He Hacks His Videos to Keep You Watching

McClish Explains analyzes how Mr. Beast uses psychological hacks in his videos to boost viewer retention using the PRICE framework.

Key Takeaways

Mr. Beast uses exaggerated thumbnails and titles to increase click-through rates.
Retention is maintained by adding artificial stakes and twists throughout the video.
The PRICE framework helps break down how videos are engineered for engagement.
Not all manipulation is deceitful, but it is designed to keep viewers watching longer.
Understanding these tactics reveals the sophisticated planning behind viral YouTube content.

What the video covers

McClish Explains introduces the PRICE acronym to analyze Mr. Beast's video structure and viewer retention tactics.
The 'Promise' element focuses on how Mr. Beast's titles and thumbnails exaggerate danger to attract clicks.
Thumbnails use psychological cues to imply higher stakes than actually shown, bordering on manipulation.
Retention strategies include adding artificial challenges, twists, and monetary incentives to keep viewers engaged.
Examples show Mr. Beast creating new stakes mid-video, such as surprise challenges or blackout conditions.
Retention is often 'hacked' by introducing unexpected plot elements that extend viewer interest beyond the original premise.
The analysis distinguishes between delivering genuine content and artificially engineering engagement.
McClish highlights how Mr. Beast prioritizes retention, using side stories and twists to prevent viewer boredom.
The video discusses how payoff moments can also be manipulated, sometimes drifting away from the original challenge.
Overall, Mr. Beast’s videos are expertly crafted to maximize watch time through psychological engineering.

Chapters

What is the PRICE framework used in this video?

PRICE is a five-letter acronym created by McClish to analyze Mr. Beast's videos by breaking them down into key parts that influence viewer retention and engagement.

How does Mr. Beast use thumbnails to attract viewers?

Mr. Beast's thumbnails use psychological cues to exaggerate danger or stakes, making the videos appear more intense than they actually are, which encourages viewers to click.

Are the retention tactics used by Mr. Beast considered manipulative?

While some tactics exaggerate or add artificial stakes to keep viewers watching, they are not necessarily deceitful but are designed to maintain engagement throughout the video.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Mr. Beast's videos are good, maybe a little bit too good. What I discovered is that Jimmy may [music] be psychologically engineering his videos to keep you watching. So, I created a five-letter acronym called PRICE. It breaks his videos down into five main

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parts so we can see where Jimmy is making his videos better and where he might be designing them to keep you watching. Oh, Mr. Jimmy, I'm coming after you. Okay, so as we go through PRICE, each letter gets a verdict. If

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Jimmy is simply making the video better, good. Good gets a point. And if the video uses artificial means to keep us watching, engaged, etc., blah blah blah,

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Hacked gets the point. By the end, we will have a final score out of five. So, let's move on to round one. The promise.

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Every video makes a promise to the viewer. And in the end, we all judge the same thing. Did the video deliver on what it said it would? For Mr. Beast, we're looking at what's promised before we even click the title and the

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thumbnail. And there might even be evidence that the promise completely changes by the end of his video. [gasps] But that's for later, alligator. Take these three examples. They demonstrate something very important. His titles convey the simplicity of the video, but

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that alone isn't what's getting him views. It's blatantly obvious, but easy to miss. His thumbnails make already massive challenges feel even bigger, like Scoutmaster Kevin. So, is this psychologically hacking, or is he simply delivering on the promise? Well, my

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research has narrowed it down to one main thing: dangerous thumbnails. They are quite literally dangerous. Take this video for instance. On the left, Jimmy wears blue, contrasting sharply with the prison orange on the right. Jimmy's arm is also smaller than the strangers', and

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his expression sells uncertainty. And that's the dangerous effect. A lot of his thumbnails follow the same idea.

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So, are his thumbnails psychologically trying to pull you in? His thumbnails are optimized to get you to click.

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However, they aren't necessarily deceitful in the traditional sense. The thumbnail uses psychological cues to make the situation feel dangerous, but they only become manipulation if the danger is exaggerated beyond what actually happens in the video. Like this thumbnail or this one. I don't remember

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seeing any sharks in that video. Without any prior context, most of these thumbnails still say the same thing, but the actual stakes are raised even higher than the actual video. But on the other hand, in his less dangerous videos, his

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thumbnails convey the message perfectly. It's nice to meet you. Come on here. Nice to meet you. You guys want to go watch?

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But if this was about whether or not his thumbnails are good, then he would have already won. Across the thumbnails I looked at, the majority often make the danger look more extreme than what actually happens in the video. So, I am

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putting promise in the hacked section, mainly because the danger is artificially exaggerated. Everything here is connected, though. And as I was pawing through Mr. P's collection of YouTube advice, I found that he prioritizes retention a lot. When it

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comes to retention, obviously there's things you can do in the first 30 seconds, the first minute. Are there checklist items you have to get people to 10 minutes [music] to 15 to 20?

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Yeah. I mean, it's very hard with a single storyline, if you're doing like a double-digit minute video, to just have that one thing grip their entire attention throughout the whole video and pay off at the end. Um, so typically if

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you're doing a longer video, you should introduce like a side story and like re— you should have some plan halfway through like to re-engage them so they don't just get bored. You know what I mean? So they don't get bored. Introduce

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a side story. It's not like him doing this changes the ending at all. Right.

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It is time I introduce the plot twist of the century. H, I'm on to you.

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Even if it's obvious. Shut up. But that's not where I'm going with this. We already know Jimmy has things to keep us watching. What I want to know is how far he takes it, which just so happens to be

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the R in PRICE. Retention. Mr. Beast is quite dubious when it comes to retention because when you break his videos down, I noticed a very particular pattern. Let me explain. I've looked at these three videos. I also made sure to separate

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these types of videos: a challenge, a soul endurance video, and a group competition. Now, let's look at video one.

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Surprisingly, I saw one of their phone screens and noticed we're not even 24 hours in.

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Are you serious? It felt like four days. I swear it really does. They haven't even been in prison for 24 hours. Yet, the group remarks that they feel like they've been in there for days. So wait, why are you guys arm

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wrestling? We're in prison. This is what prisoners do. 3, 2, go. [screaming] IT'S SO MESSED.

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LET'S DO Noah versus Wed and Nolan and Nolan. LET'S GO. LET'S GO. WHICHEVER SIDE WINS, I'LL give them five grand.

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Oh god. Five grand online. Three, two, OH GOD. OH GOD. ONE, GO. But Jimmy sees two of these guys wrestling. So what does he do? He turns it into a challenge and then puts $5,000 on whoever wins. Why would a wrestling

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match need $5,000 on the line? I mean, where can I sign up? Jimmy adds money and now it becomes a story.

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Now there's a winner. There's something at stake. And suddenly there's another reason to keep watching. So, I'll let you decide whether or not that's artificial. So, as one does, Jimmy decides to lock Alex inside of a grocery store for $10,000. And each day he stays

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there, he gets 10K. The premise is simple enough that it should be entertaining, but there's only one production issue. What if Alex isn't entertaining? Let me rephrase. Isn't entertaining every second of the challenge. You see, I felt something was

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off even before watching the video, and I was right. Something was very off. Jimmy literally shuts the lights off just to give Alex another problem to deal with. So, if you aren't starting to see the connection, there was no reason

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to do that besides retention. You see, if the promise was that Alex had to survive in a grocery store with the lights shut off, and Alex knew that beforehand, then it would make sense.

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But he didn't. And Chandler, being the Chad that he is, brings the lights back anyway. So, that makes it really hard to argue that the blackout was ever really part of the promise. It just looks like it was added for one reason: retention.

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And if you still don't believe me, video three. By this point, I figured if a pattern was going to show up anywhere, it would show up in a player versus player competition. And so, we move on to our last example. In this video, we

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have Allison competing for 250 grand, but she has to be chained to a stranger.

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But side question, even though this has nothing to do with the video, what do you think about planes? You know, specifically the ones that you drop on houses. I feel like I really don't need to explain why this is so out of place.

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Welcome to the next chapter of the Beast Multiverse. We're about to drop a plane on your house.

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No, you're not. What? Well, you did say you want me to destroy that tiny house.

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Yeah, please. Okay, Jimmy even admits to putting twists into the video, so I'm curious as well. Why did they even have a plane on standby?

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This video isn't checking if his videos are fake. It's just that I find it really hard to ignore once you start spotting the patterns. So, where does this place PRICE on retention? Across all three examples, Jimmy isn't just

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presenting what naturally happens. He's introducing new reasons for us to keep watching. And because of that, I'm giving retention to hacked. When the premise starts running out of interesting moments, he creates new ones for us to care about. And unless the

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challenge already gives him complete control over what happens next, he keeps finding ways to inject new stakes, problems, or twists into the story. But that

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Well, to answer that, we need to go to INC of price. Idea and clarity, inner peace. I'm putting these two together because they work handinand with each other. Idea is the potential value of the video. More specifically, it's how

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much story the premise can create on its own. And the grocery store idea already has value built into it. Every day Alex stays means another 10 grand. So before Jimmy adds anything else, we already want to know how far it'll go. And

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clarity is how easy everything is to understand. In a clear video, you should be able to understand the progression pretty quickly. Okay, so remember what I said about dangerous thumbnails? That same rule applies to titles, except here it plays more onto our suspicion. Let's

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look back at our grocery store video. We immediately get suspicious, but of what? I say that there's a ghost outside, you either doubt me, believe me, or think that I'm lying. And the second we hear a claim, we start making assumptions. With

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Jimmy's videos, because we usually expect the real thing to be less extreme than the title makes it out to be, we already doubt that Alex will last very long. So, how does Mr. Beast use this doubt to his advantage? Well, for that,

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we need to look at the hook. I just bought this entire grocery store, which includes enough food to literally feed an entire city. And then I decided to trap this random guy inside. And every day you live here, I will give you

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$10,000 in a grocery. It's common knowledge that hooks need to be snappy. But what's even more interesting is how fast he sets the rules of the game. Within just 14 seconds, he tells us what he bought, introduces the contestant, and explains

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the rules. Every day he stays, he earns 10 grand. He makes the setup extremely clear, which lets us start predicting what is going to happen next. In this frame, which occurs at the 10-second mark, we are already judging him. Think

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first impressions. Even Mr. Beast doubles down on this in the voiceover. If we assume his scripts are deliberate, calling Alex this random guy from a writing standpoint serves to downplay his importance. He's basically introduced like an NPC. It also doesn't

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help that early in the video, Alex is extremely confident. How far do you think you're going to go?

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Oh, I mean, I feel like 100 days for sure. Oh boy. He says he can go on for 100 days, but that he isn't going to last as long as he says he will. Like me in bed.

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We've heard this before, haven't we? Anyone who's watches Jimmy's videos can call out the bluff. So why do we care about Alex later then? Because right as the challenge starts getting harder, Jimmy introduces what matters most to Alex, his family. And now we know

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exactly what Alex wants to do. And in turn, we want to support him. Mr. Beast doubles down on this. And as the video goes on, we watch Alex's morale slowly fall. Then on day 45, his wife visits and he finally decides to leave. But do

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you see how clear he makes the chain of events? So idea gets good because the premise creates a question on its own.

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How long will Alex actually stay? And clarity gets good because Jimmy makes the rules Alex's goal and the progression of the video extremely easy to follow. I would deduct points for him turning off the lights, but they eventually do come back on. So both I

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and C go to good. Now, I know I only focused on one video for idea and clarity, while the other letters had a wider sample, but from the other Mr.

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Beast videos that I looked at, clarity seems pretty consistent. You usually know what's happening, what the goal is, and where the video is going. When things start getting boring, his solution usually isn't a clarity problem. He just makes something

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interesting happen cuz, you know, we ball. If you think idea or clarity should land somewhere else, please let me know in the comments or whatever. Two points go for good. Two for hacked. But we still have one round left. E. If

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you've noticed anything so far, it's that Mr. Beast loves retention, but usually in service of one thing, the biggest possible payoff ever. And this is where everything we've learned finally comes together. You see, every video starts with a premise, and that

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premise sets up the ending we expect to see. So, for E, I want to know, does the story naturally reach that payoff, or does Jimmy interfere so much along the way that the ending starts becoming something else? Stories are allowed to

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branch off. A side story can develop the character, create conflict, or even make the final payoff stronger. But if those added stories start changing what actually decides the ending, then the payoff itself might be hacked.

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Especially if the ending itself no longer matches the original promise. To test this, I compared seven different videos, and I'm using three of them as an example. First, in Last to leave Mansion keeps it, I counted at least

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five separate mini stories that Jimmy directly introduces into the challenge. And to be clear, these add retention value, not necessarily story value.

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Which means by our earlier definition, the retention here is hacked. But when we get to the ending, something even stranger happens. The payoff actually starts to stray away from the original promise. Remember, the rule was simple.

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The last person to leave the mansion keeps it. But that's not what ultimately decides the winner. By the final two contestants, the challenge has become keep your hand on the mansion. Asher loses because he takes his hand off, but

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not because he left. And this is where the pattern from retention matters. Jimmy isn't just adding new things anymore. One of those new rules actually decides who wins. And that's different from The Promise. Now, you could argue that he only did that to speed things

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up, but that actually still proves my point. Editing can speed up a slow story, but changing the rules speeds up the story itself, which tells us that in this case, the original premise couldn't naturally carry itself all the way over

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to the payoff. And generally speaking, Jimmy's ideas work. But here, all the signs point to the payoff itself being hacked. But it gets really interesting here. Compare this to stop the train, win a Lamborghini. In this video, the

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line of progression is actually fairly simplistic. You see, there's a Lamborghini and Jimmy is going to put it up against different challenges. The nuance here is that those challenges are the story. And I actually outright said this earlier in the video. And unless

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the challenge already gives him complete control over what happens next, he keeps finding ways to inject new stakes, problems, or twist into the story. So, the retention can't really be hacked here. But does that mean that the payoff

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can't be hacked either? Well, as I was reviewing the video, the answer was pretty much yes. The ending did an exceptional job at staying true to its purpose. The train accelerates towards the Lamborghini, the blockade looks like it doesn't stand a chance, and then the

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train derails. And I think this reveals something important about Jimmy's different formats. His hacked retention usually appears when the format itself cannot guarantee something interesting will happen. But when Jimmy controls the progression of the challenge from the beginning, he doesn't need to create

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many stories to keep the show entertaining. And finally, 50 YouTube legends fight for a million dollars. The answer, the ending's hacked for one simple reason. The ending literally drifts away from the challenge itself again. The original challenge is to stay

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inside the cube, but by the end, it becomes a contest who can build the best Minecraft house. [music] So then, what's the answer? Well, there really isn't an objective one. I've laid out a framework that I believe you can use to come to

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your own conclusions, but at the end of the day, a lot of this is subjective.

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But if you want my answer, here's where I landed. E goes to hacked. The final score is good, two, hacked three. So after all of this, I don't think that the answer is that Mr. Beast videos are fake or even bad. The pattern is more

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specific than that. When the premise can naturally create an interesting story, Jiminy doesn't need to interfere much.

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But when it can't, it starts creating new reasons for us to keep watching. And sometimes those additions go so far that they start changing the story itself.

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That's why for me, Mr. Beast lands on hacked. But hacked doesn't necessarily mean bad. I mean, his videos are fun to watch, and Jimmy is extremely good at his job, which is to entertain people.

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So, the real question is whether all of that engineering makes the video worse. And for that that is up to you to decide.

Topics:Mr. BeastYouTube retentionvideo psychologycontent strategyviewer engagementthumbnail analysisvideo hacksPRICE frameworkMcClish Explainsvideo editing

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