The Best YouTube Video of 2025 Was Filmed in Minecraft
Is this Massively Multiplayer Reality TV? A bunch of 20-something Minecraft roleplayers are inventing a novel form of entertainment, and tens of millions are watching.
It was November of 2023 when Ish, a 23-year-old native of Illinois, announced a new entry in his "Minecraft Civilization" event series.
Over 8,000 of his fans rushed to apply to join. The prize: the chance to become one of 1,000 players invited to "simulate a realistic civilization" on one of two Minecraft islands hosted by Ish and his team across a more than weeklong event.
Being accepted to join one of Ish's events brought the opportunity for not just fun, but real fame: earlier videos in the series had earned upwards of 10 million, 20 million, and even 38 million views on Ish's YouTube channel.
These videos, often presented as "experiments," defy typical YouTube video genre conventions. They're not scripted beyond the initial scenario devised by Ish, nor are they truly "real" simulations of a digital civilization, because players that get invited to join the events are often self consciously roleplaying, yucking it up either as fictional characters or as heightened versions of themselves. The end result for viewers—after many months of edits from Ish's team—is a carefully crafted episode of something like a reality TV episode, all filmed within Minecraft.
Ish and his team spent nearly two years editing and polishing the video about the event, which was finally published in July. So far over 19 million people have watched the two-and-half hour feature film chronicling what went down on Ish’s two islands. Many are calling it “peak cinema” and one of the best YouTube videos in the history of the platform.
But is “a two hour Minecraft video” really the right way to describe something like this? Is it really just another YouTube video about Minecraft?
"People have used a lot of labels to describe what I do," Ish told me on a call last week. "Experiment, reality show, role play. Personally, I don't have one that I always go to. It's a combination of a bunch of things. Maybe there's not one word that describes it exactly. It's its own beast at this point."
What about, I offered, "Massively Multiplayer Reality TV?"
He laughed. "That's not a bad way to put it."
The Repeat Rule and "Main Character" Energy
One of the most interesting recurring elements in Ish's videos is the way that "main characters" emerge from the anonymous mass of players who join the events. Since none of the players who participate in Ish's videos are directed to play any specific role, they instead sort themselves out into any number of archetypes: including leaders, followers, and soldiers. Many players get more creative, deciding to roleplay as pirates, druglords, or as, say, queen of a Barbie-themed island.
Over the course of Ish's multiday events, he flies around the island, capturing footage from his own first-person perspective as events unfold. As he goes, he takes note of interactions between players and tries to identify interesting storylines—these form the raw material for what ultimately became a finished video on his YouTube channel.
"In comparison to standard reality TV, I tend to be a little bit more hands off," Ish says. "Typically I allow people to form their own nations, form their own conflicts, conduct whatever master plan they want to conduct."
However, there are a few rules that players must follow. One of the most important, necessary for keeping the events from devolving into wanton chaos, is the no "random PVP" rule, which discourages players from attacking each other without some good, narratively-justified reason.
Another dictate, added recently, is the "no repeat" rule, which basically says that any player who has been featured as a "main character" in one of Ish's previous videos should try, to the best of their ability, to avoid becoming a main character in the new one. They shouldn't attempt to lead nations or devise plots that would massively impact the event’s storyline as it emerges naturally over the course of the "experiment."
It's for this reason that a player known as Saparata decided to try to keep a low profile when he was invited to participate in Ish's latest video. He'd acted as the leader of a major nation in Ish's previous "1,000 player" event, binding him under the repeat rule.
"Since this was the first time the repeat rule was implemented," Saparata told me, "I worked hard to respect it by staying independent and avoiding leadership positions in any nation."
This, as any of the nearly 20 million people who've watched the latest Ish video would attest, did not pan out as expected.
Anatomy of a Betrayal
Without getting too deep into spoilers—the video really is worth watching—the crux of the video hinges on a devious plot devised by one player, called Fluixon, in which Saparata was dramatically framed for a large-scale assassination of many of the event's leading players.
"Interestingly, the very first person I ever spoke to on the server was Flux," Saparata told me.
Saparata and Fluixon developed a real friendship, which then carried over into Ish's events. In that previous video, where Saparata was in charge of a nation, Fluixon served as his Vice President.
"That relationship carried into the ‘Rich and Poor’ video experiment, where my trust in him absolutely influenced the storyline,” Saparata says. “Because I trusted him outside the game, I didn’t even realize when he was framing me. Out of game, we both understood that the 'betrayal' wasn’t personal, it was purely for the sake of building a better narrative. After the initial shock, we laughed it off and moved on quickly."
While Saparata is a good sport about it all now, he admits that there were times during the event when tensions with other players were running high. The other players believed that Saparata had not only eliminated many players in cold blood, but also that he'd dishonored the rules of the event by making himself into a main character.
"It’s true, a lot of players were understandably frustrated with me after the big assassination, as many believed I was breaking the repeat rule," Saparata says. "It was tough because I couldn’t defend myself in the moment without breaking immersion. Saying something like 'I’m on the repeat rule, so it couldn’t be me' would have undercut the roleplay experience for everyone else.”
So the plot worked, and Saparata went on the run as hundreds of other players attempted to find and punish him, a journey he logged in a video captured from his own perspective called I Got Hunted by 1000 Players in Ish's Minecraft Civilization.
“Once I was eventually vindicated within the storyline,” Saparata says, “those same players were quick to apologize, and everything smoothed out. So, while there was definitely some tension during the event, it didn’t carry over into real life in any lasting way."
A Villainous Perspective
Fluixon, whose scheming ultimately drove forward the primary events of the video, says that his confidence in his close relationship with Saparata made him more willing to betray him in such elaborate fashion.
"I would have felt a lot worse if I had betrayed someone I didn't know as well who might have thought I was just being an asshole for the sake of it," Fluixon tells me, "but we've worked on enough roleplay events and stories together that I knew he wouldn't take it too hard and would be able to both understand why it was such a compelling narrative plot and make the most out of it as a character himself."
Making the Cut
One thing I was curious about was how players get selected for events like this, especially given that many thousands apply and only a small percentage make the cut. What qualities, I asked Ish, do he and his team look for?
“Mainly it's willingness to roleplay,” Ish says. “Obviously Minecraft is not real life, but you have to kind of pretend like it is real life, right? So we typically try to avoid accepting people who are just PvP brained, and who just want to go around killing people.”
One effective way Ish and his team weed out the PvP-brained players is by requiring everyone who applies to join fill out a written survey explaining their motivations.
“The quality of their application tends to indicate the level of commitments that the player will have in the actual event,” Ish says. “So those are the factors that really allow us to accept some really high quality players: Great builders, great role players. We're really fortunate that we have a lot of people to select from.”
But what about bad actors? What sorts of behaviors tend to get players booted from the event, if they break the rules once it kicks off?
"Hacking is the main one," says Ish. "We always have a few people who decide to X-Ray through the floor to find diamonds or similar stuff like that. So yeah, we boot people occasionally. But not that much, because the application process tends to sift out most of the troublemakers."
Sidebar: Roleplaying Advice from the Masters
Given how effective Saps and Flux were at driving forward a compelling plot in Ish’s video, I asked both of them what tips they’d give to others given the chance to participate in a roleplay event like it in the future:
From Saparata:
“These experiments, especially Ish’s, are fascinating because they blur the line between social experiment and roleplay. Most players don’t create entirely new “characters”, they play versions of themselves, just in a heightened setting. My best advice for anyone who wants to succeed in these events is to find something interesting to commit to and stick with it. Too often, I see people constantly switching up their roleplay just to get screen time, but that can make the story feel less authentic. If you lean into your chosen role and genuinely have fun with it, the story will naturally become more engaging. Above all, remember that these events are meant to be enjoyable, so don’t take them too seriously.”
And from Flux:“In my opinion, if you want to be a good roleplayer in videos and events like these, you need to be able to do three things:
Lean into the character you end up playing. Don't try and force it, let the world around you shape the character you become, but once you have that path determined for you try and stick to it and really play into it. That could be anything from a farmer, a politician, a soldier, or something wildly more creative.
Be willing to take risks. Most players in Ish's events for instance always try and play it safe and do the most conservative actions they can, which is understandable due to the exclusivity and infrequency of the events, but often leads to them playing less interesting characters as a result. It's a good thing that the world is mostly made up of conservative, conflict-averse players for the sake of worldbuilding - the events would be terrible if everyone was trying to be the "main character" all the time, but every now and again its good for players to be willing to dare a little more for the sake of building a more compelling narrative.
Talk to people and make genuine connections throughout the course of the event. These aren't singleplayer experiences, nor are they sparsely populated SMPs or factions servers. For Ish's events at least, you are participating with one thousand other people. Make the effort to talk and work together with them - collaborate! You're wasting your opportunities if you don't.”
The Massively Multiplayer Future of TV
With his latest video in the bag, Ish is already working on his next event, this one "Purge" themed.
There's just one problem. With the outsized success of his latest video, demand from fans has gotten out of control: Over 60,000 people have already applied to participate. This time, Ish tells me, exactly 1,300 will get in. And just a handful will have what it takes to achieve main character status in the resulting video.
Call it whatever you want: a Minecraft video, a roleplaying scenario, or massively multiplayer reality TV. Whatever it is, it’s hardly recognizable as a game. Instead, what emerges when you talk to players who participate in these events is a view of what they’re doing as something like a learnable artform (or, if you can stomach the pun, a craft).
“Minecraft isn't really just a sandbox game to me anymore,” Fluixon told me. “It's the only environment I know which allows me both the creative freedom to be someone I couldn't otherwise be and do what I couldn't otherwise do, and the ability to connect and play with so many people in such an unrestricted world at the same time.”
Minecraft may have started out as a Lego-like sandbox game about building with blocks, but somewhere along the way, it evolved into something else. Now, says Fluixon, “It's the closest thing that really exists to an immersive digital universe.”
That’s it for this week. I’m gonna go watch Canadian kids sell drugs in Minecraft.
Ryan, have you seen About Oliver's blind minecraft playthrough? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfaRVe43qAyXDQC3ejX6ZL6y0ugTV1KPK
These supercuts have been peak minecraft content for me. Not quite the same amount of effort, but also hundreds of hours condensed into a ~2h video
Pogg here from ish!!! Absolute cinema.