Who is Mellstroy and what is he known for?
Mellstroy’s real name is Andrey Burim. Born and raised in Gomel (Belarus). He is 25 years old now. He started broadcasting on YouTube in 2016. He showed how he plays various popular online games such as Minecraft, Dota and Counter-Strike. Unable to achieve success in this field, the blogger decided to turn to the garbage streams genre in 2017. a type of online publication in which people commit various provocative actions while trying to act within the legal framework. From this moment the story of the publisher Mellstroy begins, as everyone knows him today.
Burim experienced his first wave of success as the king of garbage streams in 2020, when he moved to Moscow due to legal issues in his hometown. In one of the broadcasts, Andrei lost his temper and began to drown out Instagram (the owner of the Meta company is known as an extremist in Russia and was banned) – model Alena Efremova. He then slammed the girl’s face on the table several times. The case received wide coverage in Russia: it attracted the attention of not only concerned viewers and journalists, but also deputies and law enforcement agencies.
Mellstroy strips streamers
The broadcaster has made media headlines more than once. For example, one of Mellstroy’s last bursts of popularity occurred in 2023. He appeared on the air of other popular Russian-speaking broadcasters and paid them millions of rubles to fulfill their humiliating wishes. Mellstroy asked male broadcasters to shave their heads live and allegedly asked female broadcasters to undress. In just one week of such a performance marathon, Mellstroy beat more than ten broadcasters and spent about 35 million rubles on them. Among the “victims” of Burim were Alexey (JesusAVGN) Gubanov, Rostislav (Rostislav_999) Protasenya, Ivan (StrRoGo) Shurpatov, Dmitry (Dmitry_Lixxx) Likhanov, Yulia (By_Owl) and others.
Mellstroy challenge scandal
Recently, Mellstroy has been on the agenda again. He faced a new set of challenges: The publisher offered users a lot of money in exchange for fulfilling various incredible requests that would greatly promote him. At the beginning of March, he promised to pay $ 2 million (about 183 million rubles at the exchange rate of March 19, 2024) to anyone who writes greetings to him from the president of any country. Finally with the challenge deal with A schoolboy from Lithuania. Around the same time, the publisher promised to pay 30 million rubles. For a message from a football player Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappe or Haaland. To exercise carried out A certain Polina Malinovskaya, who recorded a call from Mbappe to the broadcaster. The Internet star also transferred at least $817.5 thousand to user X (Twitter) under the pseudonym Anas for convincing the world’s most popular YouTube blogger, James (MrBeast) Donaldson, to subscribe to Mellstroy on Instagram.
In addition, Burim paid $ 1 million (about 91.5 million rubles) to American rapper Drake for an Instagram subscription and $ 300 thousand (27.5 million rubles) to streamer Darren Jason Watkins Jr., known under the pseudonym IShowSpeed . Other celebrities who signed up for Mellstroy on Instagram in the past month include UFC fighter Conor McGregor and musician Michael Ray Nguyen-Stevenson (Tyga).
But not all heroes of Mellstroy’s hardships became rich. The publisher refused to pay $2 million to a Lithuanian boy, citing the poor quality of President Gitanas Nausėda’s “greetings”. Burim agreed to pay only 100-150 thousand dollars, but it is not known whether the child received the money. Also paid flew and a Russian who, on the instructions of a publisher, figured out how to send a beacon to the Moon, nicknamed Mellstroy: Burim promised to pay a billion dollars to complete this task, but instead blocked the subscriber on his Telegram channel.
How much does Mellstroy earn?
Mellstroy’s main source of income is online casino advertising. The blogger plays them regularly in his posts. We will drill in 2023 statedthat for such ether the casino paid him 16 thousand dollars (about 1.5 million rubles at the current exchange rate). In addition, the broadcaster receives part of the money that gambling organizers provide him for the game – this is also millions of rubles. Casinos also pay the broadcaster a percentage of the money their viewers lose.
Another streamer’s “money artery” is regular donations from its viewers. Sometimes Mellstroy fuels the activities of his audience and again arranges difficulties for them. For example, Burim decided to give away a Maybach car among subscribers in 2022. He promised to give a luxury car to the viewer who donated the largest amount to him. This simple competition was won by the one who paid 2 million rubles to the Internet star.
Only he can tell the exact amount of Mellstroy’s regular earnings. At the time of publication of the material, the publisher did not answer socialbites.ca’s questions. However, Burim’s fees concern not only journalists but also many of his colleagues. In the summer of last year blogger Lendos took a pretty close look studied I researched Mellstroy’s cash flow and came to the conclusion that the garbage publisher earns 100-110 million rubles per month.
Mellstroy’s debts
It is noteworthy that Mellstroy managed to accumulate debts, despite his huge earnings, according to rumors. In the summer of 2023, while the broadcaster was enjoying the victory after shaving other Internet stars, in one of the broadcasts saidthat he owes about 200 million rubles to various people. Burim could not clearly explain how he got so much debt, why he did not pay it back, and how he distributed tens of millions here and there.
Mellstroy’s colleague, publicist Alexey Gubanov, also known as JesusAVGN or Jesus, believes that Burim’s actions are spontaneous and impulsive, so if he does not have financial problems at the moment, he could appear at any time.
“Given his passion for gambling game addiction “The tendency to recklessly spend money on unnecessary things can lead to financial resources drying up at any time, making the situation unpredictable,” Gubanov told socialbites.ca.
Where is Mellstroy and what is he doing now?
Perhaps Mellstroy’s latest wave of money struggles is an attempt to at least somehow regain his reputation. In the past, Burim tainted her not only by beating Alena Efremova, but also by many other immoral and even illegal actions. No wonder criminal cases were opened against him in Belarus, Russia and even the UAE. Mellstroy is now located in Turkey. Viewers are eagerly awaiting the moment when the eccentric broadcaster will make plays in this country as well.
Denis Volkov, CEO of advertising agency Epicstars, which works with bloggers, believes Burim’s latest antics are a well-thought-out PR campaign by the team behind the publisher.
“Although it may seem like the blogger is offering huge amounts of money, they are not actually cosmic. The traffic that Mellstroy attracts to its resources in this way is cheaper than paying for some ordinary promotional methods. In terms of the professional blogosphere, the phenomenon of Andrei Burim does not exist. His team uses off-the-shelf technologies, not the best creative vectors,” Volkov said.
Publisher Gubanov believes that if Burim’s recent actions are an attempt to whitewash his reputation, it is unlikely to succeed. According to him, even potentially good actions of Mellstroy today are perceived by the public through the prism of his scandalous actions in the past. Natalia Artamonova, host of the YouTube channel Wylsacom, does not believe in the effectiveness of this strategy.
“Her [Бурима] Reputation has already hit rock bottom. I don’t think it can be improved or degraded, Artamonova told socialbites.ca.
Bad example is not contagious
Burim’s excitement strategy is clearly profitable. Today all Russian media are talking about the broadcaster. News viewers are converted into broadcast viewers and then into online casino players. Despite this, influencers interviewed by socialbites.ca believe that no sane person would do what Burim did.
“Able to pay for assignments that few stars abroad can afford, Mellstroy sets a bar that is difficult to compete with. Besides financial problems, there are also reputation problems,” Gubanov said.
In his opinion, Mellstroy’s amoral behavior, encouragement of gambling and bordering on absurd actions do not resonate with his colleagues. Artamonova from the Wylsacom YouTube channel shares a similar opinion.
“Even if we forget about potential reputational losses, it seems to me that no one is trying to repeat Mellstroy, because he himself does not reveal anything. Take, for example, the idea of following MrBeast on Instagram. “Originally, if I’m not mistaken, it was invented not by Mellstroy, but by another blogger, Litvinov,” he said.
Artamonova also said that Burim is generally not well respected in the blogosphere. Only those who do not value their reputation or have already lost it support it.