Mighty Mike and the scam-coded future
A bizarre drama played out on YouTube this past week, when a channel called Mighty Mike Plays posted a video explaining how nine-year-old “Mighty Mike” apparently got a hold of his father Dave’s company card and spent $118,000 on a YouTube ad campaign.
However, the story immediately appeared to have a number of holes, and within a few days there were too many red flags for influencers, who had initially boosted the story’s reach, to ignore.
Just a kid and his dad
Mighty Mike Plays, which features Roblox and Minecraft videos, was created in June of 2024 but only started posting videos in August of this year.
Over the past month, the channel has uploaded 175 long and short form videos — a considerable number for a child of nine.
When it suddenly started reaching the front page of YouTube ads, people began to comment that Mike was going to get in trouble with his father. They were, in fact, being played by the marketing.
On September 14, the channel released a video titled “Message from Dad… Mighty Mike Plays is Over.”
In the video, Dave speaks while Mike plays Minecraft. He states that Mike had spent $118,000 on the YouTube ad campaign and worst of all that the charges were on his company card and now he might get fired.
Dave didn’t explain why he would ever use a company card for anything but company purchases or how using the card even for a $20 ad campaign — as he stated was his intention — wasn’t illegal, but no red flags outside of this were obvious yet.
Read more: Kalshi’s AI ad turned an Asian YouTuber into ‘a white dude’
99 problems and the vid is one
On September 18, a new video was released, once again with Mike playing Minecraft and Dave speaking. Unfortunately, this time the video was nothing but red flags. Dave states that he’s been fired from his job and that the company has demanded that he pay back all $118,000 within 30 days.
He doesn’t clarify what will happen in 30 days if the company isn’t paid back.
Dave doesn’t show any proof of ad spend or any emails with his colleagues where they discuss the circumstances. Instead he suggests that the family will soon lose their home because he’ll have to sell it within the 30-day period.
All of this sounds like fiction, but it only gets more absurd.
Dave states that he doesn’t want to start a GoFundMe or Kickstarter to support his family and doesn’t specify a reason, though it’s thought that if you lie about the reason you need funds on these websites you can get sued and the money can get clawed back.
Instead, he says, he wants to sell merchandise online to try to raise the funds himself — a bizarre decision.
Slop merch, slop campaign
Dave’s website is filled with AI-created merchandise, all selling for immense prices (nearly $100 for t-shirts that say “118k” and “67 wassup chat”), some supposedly already sold out.
And, as eagle-eyed YouTubers quickly pointed out, the terms of service, which previously promised that returns would be allowed within 30 days, now state that ALL SALES ARE FINAL.
It’s unclear if this is legal or binding to anyone who bought the merchandise before the change.
Needless to say, it’s now Dave who’s claiming that he’s going to be suing numerous influencers and YouTubers for suggesting that he’s a scammer, emailing them to say he’s hired a lawyer and will be taking them to court for libel — an expensive move for a man who supposedly just lost his job and owes $118,000.
Regardless, Mike and Dave are posting videos again but have yet to address any of the previous red flags littering their videos.
Protos will follow the story for more information if anything changes.
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