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100 Contestants Aged 1 to 100 Compete in Glass Cubes for $500,000

MrBeast ミスタービースト · ▶ 25:28 · 16 min read
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Overview

MrBeast puts 100 people, one of every age from 1 to 100, in their own glass cubes. The last one to leave wins half a million dollars. He frames the contest as a test of "which age is the best." The answer turns out to depend less on endurance than on alliances, lying, luck, and how the other contestants feel about you. Over eight days, the group falls from 100 to two, and the final decision comes down to whether one finalist believes the other is telling the truth.

16 min read

The Setup and the First Hours

Each contestant lives in a glass cube, and MrBeast says more than 300 cameras are watching them. In their opening statements, contestants explain what they are playing for. A 31-year-old says they have "the best view and the best motivation." A 69-year-old says they have winning on their mind. One contestant says their daughter turns three that Saturday and dedicates the attempt to her.

One of the first things MrBeast notices is the children's strategy. One child explains that the plan is to make as much noise as possible so nobody else can sleep and they all want to leave. MrBeast says he can't believe it, but it works. The older contestants start leaving almost immediately, and one complains, "Can somebody make that girl stop screaming?" The noise also drives out some of the kids. The one-year-old is among the first to go. MrBeast tells another departing contestant, as consolation, that they at least outlasted the one-year-old.

The 100-year-old introduces themselves as a World War II veteran and predicts the challenge will be "peanuts." A couple of hours in, 10 people have already left. The crew then leaves the contestants alone for the rest of the day, and MrBeast says that makes even more people quit. The people leaving give simple reasons: they want to see their kids, they have to go to school, the challenge isn't for someone their age, they got bored and miss their dog. Each one who leaves gets some money for playing.

Others say they are determined to stay. One calls themselves "a big family guy" and hopes to pay off a sister's student debt. A 70-year-old says they made a deal with a grandchild to prove how strong they are at 70. Another says they don't need a strategy because they're "good 'til Christmas."

Day Two: The Veteran Leaves and the First Vote

By the start of day two, 76 people remain. MrBeast checks on the 100-year-old, who decides to quit and says the experience is something their family will never forget. MrBeast sums up the veteran as someone who fought in a World War and competed in a MrBeast video.

The contestants who stay find ways to pass the time. MrBeast says that in these last-to-leave challenges, he is always struck by how people fight boredom. Some draw on the walls with deodorant or ChapStick, and others build pillow forts.

At the 24-hour mark, he introduces a recurring mechanic. Every cube has a green button and a red button. If most contestants press green, a challenge happens that will eliminate a group of them. If most press red, the game continues as usual. Some contestants see no reason to take the risk. One says, "Why take unnecessary risks?" Others are eager to thin out the field. The result is 63 for a challenge and 13 against.

Giant Three-Cup Monte

The first challenge is an oversized version of three-cup monte. A ball goes under one of three large cups, and crew members Nolan and Chandler shuffle them. Anyone who correctly identifies where the ball is stays in, and everyone else is eliminated. MrBeast tries to distract people by pointing and asking, "What's that over there?" One contestant refuses to fall for it, but he says the trick worked on the 82-year-old.

The contestants watch the cups for an hour straight. People who lose track of the ball have to ask their neighbors, and some groups say they relied on a consensus. Then a few contestants decide to give wrong answers on purpose. When asked, they name a different color than the one they believe is correct. That leaves the people depending on others unsure whom to trust. Players choose by pressing the button that matches a cup's color. Only three people pick green, and all three are wrong. Most people pick blue, which is correct. By the end of the challenge on day two, 52 people remain.

Lies Turn into Feuds

The misdirection during the cup game creates open hostility. One group now calls an older man "an enemy." One contestant explains that the people they had been talking to the whole time gave them the wrong color, while someone else told them the truth. The people who lied say they were just having fun, and one claims the others "took it the wrong way." The other side does not accept that: "If you gotta win by lying, then that's not the way we want to play." Another contestant says the liars have turned "a bunch of folks" against them.

MrBeast also explains how people use the bathroom. When a contestant pushes a button, a light outside the cube turns on, and a crew member named Chris brings a portable toilet. MrBeast says he couldn't get plumbing into all 100 rooms. Once the toilet is delivered, the cube becomes a bathroom.

By the end of day two, almost half the contestants are gone. Tensions keep rising. One contestant admits it was fun to give people the wrong color because they didn't know what to do. Another wants number 22 out because the two "were beefing earlier." Neighbors snap at each other, and MrBeast says the conflict naturally causes more people to leave. By the end of day three, he names contestants 54 and 74 as the biggest targets.

Day Four: Contestants Vote Each Other Out

Halfway through day four, there is another challenge vote. MrBeast warns that this challenge is different from the last one and that many people will leave if it goes ahead. One contestant votes for it anyway, explaining, "I like to sow seeds of chaos." Only nine vote against.

Each contestant gets paper and a Sharpie and has 60 seconds to write the number of another remaining contestant. Whoever gets the most votes is eliminated, and the process repeats ten times. MrBeast connects this directly to the cup game. He says the people who were lied to will now vote out the people who lied to them, so "it pays off to be honest." Contestants openly give their targets. One votes for 54, citing "his cockiness and his lying." Another votes for 74, saying she is "not a very grateful person." One group says they have "his whole block" voting for 54.

The first round is close. MrBeast says the result was within two votes, and 74 is eliminated with 14 votes. 54 survives.

The next target is the 10-year-old. Several contestants say they agreed at almost the same moment that 10 had to go. One finds him annoying and says he voted for them without provocation. Another calls him "a strong-minded child" who could win if he stayed. A third calls the 10-year-old a favorite but votes for him anyway, out of fear that refusing would make them the next target. The 10-year-old is voted out, and MrBeast announces "the first decade eliminated." He tells the boy he outlasted his entire row and was only voted out because people were scared of him. MrBeast felt so bad that he invited the 10-year-old onstage to co-host the rest of the challenge. The 10-year-old immediately urges everyone to vote for 14, and almost everyone does.

The 50s Power Bloc

MrBeast says the contestants in their 50s were the most determined to eliminate people and had by far the most voting power. They work through the contestants in their 70s. 73 goes out with 15 votes after being called "one of those bad apples." 71 also gets 15 votes. MrBeast remarks that the 50s might single-handedly take out everyone in their 70s. One older contestant says they have never felt so threatened by 50-year-olds and mourns losing good friends. 75 and 69 are eliminated next.

The voting continues outside that age group. 35 goes out with nine votes, and one group admits they chose randomly. 21 follows, with one contestant explaining that "we can only all be friends for so long." In the last round, over half the contestants vote for the 96-year-old. MrBeast protests that he doesn't understand them, since "she's not the biggest threat here." The 96-year-old takes it graciously, says it is what everybody wants and that they're happy, and thanks everyone.

When this purge ends, MrBeast notes that the 50s came through the entire voting game untouched because of their alliance. He adds that "yet again, somehow 54 survived."

Jenga Until Ten Remain

At the next vote, contestants disagree about whether to gamble. One votes against a challenge because they believe they can win by simply waiting it out. Another says their chances keep improving and votes yes. A third says they could wait. The money would pay off their house and let them retire. Twenty contestants vote for a challenge, and MrBeast asks why they are gambling.

Each cube has a Jenga tower. Everyone pulls blocks one at a time, any block except the red ones, and anyone whose tower falls is eliminated. This continues until only ten people remain. The first two rounds eliminate no one, and then the towers start falling. MrBeast catches one contestant doing something suspicious, and another admits to bumping into their tower. One contestant's tower, he says, "has tilted 30 times" without falling. A contestant named Brenda gets told to think about playing backyard Jenga and replies that backyard Jenga doesn't have Jimmy in their face. Fifteen people are eliminated in this round.

When it ends, one survivor celebrates making the top 10. A child of one finalist says that if "mom" wins the $500,000, the family is going to Disney World. MrBeast notes that the challenge eliminated everyone over 60 and calls the right side of the map "a wasteland." The 15 empty cubes are torn down and replaced with X marks. MrBeast predicts the remaining ten won't vote for another challenge. Contestants comment on how isolated they are now. One notices there is no one around them, and another realizes they are the youngest left. Some insist they won't quit voluntarily: "If I leave, I leave on a challenge."

The Marble Game

MrBeast's prediction is wrong. Asked over the microphone, everyone votes yes. He brings back the marble game, which he says viewers loved in his Squid Game video. Neighbors play one-on-one. Each starts with ten marbles and chooses what game to play, and after 30 minutes only the player holding all 20 marbles moves on.

Pairs handle it differently. One pair wants it over quickly and turns it into what MrBeast calls "a $500,000 coin flip." It lands heads. Another pair plays a bucket-toss game, first to two wins, and one player wins with a final throw. In another pair, the apparent winner counts only 19 marbles. The other player denies holding any back, and with seven minutes left MrBeast tells them that if they care about their opponent, they should find it. The marble turns up in a bedsheet. That gives the trailing player one more chance with a single marble, but the shot misses.

A pair playing rock, paper, scissors keeps trading the lead back and forth. With time running low, the player holding 14 marbles agrees to an all-or-nothing round against an opponent with 6. MrBeast asks why they are gambling. The player with 6 wins everything, and MrBeast notes that "54 escaped elimination again." In the last pair, both players say they love each other before the deciding round, and the loser says they lost to an amazing person.

Five remain: 23, 40, 43, 52, and 54.

The Final Five: Judged by the Eliminated

The finalists are feeling the pressure. One says that today is their daughter's birthday and that it is just hitting home that they won't be there. MrBeast asks whether the five want to cut the field further, and they say yes. In this challenge, the 95 eliminated contestants vote, and the three remaining players with the most votes are out.

The finalists react differently. One worries that certain people "brushed people the wrong way." Another is glad they didn't make enemies. When MrBeast asks whether they'd bet half a million dollars that the eliminated players liked them, one answers, "I don't know about that one." Another flatly says the eliminated players did not like them. A third asks, "What's not to like?" MrBeast says every one of the 95 was asked whom they wanted gone.

Joe, the 40-year-old, gets ten votes, which isn't enough to be eliminated. He is one of the two who pass. 23 is eliminated and calls losing in the top five after coming so far "super painful." Another finalist gets 15 votes and goes out. That contestant says that after roughly seven days there, coming that close to the grand prize and not getting it hurts. In the last pair, 54 says before the reveal that they know they got the most votes. They did: 37. After surviving every earlier round, 54 is finally out, and 52 moves on. 52 calls it a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Joe points out that he now has a 50% chance at half a million dollars.

A Birthday Surprise

As a reward for reaching the final two, MrBeast has one last surprise. He asks Joe about an item in the cube, and Joe says it is for his daughter, whose birthday is today. Joe's family then comes through the curtains, and MrBeast tells Joe he isn't going to let him miss her birthday. The family tells Joe they're proud of him whether he wins or loses. Joe calls it "my everything" and says, "I've got this now."

On day eight, the finalists reflect on how they got there. 52 says they thought they were out in every challenge. Joe says the goal feels much more feasible now that it is one opponent instead of 98 other people. Both seem to expect that another day of waiting won't make anyone quit, so it will take a challenge to force one of them out. MrBeast gives them the option to refuse one, and they choose a challenge anyway. He calls it "a half a million dollar gamble."

The Briefcase Bluff

One of two briefcases holds the $500,000 check. Everyone on set, including the camera crew, is blindfolded while MrBeast mixes up the cases. The finalists leave their cubes and meet in the middle. A coin flip decides who gets to look inside their own briefcase. That person becomes the only one on set who knows where the money is. The other player then chooses which case to take home. One contestant calls it "a game of bluffery."

Joe wins the flip and looks. 52 then has to decide whether to keep their own briefcase or take Joe's. 52 asks Joe directly whether the $500,000 is in his case, and he says yes. Asked whether he is lying, he answers, "What do you think?" He says he saw the MrBeast logo and a check. When asked whether he is honest, he replies, "You spent enough time with me, what do you think?" 52 doesn't believe the money is in Joe's case and thinks they already have it. Joe swears again that the money is in his case. 52 keeps their own briefcase.

Joe opens his: the check is inside. He told the truth the whole time, and MrBeast marvels that Joe "literally said he had it." Joe's side says they always believed the good guys could win, and MrBeast echoes his earlier line: "It pays off to be honest." The 40-year-old wins the $500,000. As consolation, 52 gets $10,000 and a family trip to Disneyland, so the family can still take the trip they had hoped for.

The video's answer to "which age is the best" is that the oldest contestants left early, the 50s bloc controlled the middle game, and the final was decided between a 52-year-old and a 40-year-old. The money went to the contestant who told the truth when a lie might have seemed like the safer play.

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