What Happens in the Dark Always Comes to Light: Dhar Mann’s Karma

As of early February, many actors and other fans started crowding outside Dhar Mann Studios to protest the mistreatment of his workers. This alleged mistreatment has been going on for a very long time, and his actors have decided to stand up against it.  Many find irony in this situation as Dhar Mann is known online to be very giving and caring towards others, or so everyone thought.  His whole career was built around awareness and positive actions.  He ends nearly every video with an inspiring phrase like “What happens in the dark always comes to light”, but unfortunately his own catch phrase has ended up coming back to bite him.

First we will preface with a bit of background information.  Dhar Mann is a 38 year old entrepreneur and anti-bullying film producer.  He constructs videos for YouTube that show different life issues, bullying, prejudice, cheating, and many other hard life situations.  Each video ends with a moral. As of early 2023 he has gained over 17 million subscribers.  Some know him as more of a meme figure, considering the awkward “low budget” nature of some of the actors in his videos, but overall most viewers assumed he was a good-hearted entrepreneur trying to make the world a better place.  Though recent reports say otherwise.

So, what exactly has he done wrong?  According to the protesting actors who have been speaking out lately, there have been many issues they faced over their time working for him that were never solved or heard.  Most workers had a difficult time even speaking up about these issues.  Ignored workplace issues only grew worse until their breaking point was reached.  This is when the actors decided to speak up.  One big problem at Dhar Mann Studios was the pay. For the large amount of money Dhar Mann has been making through his monetized videos, it comes as a surprise that his employees have hardly made enough to live off of.  It is a very unfair wage.  Colin Borden, a former actor for Dhar, stated in a video that “Not a single actor that works at Dhar Mann Studios can afford to pay rent.”  His video with more personal information on the topic can be found on Borden’s TikTok.  Dhar Mann was able to get away with underpaying his employees because they were considered “contractors” rather than actual employees (even though many of them have been hired to act in nearly every video since the creation of Dhar Mann Studios).  Dhar Mann was able to pay them less because he set his system up to only hire them per gig.

Money wasn’t the only ethical issue faced by these workers.  It is said that Dhar Mann also had a recurring issue of treating his workers very unfairly, which goes against everything he claims to stand for. This alleged mistreatment was a great shock to the media.  One former actor, Jazlyn Nicolette Sward posted a video to TikTok adding onto Dhar Mann’s horrible allegations.  She started by saying that when she first started working there it was a positive experience, she clarified that she did have many great times working for him, but there was one incident that completely changed her view.  In the creation of a Halloween TikTok together, Dhar Mann had pointed a knife at her.  She was made very uncomfortable and felt unsafe in her work environment, she felt it was an unprofessional thing to do.  Multiple other actors have uploaded videos publicly on TikTok to speak out about their individual experiences.

The sheer irony of this case is something quite hard to miss.  It’s also been greatly disappointing to many fans.  How can someone go against the philosophy of their entire online presence?  Dhar Mann has even uploaded staged videos of a very similar case, yet he hasn’t seemed to learn from his own lessons.  “I always thought he was just a happy YouTube guy.  I would’ve never guessed he’d do something like that,” said Jaiden Herzog, a student at McCracken.  It is sad to see that someone known so greatly for wanting to spread positivity has not even taken that action for himself.  In a video about the situation, YouTuber ‘Penguinz0’ (also known as Critikal) stated “Even though Dhar Mann appears to wanna teach lessons of positivity to everyone else, its ‘rules for thee and not for me’.”, which sums up the situation perfectly.

Borden also said that it was hard for the actors to bring any of the issues up without their feelings immediately being shot down.  Oftentimes those who protested the unfair treatment were quickly booted out.  The actors finally decided that they were tired of being silenced, and wanted to finally make change. Another actor by the name of Mair Mulroney expressed clearly that the actors tried to create a meeting with Dhar Mann to discuss their treatment, which they thought would turn out effective, but they ended up being told that they would “not be given a meeting”. Mulroney, a very famous face from Dhar Mann’s videos posted a photo of herself on Instagram holding up a sign that reads “Multi millionaire ignores actors, instantly regrets it!!”. This phrase, as well as others of the like, are a jab at Dhar’s iconic video titles. Dhar Mann Studios is visible in the background of this photo, as well as the caption that includes “#protestdharmann”. As mentioned before, more and more other actors have been turning to social media as a good way to get their stories out and gain more attention to the problem.

There is not much further information on the situation, as it is a recent ongoing case, but it is rumored online that Dhar Mann is planning on suing these actors for speaking out against him. This is, however, not fully confirmed.This situation goes to show that you really can’t believe everything or everyone you see on the internet. Not everybody is the same person they present themselves to be, and we don’t always know what exactly goes on behind the scenes. What happens in the dark always comes to light.