"Asked why the park was in the desert kingdom, where free speech is curtailed by the regime and homosexuality is a capital offence, [Mr. Beast] said..."

"... most of his fans were outside the United States. 'Middle of the world because a majority of my audience is outside America and we have a big Middle Eastern fanbase,' he wrote on X. 'Wanted to give them a chance to participate!'"

From "World’s biggest YouTuber MrBeast unveils theme park in Saudi Arabia/Jimmy Donaldson, who is known for controversial stunts involving eye-popping prizes, says Beast Land will not be a 'typical theme park'" (London Times).

1. How can any point on the face of a globe be considered the "middle"? It could be the middle of the land mass, but Saudi Arabia isn't that. It's somewhere in Turkey/Iran.  It could be the middle of the population mass, but that would be somewhere in northern India or southern China.

2. The U.S. is the biggest slice of Mr. Beast's audience — 25–30% — but it's true that the majority is outside of the U.S. and the Middle East as a whole is a big chunk — 20–25%. I'm also seeing that Saudi Arabia, of all the countries in the world, has the largest percentage of the population using YouTube — 95.8%.

3. One must infer that the real attraction for Mr. Beast is the money — combined with some idea of "reaching" the people through the absurd infusion of American popular culture? A better question is why the Saudis want this stuff on their land? For tourism? Isn't their tourism better if they keep everything traditional and historical?

4. There is some argument that Mr. Beast is genuinely intrigued by the idea of making a new kind of theme park. Imagine going to Saudi Arabia to break loose from the shackles of theme park conventions. 

"Creating a retention edited video requires a lot of work. 'Every clip in the video should be under two seconds,' said Dara Pesheva, a 17-year-old..."

"... who works as a freelance video editor for social media content creators. 'Every 1.3 to 1.5 seconds you have to have a new graphic or something moving, you have to [use] a lot of effects. For every image and every transition, you have to add a sound effect. You need flashing graphics, and you have to have subtitles in every video.' TikTok has trained users to scroll away if they aren’t hooked within the first half-second.... This is why so many retention edited videos start with a loud bang or whoosh sound.... 'People around my age can’t focus,' Pesheva said. 'They have very short attention spans. They’re used to TikTok, and so editors have to adjust for Gen Z. They have to adjust to the fact that people can’t keep their attention on something for more than a second if it’s not entertaining.'"

From "The 'Beastification of YouTube' may be coming to an end/The popularity of so-called retention editing made a generation of creators go viral, but when every video looks the same it’s harder than ever to stand out" (WaPo).

That's funny, when I use TikTok, I scroll away in less than one second if I see that it's edited like that. Nice to know there's a term for that annoying crap, "retention editing." They're trying to retain your attention... or really, trying to obtain it in the first place. But maybe it's not working anymore. ("Beastification," in case you're wondering, refers to a particular YouTube star, Mr. Beast.)

If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at this: