A prominent YouTube star has stirred up controversy after he spent more than $3.5 million recreating every game from the hit Netflix show Squid Game.
MrBeast, 23, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, announced on TikTok on October 11 that he would recreate the South Korean show in real life if the TikTok got 10 million likes. After it raced past 10 million – currently at 18 million – the multimillionaire set about recreating all the games from the show, in which debt-ridden Koreans play to the death for a chance to win 45.6 billion South Korean won ($38.6m) in prize money.
Contestants battled to win $456,000
Inviting 456 participants to play, and offering up a cash prize of $456,000, Donaldson, along with mobile gaming company Brawl Stars, recreated all the games, including Red Light/Green Light, Marbles, and the Glass Bridge.
Differing from the show, in which losing a game meant being killed, foam pits were placed beneath the glass bridge, while contestants had dye packs attached to their tracksuits that exploded, stimulating the effects of a gunshot and staining their clothes if they were eliminated.
The YouTuber charted his progress on social media, writing on Twitter: "Squid Game has been filmed and now just needs editing, it is the craziest video we've ever filmed times 100!"
He also revealed the event cost $3.5m to organise, which included $2m for production and set-building, and $1.5m in prizes.
Courting controversy
The Kansas-born Donaldson has amassed a $25m fortune and boasts more than 76 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. He is credited with pioneering a social media genre focused on creating expensive and headline-grabbing stunts that have in the past included giving away $1 million to whoever could carry it without dropping a single bill, and spending 50 hours in a maximum security prison.
His latest stunt stirred up controversy, with critics accusing Donaldson of missing the point of the show, which was to highlight the level of personal debt among people in South Korea.
“Household debt in South Korea has risen in recent years and is now equivalent to more than 100 per cent of GDP – a level not seen elsewhere in Asia,” reported The Guardian. “Indebtedness has gone hand in hand with a dramatically widening income gap, exacerbated by rising youth unemployment and property prices in big cities beyond the means of most ordinary workers.”
“Just flaunting some casual wealth disparity. In a mock recreation of a show about flaunting wealth disparity,” wrote Twitter user backflipsimmons.
Donaldson’s stunt follows model Chrissy Teigen's, who recently came under fire for hosting a Squid Game-themed party, in which she dressed up as the Red Light/Green Light doll, while her husband, Grammy-winner John Legend, wore an animal mask reminiscent of the wealthy spectators who watch the contestants play.
UK-EU trade at a glance
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COPA DEL REY
Semi-final, first leg
Barcelona 1 (Malcom 57')
Real Madrid (Vazquez 6')
Second leg, February 27
UAE v Gibraltar
What: International friendly
When: 7pm kick off
Where: Rugby Park, Dubai Sports City
Admission: Free
Online: The match will be broadcast live on Dubai Exiles’ Facebook page
UAE squad: Lucas Waddington (Dubai Exiles), Gio Fourie (Exiles), Craig Nutt (Abu Dhabi Harlequins), Phil Brady (Harlequins), Daniel Perry (Dubai Hurricanes), Esekaia Dranibota (Harlequins), Matt Mills (Exiles), Jaen Botes (Exiles), Kristian Stinson (Exiles), Murray Reason (Abu Dhabi Saracens), Dave Knight (Hurricanes), Ross Samson (Jebel Ali Dragons), DuRandt Gerber (Exiles), Saki Naisau (Dragons), Andrew Powell (Hurricanes), Emosi Vacanau (Harlequins), Niko Volavola (Dragons), Matt Richards (Dragons), Luke Stevenson (Harlequins), Josh Ives (Dubai Sports City Eagles), Sean Stevens (Saracens), Thinus Steyn (Exiles)
Huroob Ezterari
Director: Ahmed Moussa
Starring: Ahmed El Sakka, Amir Karara, Ghada Adel and Moustafa Mohammed
Three stars
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.