Why do so many people play along in power games and why do we enjoy watching suffering?

Why do we find it so compelling to watch one person hold all the power while everyone else scrambles to keep them happy?

From the glittering halls of pre-revolution Versailles to the latest YouTube challenge channel, there’s an uncanny parallel in how people behave under the thumb of a dominant figure – and in how transfixed we are as spectators. The absolute monarch at Versailles had his courtiers bending over backward for a smile or a nod, much like modern influencers have their entourages (and audiences) hanging on every whim. The Twilight Zone once imagined a child with godlike powers terrorizing his town, and social psychologists actually staged a faux prison to see how power corrupts. What they all reveal is a peculiar truth about human nature: give someone unchecked power, and others will play along – often to absurd extremes – while the rest of us watch with a mix of horror and fascination.

Picture the scene at Versailles in the late 17th century. The king – Louis XIV, the self-proclaimed Sun King – sits at the center of an opulent universe. Around him swirl thousands of courtiers in elaborate dress, each one desperate to stay in the royal orbit. In the Palace of Versailles, nobility were “prepared to go to any lengths to be close to the King” – under the monarch’s watchful eye, great lords were kept in their place, eager to serve and please the King. Intimidating, majestic, and informed by an army of spies, the king controlled everything​. To earn favor, nobles essentially surrendered their autonomy. They crowded into the Hall of Mirrors and antechambers of Versailles because being seen was a matter of survival. A duke might spend hours waiting for the honor of handing Louis his shirt at the morning lever ceremony. Etiquette ruled every movement: there were protocols for who could sit, who could speak, even who could hold a stool​. It sounds ridiculous – grown men and women flattered by permission to perform menial tasks – but at Versailles this was deadly serious. A “constantly hovering presence” around the king was rewarded with gifts, stipends, lodging at the palace, and coveted invitations to lavish balls​. The entire French aristocracy effectively lived in a reality show where the prize was royal approval. In this hierarchical ecosystem, the king’s absolute power wasn’t just political; it was psychological. Courtiers internalized the idea that their fate depended on keeping the king happy. And so they laughed at unfunny jokes, danced in uncomfortable shoes, and tolerated humiliations – all under the glitter of chandeliers and the gaze of painted gods on the ceiling.

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If this dynamic sounds familiar, that might be because we see echoes of it today in the unlikeliest places – say, a mansion of YouTubers in Florida or a viral stunt video with a charismatic ringleader. Consider YouTube megastar MrBeast, known for orchestrating outrageous contests and charity challenges. On camera, he’s a benevolent figure handing out cash, but it’s his show, his rules, and everyone involved – friends, fans, or random contestants – understands where the power lies. Participants endure ridiculous tasks (staying in a circle for days, sitting in slime, living in a bunker for 100 days) and follow arbitrary rules he sets, all for the chance to win life-changing money or clout. They’ll submerge themselves in ice or walk away from $500,000 – whatever the king of content demands. And millions tune in to watch. In a sense, MrBeast’s videos are microcosms of power dynamics: one guy at the center with all the resources, and a rotating cast of courtiers (or challengers) eager to please him and capture the audience’s attention. The vibe is friendly and fun, but underneath is a clear hierarchy. Even cultural commentators have noted that the constant filming of volunteer participants “creates a power dynamic” – people subconsciously conform to what they think will make a more successful video​. Just like courtiers playing the part of cheerful servants, MrBeast’s participants often perform enthusiasm or desperation because they know that’s what the situation – and the camera – expects. And we, the viewers, can’t look away. Part of us is cheering for the underdogs to win the prize, but another part is rubbernecking the social experiment: How far will they go? Will anyone rebel or call out the absurdity? (Spoiler: not usually – because then the game ends and nobody gets rich.)

The influencer content house is another modern stage for these strange dynamics. Take the Bop House, a mansion where a group of young creators live together churning out TikToks and OnlyFans videos. Ostensibly, they’re roommates collaborating as equals. But inevitably one or two emerge as leaders – often the founders or those with the biggest follower counts – and an informal hierarchy forms. The environment starts to resemble a mini-court. The less popular creators orbit the stars, who in turn enjoy the attention and control the house’s direction. There may not be a single tyrant issuing decrees (Bop House pointedly lacks a Hugh Hefner-like figure, as a recent Vice article quipped​), yet power imbalances creep in. House members know their income and fame are tied to the collective, so there’s pressure to comply with the group’s brand and the top personalities’ ideas. For example, if the most influential house member decides everyone will dress up for a comedic skit at 3 AM, who’s going to refuse? The “audience” – millions of followers – becomes like the king’s favor at Versailles, something everyone competes for by putting on a good show. It can lead to toxic situations; indeed, earlier content houses like Team 10 and Hype House imploded amid accusations of bullying and exploitation of smaller members​. In the Bop House’s case, the young women involved insist they’re just uplifting each other while raking in cash. But even there, outsiders have voiced a certain unease. When videos show them dancing in PJs or doing synchronized skits, some viewers suspect a “sinister edge” – as if this glossy sorority might hide coercion or unhealthy power plays behind the scenes​. It says something about our pop culture that we’re simultaneously drawn to these glamorous, high-drama living arrangements and suspicious of what really happens when one or two people effectively control the fate of the rest.

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None of this is entirely new to psychologists. In fact, researchers have been studying power dynamics in hierarchical setups for decades, trying to pin down why people in these situations – whether aristocrats or YouTubers – so often fall in line. Perhaps the most famous (or infamous) study was the Stanford Prison Experiment led by psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1971. Zimbardo wanted to understand how ordinary people behave in a structure with clear power roles. He set up a fake prison in a Stanford University basement, randomly assigning volunteer students to play either “guards” or “prisoners.” The results were shocking in how quickly they spiraled. Within a couple of days, the students cast as guards began to act authoritarian and cruel, coming up with creative ways to harass and humiliate the prisoners (forcing them to do push-ups, isolating misbehavers in a closet). The prisoner group, meanwhile, became subdued, anxious, and desperate to appease or avoid the wrath of the guards. What was meant to run for two weeks had to be shut down in only six days because the situation got so out of hand. Zimbardo himself got so absorbed in the warden role that he overlooked escalating abuses until a horrified outsider intervened. The takeaway? By Zimbardo’s account, the experiment showed that it’s largely the system – the situation and roles – that drive people’s behavior. He concluded that we’re not inherently “evil,” but we will commit heinous acts if encouraged by a context that legitimizes them​. In a hierarchy with a strong authority figure or role expectations, people adapt, often unconsciously, to what they think they’re supposed to do. Good people can turn into tyrants or cowering victims depending on which side of the power divide they fall.

Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiments in the 1960s painted a similarly creepy picture of human compliance. In those studies, everyday volunteers were instructed by an authority figure (a scientist in a lab coat) to administer what they believed were painful electric shocks to another person as part of a “learning test.” With each wrong answer, they were told to increase the shock voltage. The question was: How far will people go just because someone in charge tells them to? It turned out, disturbingly far. Milgram found that 65% of participants went all the way to the maximum shock level – potentially lethal jolts – simply because they were told “the experiment requires that you continue”​. Many were visibly distressed, sweating and trembling, but when the man in the lab coat said “keep going,” they did. The lesson here is uncomfortably aligned with what courtiers at Versailles or contestants in a YouTuber’s challenge demonstrate: when we perceive someone as an authority, defying them is harder than we’d like to admit. We might justify our obedience by thinking “I had no choice” or “this is just how the game is played.”

Of course, not everyone toes the line – and this is where dissenting voices, both in research and society, come in. In Milgram’s studies, a minority of people did refuse to continue to the bitter end (35% stopped at some point, often when the “learner” screamed or went silent). Those individuals haunt the findings a bit: what made them buck the authority when others didn’t? Some psychologists have since argued that Milgram’s setup wasn’t simply revealing a human default, but was nudging people into obedience through forceful prompts and a credible cover story. In other words, perhaps the volunteers weren’t blindly obeying so much as they were trying to be “good participants” in a scientific study. Similarly, the Stanford Prison Experiment has come under intense scrutiny. In recent years, critics like author Thibault Le Texier (who dug into the archives) have suggested that Zimbardo’s results were partially engineered – that guards were implicitly coached to act tough, and that some participants just role-played what they thought Zimbardo wanted​. Even Zimbardo admitted that as the prison superintendent he might have given guards a sense of permission. A replication attempt in 2002 known as the BBC Prison Study found a different outcome: without an obvious authority instructing them, “guards” as a group failed to unite or impose their will, and the “prisoners” eventually organized to challenge the inequality. This hinted that humans are not doomed to tyranny and submission in every hierarchy – leadership and group identity matter. Dissenters from the traditional narrative argue that power dynamics are more negotiable than the grim experiments suggest. People can and do resist authority, especially if they feel a sense of solidarity or have ethical convictions kicking in. Indeed, some historians note that even at Versailles, the king’s power had limits. Nobles found subtle ways to push back (through gossip, forming alliances, or flattery with hidden barbs), and over time, Enlightenment ideas spread skepticism about blind loyalty to kings. It took a couple of generations, but the very spectacle of Versailles – the excess and the obsequiousness – eventually fueled disgust among commoners and some nobles alike, laying psychological groundwork for the Revolution. In modern pop culture arenas, we also see pushback: whistleblowers from influencer houses exposing exploitative contracts, or viewers raising ethical questions about a YouTube stunt. Every now and then, someone in a MrBeast video will say “No, I’m not doing that,” and while they might lose the game, they remind us that the spell of power can be broken.

Still, if the classic narrative of power, control, and submission has caveats, it clearly has a hold on our collective imagination. Pop culture keeps returning to this theme – not to endorse it, but to explore it. The Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life” is a perfect example. This 1961 story remains one of the series’ most haunting because it distills the scenario to its essence: a single all-powerful figure (in this case, a cherubic six-year-old boy named Anthony) and a community paralyzed by fear. Anthony can read minds and “wish” people out of existence, so everyone in his town smiles desperately and says every day is wonderful, lest they anger him. In one scene, after the boy grotesquely punishes someone, the adults nervously applaud him: “It’s good you did that, Anthony – real good,” they murmur, forcing grins while suppressing terror​. It’s an absurd image – cowering grown-ups flattering a child tyrant – but it resonates because it’s just a hyperbolic version of reality. Swap the kid for a dictator, a cult leader, or heck, a capricious CEO, and the dynamic is eerily recognizable. Rod Serling tapped into a dark vein of truth: people will perform all kinds of psychological contortions to placate a person who holds power over them. And audiences are riveted by this, perhaps because it forces us to ask, “What would I do in that situation? Fight back or start groveling?” The episode is uncomfortable because deep down we know that maybe we’d be among the terrified townsfolk telling the monster child that everything he does is awesome.

So why are we obsessed with watching these power plays unfold? Part of it is surely the drama – the stakes are sky-high when one wrong move could mean ruin, whether it’s banishment from court, losing the cash prize, or being turned into a jack-in-the-box by an evil toddler. The scenario creates instant tension. But there’s also a psychological fascination. It’s like peering through a one-way mirror at a human laboratory: we get to witness the extremes of dominance and deference from a safe distance. Watching others submit (or occasionally rebel) lets us explore the concept of authority vicariously. Perhaps it even helps us rehearse how we’d respond, or assures us that we’re not the only ones who feel the weird pull to obey a strong personality. Pop culture both reflects and reinforces real power structures this way. The more we see these dynamics dramatized – in shows, online, wherever – the more we recognize them in our own workplaces, schools, and relationships. A hit reality competition or viral video can subtly influence what behavior seems normal. If every popular YouTuber is running their own mini-empire with loyal lieutenants and prank “peasants,” that format becomes part of the culture. Young viewers might take it for granted that to be successful, you need to attach yourself to a rising star and play by their rules. Conversely, depicting these scenarios can also spark conversations about consent and abuse of power. The fact that people debate whether MrBeast’s philanthropy is “exploitative ‘poverty porn’” or justifiable showmanship​ shows that audiences aren’t entirely passive. We’re grappling with the ethics of these power imbalances even as we click “Next episode.”

What do these parallels mean for our future, especially as entertainment and real life keep blurring? If we continue to reward content and leaders that center on one person holding all the cards, we might see more extreme demonstrations of the formula. Today it’s relatively benign – nobody dies in a prank video, and no one’s literally a royal absolute monarch anymore – but there is a trend toward pushing limits. Each new iteration of the “one powerful figure” setup has to be more outrageous to keep our attention: bigger challenges, more invasive reality shows, more flamboyant personalities. That raises obvious ethical questions. We’ve already had reality shows that veered into psychological torment for entertainment; what if tomorrow’s viral stunt goes horribly wrong because participants are afraid to say no to a YouTuber who promises fame? Social media has created a landscape where having a following grants power, and as we’ve seen, some will abuse it. The hope is that awareness of these dynamics can act as a check. The public is quicker now to call out creators or leaders who cross the line – we’ve seen cancellations and backlashes when an influencer’s “kingly” behavior is exposed without the fun veneer. There’s also a push within the creator economy for more collaborative, democratic models (for instance, groups that share ownership and credit rather than centering one figure). While our historical and fictional examples suggest a pessimistic view of human nature, there’s reason for optimism. People today are armed with the knowledge from those very examples. We study the rise and fall of Versailles and say, “Let’s not repeat that blind hero-worship.” We teach Milgram and Zimbardo in Psych 101 as cautionary tales – making the next generation just a bit more skeptical of orders from on high.

In the end, the allure of watching power dynamics will likely persist – it’s too deeply ingrained in our storytelling and psychology to disappear. But we as a society and as individuals can approach it more mindfully. Enjoy the spectacle, but recognize it for what it is. Ask questions about whether the king deserves his crown or the influencer’s crew is truly happy. Support media that shows not just the glamour of power but the perspectives of those under it. And perhaps most importantly, remember that in real life, unlike in a scripted episode of The Twilight Zone, we have the agency to step out of the “good life” illusion. The next time we find ourselves under the sway of a charismatic boss, a political figure, or an internet icon, we might recall these stories and experiments and find the courage to speak up, to set boundaries, or to leave the cornfield. Our obsession with power plays doesn’t have to be unhealthy; it can be illuminating. By watching these dynamics with eyes wide open, we learn how they work – and in doing so, we learn how to keep the checks and balances on our own human tendency to bow down. That awareness is hopeful. It means we’re not doomed to live as courtiers or content peons unless we choose to. We can admire the Sun King’s dazzling room of mirrors, but also notice our reflection in it and decide for ourselves who really holds the power.