I've always been sus of his content it seems to all be gambling, selling product, or sanitized hunger games style contests that pit struggling content creators against each other targeted at a young audience.
That, or the fact that he very clearly abuses charity as a public spectacle and shield against legitimate criticism. Truly, Mr. Beast's content is one step removed from the YouTubers that made homeless people dance for a $10 bill.
Oh, the "bum fights" comparison has some resonance with me.
I find his videos to be very off-putting and sometimes offensive. I generally feel like I need a shower after watching them. But I'm obviously not his target demographic, so my opinion is meaningless.
I'm just reassured to learn I'm not completely alone.
Can someone provide a tl;dw? I don't have time to watch a 53min video, and it's tough to skip around the way one might in a structured article. Curious what the main claims are?
There's an element of kayfabe to a lot of MrBeast's videos. Harmless kayfabe that most rational adults can see through and not care about (selective post editing to increase tension, etc). This somehow makes MrBeast a bad man.
He also seems to think that MrBeast should be 100% altruistic and that using his videos to promote products to children is bad.
Children have died because they didn't know professional wrestling was fake. Something like half of young kids want to become streamers when they grow up. It's an important conversation to have.
Yet... I can see the next generation iterating on his contest style challenge videos in a more guerilla style with less resources and safety leading to a similar outcome.
I've watched it all while doing something else because I never understood MrBeast's success, had listened to some interviews he had done before, and apart from learning how to manipulate YouTube.
I never really believed in the whole "I invest everything back into my videos", he always sounded unauthentic/ingenuine to me for some reason.
The key points I got from background listening:
1. MrBeast is a fraud by advertising that all of his videos are real, while most are heavily edited.
2. MrBeast uses psychological techniques to manipulate children: call to actions (subscribing) with positive or negative reinforcement; then evolved into scam giveaways where the prizes are never distributed. [0]
3. MrBeast's game shows are rigged, and unfair, against any Standards and Practices that public broadcast shows are required to follow by law.
4. MrBeast runs illegal lotteries by promising to give away prizes, one example is signing merch and selecting an order at random time windows to have the next prize in the parcel. Prizes can vary from videogames, valuable electronics, all the way to cash amounts.
4.1. The merch signing is also somewhat fraudulent, some other crew members sign off the merch with MrBeast's signature to make the fans believe they got it signed by Jimmy himself.
5. MrBeast evolved these techniques to push kids into gambling for possible prizes to the real world with Feastables, stating there were tickets to participate in some event with him distributed at random between all Feastables; a YouTuber with 700k+ subscribers was "randomly" one of the winners. [1]
6. MrBeast's advertising of Feastables was initially that those were much healthier than a Hershey's bar, using less ingredients (implying that Hershey's composition was unhealthy); after those initial claims the recipe was changed and almost matches all the ingredients in a Hershey's bar.
The summary to me is that MrBeast is exploiting children with the same mechanisms of lootboxes, basically making children become gamblers; pushing it into the real world by making them purchase (and potentially consume) as many chocolate bars they can get for a very, very small chance of winning some prize. It's not known how fair the distribution of prizes is among those bars.
As usual, another grifter, this one chose to exploit children so many consider him smart.
Thanks. I'm not particularly for or against Mr. Beast but this is mostly the kind of thing I would expect from an influencer. Guess he is not as wholesome as advertised if this stuff is true.
What works for me most of the time on youtube is to just avoid clicking on videos where people put their faces on the video thumbnail, those things always make me angry when I see them. Fortunatly youtube stoped showing me suggestions on the frontpage because I disabled watch history, so I only see the thumbnails on the sidebar when watching a video.
Many/most online personalities are frauds. Being genuine is exceptionally boring and unprofitable. Being hyped so often, always taking things to their extreme, being exceptionally provocative, etc is exhausting but the meat and potatoes of the digital world.
I have seen good creators reach for money and completely invert their messaging, identity, etc. I have seen the money folks drop the facade and become completely normal people.
Faking sincerity is big business, and if your core audience is mostly children it's also startlingly easy.
The most popular "hot tub" streamer on Twitch, before she went down her current path, was a phenomenal cosplayer, but I assume she makes 100x or 1000x what she did then. On the flipside, there are a few retired pornstars on Twitch who stream themselves gaming to...practically no one.
A popular and highly controversial political streamer saw that streamers on the other side of the political spectrum saw more financial success, and inverted his persona to match.
And then of course you have the litany of streamers and youtubers (even one of the most popular female streamers) forced into "retirement" because their decade or more of awful behavior comes to light.
Do not idolize streamers, and, by God, do not let your children idolize them.
This is why I greatly appreciate the handful of content creators I follow who don't just chase the dollar and cultivate a fan based and stay true to their original intent.
> Being genuine is exceptionally boring and unprofitable.
Well, "boring" is subjective. I personally find hype boring and actual authenticity (or at least an accurate enough simulation of it that I can't tell) to be very interesting. Perhaps because it's so rare.
> Do not idolize streamers
Do not idolize anybody, actually. Every human is too imperfect to be idolized.
And when you aggregate enough individuals you have something approaching objectivity. In other words, statistically speaking, what is the best poise and posture to have as a public figure?
Saying that something is subjective and using an anecdote of yourself is as lazy as a cook saying they can't cook good food since everyone is different... so of course this dish should be spicy because they personally prefer it. Or you measure your audience.
We can trust people like MrBeast to be measuring the audience.
> And when you aggregate enough individuals you have something approaching objectivity.
No, you just have a lot of individuals who make a similar subjective call.
> In other words, statistically speaking, what is the best poise and posture to have as a public figure?
That's an entirely different thing. You're talking about monetization, and even then, you're talking about the sort of monetization that prioritizes maximizing income over all other considerations. That's certain a legit worldview, but it's far from the only one.
A chef saying the same thing you do is abdicating their responsibility as a chef.
You counter on Mr Beast's style by saying you like less hype and more authenticity, and aren't we all different people anyway? That opinion can only move the needle when you convince enough people.
You go on to elaborate that measuring enough subjective opinion is not the same thing as objectivity on the question of what people like out of people like Mr Beast.
There is an objective way to talk about what's happening here, it's not all mired in subjectivity. And the reason why this should even be said is because you are that different from the general population.
> A chef saying the same thing you do is abdicating their responsibility as a chef.
We disagree on this point.
> You counter on Mr Beast's style by saying you like less hype and more authenticity, and aren't we all different people anyway?
Yes! This was the underlying point that I was making. That's what underpins my statement that "boring" is subjective. Because it is. (And I wasn't "countering Mr Beast's style". I was just pointing out the fact that authenticity is interesting to some).
> That opinion can only move the needle
Perhaps this is where we're misunderstanding each other? I'm not trying to move any needle. I suspect we're having two entirely different conversations because I'm genuinely not seeing how your points relate to mine, and when I stop trying to understand your statements as counterarguments to mine, I'm not disagreeing with you. I think we're talking about two different things here.
Not my cup of tea personally, but I recommend watching his interview with Lex Fridman for some behind the scenes insight. He comes across as incredible smart and knows exactly what he's doing. Also not afraid to re-invest millions of dollars into producing these videos. Obviously it's very much a for-profit endeavour. Not sure, don't think he's fooling anyone and his accomplishments deserve at least some respect I think.
Have you watched the video? Because the whole point of it is exposing how MrBeast is earning money by manipulating his children audience into gambling.
Yeah, he cracked the code of how to milk money from children, incredible smart at what he's doing.
I don't think he deserves absolutely any respect for exploiting children for profit.
I've not seen the interview, but I'd be interested in which character comes across.
"Mr Beast" is clearly a character that is played up to, visible in the YouTube videos. Behind this is Jimmy Donaldson, who seems to regularly give interviews about his motivations, and describes in a much more mature way how he just wants to create good content and be altruistic. Beneath this however is the private Jimmy Donaldson who seems like a much more cynical capitalist who knows how to manipulate and stay under the radar on the law in order to make money through illegal mechanisms (gambling).
I'd assume it was the middle one that turned up in the Lex Fridman interview as with most of his interviews. The latter seems much more private.
He basically uses the same methods as cult leaders (e.g. Trump) to capture an audience and turn them into loyal followers, with promises of success, rewards, and in-group messaging (like MAGA hats). He uses brainwashing techniques. He is deceptive, humiliation, selective recognition, and so on.
And he's using those techniques on a teenage audience that wouldn't know better, without parental supervision.
And YouTube profits heavily from it, so their oversight is financially compromised.
If you only have a few minutes, start watching at 14:00, and decide for yourself whether this is criminal behavior.
32 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 66.4 ms ] threadI find his videos to be very off-putting and sometimes offensive. I generally feel like I need a shower after watching them. But I'm obviously not his target demographic, so my opinion is meaningless.
I'm just reassured to learn I'm not completely alone.
He also seems to think that MrBeast should be 100% altruistic and that using his videos to promote products to children is bad.
No-one is dying because MrBeast tells kids to subscribe and buy feastables. What conversation are we supposed to have?
No one is dying, just children being exploited. No biggie.
I never really believed in the whole "I invest everything back into my videos", he always sounded unauthentic/ingenuine to me for some reason.
The key points I got from background listening:
1. MrBeast is a fraud by advertising that all of his videos are real, while most are heavily edited.
2. MrBeast uses psychological techniques to manipulate children: call to actions (subscribing) with positive or negative reinforcement; then evolved into scam giveaways where the prizes are never distributed. [0]
3. MrBeast's game shows are rigged, and unfair, against any Standards and Practices that public broadcast shows are required to follow by law.
4. MrBeast runs illegal lotteries by promising to give away prizes, one example is signing merch and selecting an order at random time windows to have the next prize in the parcel. Prizes can vary from videogames, valuable electronics, all the way to cash amounts.
4.1. The merch signing is also somewhat fraudulent, some other crew members sign off the merch with MrBeast's signature to make the fans believe they got it signed by Jimmy himself.
5. MrBeast evolved these techniques to push kids into gambling for possible prizes to the real world with Feastables, stating there were tickets to participate in some event with him distributed at random between all Feastables; a YouTuber with 700k+ subscribers was "randomly" one of the winners. [1]
6. MrBeast's advertising of Feastables was initially that those were much healthier than a Hershey's bar, using less ingredients (implying that Hershey's composition was unhealthy); after those initial claims the recipe was changed and almost matches all the ingredients in a Hershey's bar.
The summary to me is that MrBeast is exploiting children with the same mechanisms of lootboxes, basically making children become gamblers; pushing it into the real world by making them purchase (and potentially consume) as many chocolate bars they can get for a very, very small chance of winning some prize. It's not known how fair the distribution of prizes is among those bars.
As usual, another grifter, this one chose to exploit children so many consider him smart.
[0] Also cited in this AMA: https://old.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1e9qk2s/i_worked_for_m...
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1e9qk2s/i_worked_for_m...
I have seen good creators reach for money and completely invert their messaging, identity, etc. I have seen the money folks drop the facade and become completely normal people.
Faking sincerity is big business, and if your core audience is mostly children it's also startlingly easy.
The most popular "hot tub" streamer on Twitch, before she went down her current path, was a phenomenal cosplayer, but I assume she makes 100x or 1000x what she did then. On the flipside, there are a few retired pornstars on Twitch who stream themselves gaming to...practically no one.
A popular and highly controversial political streamer saw that streamers on the other side of the political spectrum saw more financial success, and inverted his persona to match.
And then of course you have the litany of streamers and youtubers (even one of the most popular female streamers) forced into "retirement" because their decade or more of awful behavior comes to light.
Do not idolize streamers, and, by God, do not let your children idolize them.
Well, "boring" is subjective. I personally find hype boring and actual authenticity (or at least an accurate enough simulation of it that I can't tell) to be very interesting. Perhaps because it's so rare.
> Do not idolize streamers
Do not idolize anybody, actually. Every human is too imperfect to be idolized.
And when you aggregate enough individuals you have something approaching objectivity. In other words, statistically speaking, what is the best poise and posture to have as a public figure?
Saying that something is subjective and using an anecdote of yourself is as lazy as a cook saying they can't cook good food since everyone is different... so of course this dish should be spicy because they personally prefer it. Or you measure your audience.
We can trust people like MrBeast to be measuring the audience.
No, you just have a lot of individuals who make a similar subjective call.
> In other words, statistically speaking, what is the best poise and posture to have as a public figure?
That's an entirely different thing. You're talking about monetization, and even then, you're talking about the sort of monetization that prioritizes maximizing income over all other considerations. That's certain a legit worldview, but it's far from the only one.
> is as lazy
Expressing an opinion counts as lazy now?
You counter on Mr Beast's style by saying you like less hype and more authenticity, and aren't we all different people anyway? That opinion can only move the needle when you convince enough people.
You go on to elaborate that measuring enough subjective opinion is not the same thing as objectivity on the question of what people like out of people like Mr Beast.
There is an objective way to talk about what's happening here, it's not all mired in subjectivity. And the reason why this should even be said is because you are that different from the general population.
We disagree on this point.
> You counter on Mr Beast's style by saying you like less hype and more authenticity, and aren't we all different people anyway?
Yes! This was the underlying point that I was making. That's what underpins my statement that "boring" is subjective. Because it is. (And I wasn't "countering Mr Beast's style". I was just pointing out the fact that authenticity is interesting to some).
> That opinion can only move the needle
Perhaps this is where we're misunderstanding each other? I'm not trying to move any needle. I suspect we're having two entirely different conversations because I'm genuinely not seeing how your points relate to mine, and when I stop trying to understand your statements as counterarguments to mine, I'm not disagreeing with you. I think we're talking about two different things here.
Yeah, he cracked the code of how to milk money from children, incredible smart at what he's doing.
I don't think he deserves absolutely any respect for exploiting children for profit.
"Mr Beast" is clearly a character that is played up to, visible in the YouTube videos. Behind this is Jimmy Donaldson, who seems to regularly give interviews about his motivations, and describes in a much more mature way how he just wants to create good content and be altruistic. Beneath this however is the private Jimmy Donaldson who seems like a much more cynical capitalist who knows how to manipulate and stay under the radar on the law in order to make money through illegal mechanisms (gambling).
I'd assume it was the middle one that turned up in the Lex Fridman interview as with most of his interviews. The latter seems much more private.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AMA/comments/1e9qk2s/i_worked_for_m...
You really should watch the whole video.
He basically uses the same methods as cult leaders (e.g. Trump) to capture an audience and turn them into loyal followers, with promises of success, rewards, and in-group messaging (like MAGA hats). He uses brainwashing techniques. He is deceptive, humiliation, selective recognition, and so on.
And he's using those techniques on a teenage audience that wouldn't know better, without parental supervision.
And YouTube profits heavily from it, so their oversight is financially compromised.
If you only have a few minutes, start watching at 14:00, and decide for yourself whether this is criminal behavior.