and a word processor. We’re talking old school mahogany writing desk and chair here, and the word processor was a specially rigged Sharp Font Writer, those old retro types. Have to admit it looked the business, real nostalgic feel. Each author, when they reached this, had to type out 5,000 words of a new novel, then the door in front would open, they step through, the door closes behind them, and they’d be allowed to continue to the next door and writing challenge. There were just enough of these set up so that, eventually, an author who got to the centre of the maze would have bashed out at least 65,000 words and an unedited novel.

Easy, right?

Well, knowing authors, they’d complain about writer’s block and all that, so to spur them along, there’d be a few things to put a spanner in the works.

One, everything was on a timer: If you didn’t finish the 5,000 words in time, the door would never open, and you’d be eliminated. Back to being a struggling would-be on Substack, off you go. The timer was generous but not overly so. Let’s face it - nobody was going to be watching YouTube for a year while twelve authors pretended to hit a brick wall with their character development and plot.

Two, every time an author dropped out, the money would be reduced: Jimmy wanted books out of this - he wanted at least one author to write a novel so he could build a MrBeast Publishing House off the back of the show and instantly have a massive hit novel available that his audience would kill for, and that streaming platforms would be in a bidding war over to make into a movie or series. So, they needed an extra carrot to pull them towards the centre of the maze.

Three, everybody could see everyone else: what better way to overcome writer’s block than to see someone else succeed before you, right? It can’t be much of a competition if you’re not competing against someone else as well as yourself, after all.

And lastly, four, eventually the paths of the maze converged into three rooms before reaching the centre, each with their own single desk, chair and word processor. There wasn’t a timer linked to the word count. Well, you can guess what he wanted to happen with that kind of setup.

Got to hand it to him. It was a brilliant plan.

There were cameras everywhere. It would be a 24-hour-a-day show, livestreaming every minute of each of the twelve authors’ journey to the cash prize and, with any luck, a bunch of written novels. Jimmy went full-on with the set-up, of that there was no doubt.

Except for some tiny details.

Construction began to much media speculation. The transparent maze looked pretty incredible from above, seeing all the writing setups dotted around, that giant pile of real money in the centre. Everything was tight save for the small bored holes around the roof of the maze for airflow, the doors were all operated on a timer and a failsafe device with a switch for each author was controlled by Jimmy himself as a backup to open the previous doors to allow an exit.

Nobody except the crew and contractors involved knew of the location to avoid the place being swamped by MrBeast fans and spectators. Suppliers were compartmentalised - there was no way to tell what each of them was working on. When everything was complete, Jimmy sent the crew on a paid vacation. NDAs were good up to a point, but he didn’t want any slip-ups, so he removed people from the equation as much as possible.

These authors needed no distractions. The twelve authors were selected at random following a lottery-type competition to make it fair. None had been successful in their own right, had no previous publishing deals, and any self-published books were considered flops. Jimmy had to make sure they were on the wrong side of desperate to make it interesting for viewers. The audience didn’t even get to learn their names - only the winner would be announced, and the rest would remain in obscurity, denied any attention by NDAs and legal threats.

On Day One, Jimmy entered the maze, walked to the centre and waited. He would be there with them all the way, a running commentary of false platitudes and encouragement with a hint of woe is me. Of course, his surroundings were a little more opulent than a writing desk, chair and glass walls. He had a bed, facilities, and food and drink automatically delivered through a specially constructed pneumatic tube system. You know those automatic dog feeders, the kind you set up when you go on holiday and they get a tasty morsel now and then on a timer? It's a bit like that, except he got a bit more than a tasty morsel. He was locked in there with them, of course, but he didn’t have to suffer for his art like they did.

Later that day, they all filed into the maze one by one and took their positions, and the outer doors automatically slid shut. Nobody was getting out until the very end.

30 million people logged on to watch the YouTube stream that day, it was quite the hit opening. It was rigged so you could watch from multiple cameras and follow the author you wanted to cheer on. The comments section was a mix of “good luck, losers”, “this is the greatest TV on Earth”, “this show is woke”, and “MrBeast is a literal God” type stuff. Apart from one. This one went unnoticed.

“Dude, where do they take a shit?”

By Day Two, things were already unravelling. With no facilities of their own, the authors quickly realised that they weren’t only up against a timer and writer’s block, they had to escape the chamber they were locked in because of the health hazard. At first, they thought they could bash out any 5,000 words to unlock the door, but the word processor was rigged - work was automatically assessed by an AI for consistency and linguistics. Typing anything just to hit the word limit wouldn’t work. They, quite literally, had to write 5,000 words at every stop for a new book they had just invented and ‘pants it’ in writer’s parlance. All twelve of them.

Jimmy was watching this unfold through the glass walls at a safe distance from the centre of the maze, but he knew all along. He wasn’t going to sit here for weeks and months, waiting on those lazy ass writers to finish his book, and it was his book because he’s paying for it after all. If the money wasn’t enough of a push, then shitting yourself live on TV certainly would be.

But Jimmy didn’t stop there. No. Beast by name, beast by nature, after all. You see, sitting on top of cash in full view wasn’t enough. He wanted them to see how he was living. The comfort, the facilities, the food and drink. He wanted them to want this, want what he had. He wanted them to be hungry, in both the literal and motivational sense. They had no means of food. But he wasn’t without compassion - an overhead sprinkler system showered the glass roof of the maze every three hours, allowing water to drip down through the airholes bored into it. Seeing twelve desperate authors lick the floor was oddly satisfying.

Through arrogance, ignorance, or maybe both, Jimmy believed that writers were motivated by the same things he was. He wanted that book, and he’d drive them to do it out of sheer desperation to survive. At any cost.

The viewing numbers started to skyrocket, surpassing all his previous stunts, surpassing even the most viewed videos on YouTube. Initially, there was an outcry and condemnation for the inhumane treatment of the authors, but it quickly waned and gave way to spectacle and morbid, depraved fascination. It was compared to dystopian game shows from movies and books, and like those fictional shows, we all watched, hooked.

Jimmy assured his audience that nobody was in any real danger or harm and that his failsafe device was ready and waiting in case something went wrong and they had to escape.

The failsafe device with no batteries loaded.

By Day Four, things were getting serious. Starving and in squalid conditions, some authors took to chewing on the mahogany furniture. One author had already failed the 5,000-word challenge and was locked tight in place with nowhere to go. They beat on the walls until their hands were raw and bloody, and they screamed until hoarse, but Jimmy was too busy playing video games on top of a pile of money to care.

By Day Seven, another two authors had fallen foul of the challenge. Three down. Jimmy cursed them - that was three books he’d not get to publish now. Emaciated and ravenous, the remaining nine continued to write, the AI assessing the quality of their work as they kept on going.

But he was not without compassion. By Day Eight, seeing as he wasn’t getting a book he was owed out of them, Jimmy reached for the failsafe device and pressed the release button for the stuck authors. But nothing happened. When he discovered that there were no batteries, it was the first sign of panic the audience saw in him, and they knew a new game had begun.

Audience numbers exploded in the millions overnight. Morbid curiosity turned into rabid compulsion as viewers wanted to see how dark things would get. There was a manhunt for the construction crew, but everyone involved was sent on holiday with strict instructions to avoid the show or any mention of it until it was over.

By Day Nine, the first of the authors had reached one of the converged rooms. Starving, barely able to function, they staggered to the desk and started to gnaw at the edges. They could see the centre of the maze from here, they only needed another 5,000 words of their own novel to finish the game. One by one, they crawled, staggered, and fell into the three rooms. One room had four authors as Jimmy had planned, the other two had two authors apiece thanks to the incompetence of the ones that failed, stuck in their corridors.

At first, everyone played nice. There was a sort of truce, a silent agreement to let each one in turn have their chance to write more of their novel to hit their quota. But each of them knew only one was getting out of all of the rooms to the centre of the maze.

And it would be the one to finish their book first.

By Day Eleven, one of the three authors stuck in the corridor had died. Covered in their piss and shit, they had contracted an illness from the conditions and violently died from exhaustion, dehydration and endless, painful defacation. The other two were clinging to life still, but one was eating their fingers to survive, bloody stumps that could no longer help to overcome any writer’s block they once had. They both died two days later, one from malnutrition, the other from infection.

Jimmy, sitting in the centre of the maze. With nowhere to go, he watched with a realisation that whatever happened, whoever won, he was in serious danger.

Day twelve, and in the room with four authors, exhausted hell broke loose. One of them, desperate, broke the chair, grabbed a splintered leg, and immediately attacked the nearest, weakest competitor, thrusting it like a stake into the heart of a vampire. Laughing like a maniac, they carried on stabbing frantically, the glass walls of the room splashing with blood as it pooled all around the dying author. One tried to wrestle the makeshift stake free from the other, but in sheer bloodlust frenzy, they were overcome. The assailant pinned them to the floor and began to gouge out their eyes with the splintered end. They couldn’t finish a novel if they couldn’t see. The remaining author cowered in a corner of the room, pleading for their life.

It didn’t work.

Day Thirteen and the other rooms suffered similar fates. One author killed the other - one by bare hands who proceeded to eat the other out of sheer starvation, the other by repeated blows to the head with the word processor before succumbing to starvation themselves.

Two authors left.

By now, the audience was in the billions - some had watched from the very beginning and had barely slept for fear of missing out on something to light up the comments with something pithy as it happened. Jimmy was increasingly erratic, pacing his room, many dubbed “the cell”. Uneaten food and water littered the floor. For some reason, he had lost his appetite seeing the events unfold in front of him in the other rooms. He wasn’t sure now if he’d get the book he deserved out of this.

The two remaining authors typed their novels, their rooms scenes of utter horror and carnage. In the room with the three bodies, the remaining author, seeing their opponent gather strength from eating a dead roommate, decided that the only way forward was to do the same. At least there was more of a choice of meats available.

Day Fourteen, and something happened. One of the authors began writing on the walls in blood. It was a number.

64,999

Jimmy saw this, he didn’t understand at first.

The other author eventually clocked it. They understood immediately, and they set to work.

2.3 billion people around the world erupted. They knew. They watched, and they knew what was happening. They knew what was about to happen.

The first author stood by their bloody number and waited.

After an hour, maybe more, it was hard to tell, the second author stood up from the word processor and walked to their glass wall. They stooped over and dipped two fingers in congealed blood from a half-eaten carcass, straightened up, and scrawled a reply.

64,999

3 billion people online cheered. They watched as horror crept across the face of James Stephen "Jimmy" Donaldson, aka MrBeast, and they cheered.

Both authors retreated to their word processors, typed in a few letters and paused. They turned to each other, their eyes meeting beyond the stained glass walls, a finger each hovering over the Return key.

“- The End -”

They both hit Return at the same time.

The glass door in each room slid open, revealing Jimmy, king of content, cowering on top of his pile of money. Both authors just stood staring into the room, bloodied, caked in the remains of their fellow writers. They weren’t after his money. They weren’t after the food or the drinks that littered the room. They weren’t even interested in the book deal. Whatever reason or humanity remained, it was left behind them in the other room at the moment their novels were finished.

When rescue did eventually arrive, they calculated that 3.8 billion people watched the show and the end of Mr Beast.

Not all revenge is dished cold, this one was served up at 37°C…

(a big thanks to Charlie Clouser and his original SAW soundtrack for pushing me through this one. Game over!)

No content creators or authors were harmed in the making of this story…

Story was inspired by this Notes interaction with Robert Maxey!