“We are now stranded in an abandoned city for the next seven days,” and as a helicopter takes off he adds “and there goes our only way out!” Well, it would appear that I live in an abandoned city, as you can see my house on the video.
What am I talking about? Undoubtedly, this video stands as the most widely viewed portrayal of the wider Dubrovnik region to date.
Let's take a step back to the genesis of this tale. Towards the end of January, rumours reached me that a renowned YouTuber was capturing footage near my residence in Župa. “My friend just told me that Beast Boy is filming some YouTube video in Kupari,” said my wife. “You mean Mr. Beast,” I looked stunned.
“I have no idea, but there is some security and you can’t get in Kupari, the young security guard told me that – some idiots are joking around,” she added.
I am a huge fan of YouTube, it’s probably my favourite social media platform, and of course I knew who Mr. Beast was.
Carpe diem. I wrote him an email, which opened – “Now the start of this email made me think, do I address you as Mr. Mr. Beast or just Mr. Beast or maybe your real name.” In hindsight maybe a little sarcastic. And I continued “A little birdie (no, not Twitter) has told me that you are currently filming about half a mile from my house. In fact, you are filming where I normally walk my dogs in the morning, which thanks to your security means they now have a different route. I tried explaining that you are a dog lover to them, but it was met with a look of distain.” Needless to say he never wrote back.
So I waited patiently for the video to be released.
When it landed last week I was more than a little surprised by the title “I Survived 7 Days In An Abandoned City.” WTF!
Clearly there is a huge generational gap with social media. When I told my older friends that Mr. Beast had been filming in Dubrovnik, they had a look of bewilderment, “is he on TV?” Whilst on the other side I messaged my teenage niece in the UK and asked “Guess which YouTuber is here?” She answered “Don’t tell me it is Mr. Beast.”
And for those who don’t know this guy has more than 240 million people following him just on YouTube. His Kupari video got over 67 million views in two days! And he has acquired a fortune of half a billion dollars from these videos. Just last year he earned $82 million.
So I watched his latest video with great interest. You have to say that the production values are worthy of Hollywood. However, the content, the writing, leaves a lot to be desired.
I guess knowledge is power. I remember many years ago when Game of Thrones filmed a desert scene on the new cemetery in Dubac. The gist was that they were dying of thirst in the hot desert sun and were desperate for water. For 99.99% of the fans who watched this scene it was extremely convincing. I however was rolling in laughter knowing that a Lidl supermarket was only a minute away from where they were all dying of dehydration.
So when Mr. Beast and his gang get dropped onto the roof of a ruined hotel in Kupari and he shouts “This abandoned city was bombed in the war, which means that the only people here are us and our cameraman,” I had to chuckle.
He must mention “abandoned city” more than twenty times. Kupari is neither a city or is it abandoned. And the “survival” element. Well, he could have walked to the Sub City shopping centre in less than a minute and had a cappuccino and stocked up in the Konzum supermarket.
I watched it a few times, and then realised that I could see my house. Was I now living in an abandoned city?
Maybe I am being too harsh. For along with all the “white lies” I am also sure that many of his fans (of which he has many) will want to see for themselves the abandoned city and hence we could have just stumbled upon a new tourist attraction, a modern day Game of Thrones for a younger generation.
And as a final, rather weird twist, in the video the crew found a bicycle in one of the hotels. Strangely enough that very bicycle belongs to the friend who originally told my wife that Mr. Beast was filming there. Now that’s spooky.
Read more Englishman in Dubrovnik…well, if you really want to
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About the author
Mark Thomas (aka Englez u Dubrovniku) is the editor of The Dubrovnik Times. He was born and educated in the UK and moved to live in Dubrovnik in 1998. He works across a whole range of media, from a daily radio show to TV and in print. Thomas is fluent in Croatian and this column is available in Croatia on the website – Dubrovnik Vjesnik