Badabun

Badabun Network is a Mexican Internet production company. In 2014, Badabun started as a YouTube channel that originally uploaded top videos and street surveys, with elements of humor. Years later, Badabun grew quickly thanks to a lot of Internet celebrities who criticized their content. They have created productions like "Atrapando infieles", "Entrevistamos A", "Mansión del influencer" and "Exponiendo infieles", the latter being their most popular. They have also had people such as Alex Flores, Daniel Alfaro, and Lizbeth Rodríguez as employees. In the video "", 2019 edition of YouTube Rewind, Badabun was listed as the most popular Spanish-language channel. Their notoriety increased in early 2020 in the english YouTube community for plagiarizing "Super Mario Bros." speedruns from multiple sources and passing them off as their own in "Pasando Super Mario Bros. En 5 minutos." 
Badabun has received a lot of criticism, as their content has been described as "sensationalistic" and "false", as well as accusations from their workers, including laboural bullying, sexual bullying, and homophobic attacks.
History.
Badabun was founded in 2010 by six law students from the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, including Heber Bujorquez and the former CEO of the company, César Morales. They thought about creating an app to locate lawyers via geolocation who could answer questions about legal issues, which the creators defined as "a lawyers' Uber." However, the project failed due to lack of funds and interest. Three years later, Morales wrote blogs about historical facts that did not raise interest in their viewers. Their first trend was an article called "7 cosas que no conocías de El Chapo" ("7 things you didn't know about El Chapo"). Later articles were also successful. During this time, the company dedicated time to help monetize Facebook pages, and taught people how to win money with the Internet. Despite this, the founders saw that the videos were more popular than the articles, and, in 2015, they decided to exclusively create audiovisual content. Some time after the site gained media coverage, radio announcer Víctor González joined the team, becoming a channel icon.
Their YouTube channel was created in October of 2014, and their first video was published on December 5th of that same year, it was called "10 cualidades que todo hombre desea en una mujer" ("Ten qualities that every man seeks in a woman"). Their early videos discuss curiosities, tricks, experiments and general viral content. In December of 2016, the channel reached 1 million subscribers, and their video format coninued in the same line, with the addition of street surveys. By the end of 2017, they had 5 million subscribers, and during that time, they began the production of "Exponiendo infieles", which generated a much larger growth, and went on to become one of the most important series of the company. Other productions include "Mansión del influencer", with a reality TV format in which influencers interact between each other, comedy series "WTF Comedy", "Entrevistamos a", and "Qué pasaría si...", where they explain the consequences of fictional events.
In January 2019, Badabun's YouTube channel surpassed the YouTube channel elrubiusOMG in the number of subscribers, becoming the second-most subscribed Spanish-language channel, behind Chilean channel HolaSoyGerman.Later on in April of the same year Badabun surpassed HolaSoyGerman in number of subscribers,becoming the most subscribed Spanish-language channel. In December of that same year, in the video "", the tenth edition of YouTube Rewind, the channel was highlighted as the channel in Spanish with the most amount of suscribers. 
Critics and controversies.
Ever since Badabun received wider media coverage, they have been a target of criticism, involved in many controversies. One of the main criticisms of the company is their use of clickbait in their content, or the usage of unreliable content. Their series "Exponiendo infieles" was accused of committing fraud several times, saying that participants were hired to fake infidelity. In December 2019, the former actor of the team, Lucas Petroni, said that the company originally hired him for an episode of that series. In addition, he said that his engagement with the also former actress Daniela "Queen" Buenrostro was made up by the company. 
On 6 December 2019, former team employees Alex Flores, Dani Alfaro, Daniela "Queen" Buenrostro, Kevin Achutegui, and Kim Shantal, together with the YouTuber Juan De Dios Pantoja, posted a video denouncing the sexual bullying, laboural bullying, and homophobia that they suffered while working with the company, specifically from CEO César Morales. In the 37-minute long video, they announced that the actors suffer labor exploitation, being forced to work up to twenty hours a day to create content; and forcing them to do things against their will, such as fake rescue moments, giving gifts to people, and inventing romantic relationships in order to gain audiences. They also said that they were forced to sign abusive contracts, in which they gave up control over everything they do, including their social media, and that they were victims of verbal abuse, specially women, who were insulted "for good purposes". They did not further explain the other abuses, such as sexual bullying or homophobia. Days after the complaint, former employee Daniela Lorea published a video accusing Morales of sexual bullying, and YouTuber Carolina Díaz complained in a Instagram live stream that she also suffered sexual assault and rape attempts by Morales. After this, Badabun confirmed the dismissal of Morales on December 11.
In December 15, Morales conducted an interview on Víctor González' YouTube channel. He stated that money, and a problem with Juan De Dios Pantoja, triggered the polemic situation. Over a year before Badabun, Pantoja and the Badabun team created the "Jukidog" channel, which gained millions of suscribers over a few months. Badabun would make investments, and Pantoja would oversee distribution and advertising. Approximately 3 million Mexican pesos were invested in the project, but it did not meet the expectations. Then, in a meeting with all the company's YouTubers, the decison was made that the art team would no longer be necessary. Morales opposed the dismissal, and proposed using "Jukidog" to create more content, with the possibility of it generating incomes for his salary. He said that Pantoja was annoyed by the event, and that later, Pantoja posted a flury of claims about the company through social media. Regarding labor abuse, he said: "Guys, it would be good for you to accept that everything you said was made up, and with lies, we will not agree on anything; you should be honest and say the truth. If any infringement exists, I suggest to you go to ministry and report it".
Lizbeth Rodríguez spoke out against Badabun stating she would no longer continue to work with the company.
Allegations of plagiarism.
On January 10, 2020, Youtuber Karl Jobst published a video analyzing Badabun's video "" (Getting through "Super Mario" in 5 minutes). Jobst stated that their video, appearing to be a legitimate speedrun of the game "Super Mario Bros.", had actually compiled footage from multiple other sources while claiming them to be their own.