Beast Games is a typical reality TV competition in many ways. There are cash prizes. Players must answer quiz questions and complete physical challenges. The host, Jimmy Donaldson aka MrBeast himself, stokes the fire and hypes everyone for each next segment.
But Beast Games is also unlike any TV show you’ve ever seen. It’s bigger. The $5 million cash prize was the largest in history. So was the number of 1,000 contestants. And the show broke over 40 Guinness records along the way. The show is also better, both logistically and conceptually. With more cameras to film more angles, it feels like a movie instead of watching security camera footage. The storyline has been thought through to the end, with plot twists leading to real gut-wrenching irrespective of which contestants are eliminated.
Perhaps most importantly, however, Beast Games is actual reality TV: It is unscripted. Instead of feeding people lines to say, choosing winners in advance, and framing the results a certain way, they decided to capture real life as it occurred—and then edit accordingly. It is this, the show’s naturalness, that makes one dynamic I’ve observed particularly wholesome: When the TV is real, so is the karma. Destiny will always do her job.
Early in the games, players resort to all kinds of tactics to make it to the next round. Some challenges pit them against one another in teams, others make everyone fight as individuals. At times, bribes are an option, and so is lying to get ahead. Two brothers make generous use of the last one, teaming up where they can, saying whatever to move forward.
The further the games progress, however, the more dishonesty seems to run out as a fruitful tactic. During a quiz game, a young fellow named Akira single-handedly sends both of the cunning brothers home. “I came here with a mission, and that is to give people a shot at the prize who actually deserve it.” Wow!
Two contestants who are last to compete for an entire island decide to not play Jimmy’s game at all. Instead of trying to tempt their opponent into picking the wrong suitcase, the one without the deed to the land, they leave the winner up to chance.
Twana Barnett, a consistent force in the games all the way to the end, has impressed others with her integrity time and again. As a team captain, she declined a million dollars to keep her fellow players in the game. Whenever she had a chance to gain an unfair advantage, she didn’t take it—and thus received many votes every time it was up to all participants to pick a favorite.
And the winner? They barely stood out in the lead-up to the finale. They were kind, smart, and honest, and it is with those same traits that they ultimately took home the grand prize.
Beast Games is full of interesting lessons. For creators. Entertainers. And anyone who wants to up their social understanding. But if there’s one idea that’ll stand the test of time better than all the others, one that plenty of contestants attested to after being eliminated, it’s this: Play the game of life with integrity—because if nothing else, at least you’ll have no regrets.