One of the cultural currents that I think underpins a lot of this is the re-ascendence of the "amateur". Gen X was famously obsessed with selling out, and millenials are still squeamish about the malign influence of money on culture. But big tech has pushed so many of these "outsiders" to the forefront because their content can be advertised against without all the pain of dealing with a major studio, and in turn the "relatable" vloggers and influencers have slowly normalized the idea that we should actually root for them getting a bag.
I think the issue at the root of people's dislike of MrBeast is less the performative aspect and more that they all have that "Feel Good Story That Is Actually A Policy Failure" vibe to them. It's not really about MrBeast himself, it's about how the very existence of his channel documenting his acts of charity via extravagant spending is a reminder of how many public initiatives to address these failures starve from underfunding.
How about something far simpler. There are more Z on YouTube, and the algorithm caters to the most users, so maybe gen Z just likes Eyes, Blind, Cures in their searches.
A related factor at play here is that millenials still cling to a belief that one's personal integrity is tied to the systems they associate with, and especially the system that pays them, whereas Gen Z embraces a more "do what you gotta do to get by" ethos. Millenials were raised in a a baby boomer environment that that held the promise of morally righteous institutions and especially an environment where there was still some moral sanctity reserved for the free market and the private corporation. Gen Z however, given their Gen X parents, were raised in more of an environment that was honest that corporations are all out to screw you. Gen Z's solution though wasn't to avoid the corporation altogether, but to join them, admitting honestly that it was exploiting a corrupt system, because that's where the money is. In conversations with Gen Z friends about people like Mr Beast, they freely admit that he is exploiting a perverse system of clicks and algorithms, but their defense is something like "don't hate the player, hate the game."
Reminds me of the "Stop Kony" viral sensation video. Its audience was congratulated for successfully accomplishing a diplomatic intervention by dint of watching a video. At the same time it presented a kind of pre-existing grassroots movement that you were late for if you found out about it through the video. I guess what I mean is: go easy on the self-congratulation, video-watchers!
This past year is the closest I've come to having to engage Mr. Beast as an actual thing:
* My CEO asked me what I thought about the negative response to the cataract surgery video.
* My daughter told an increasingly high volume of anecdotes that involved boys in her class that are really into Mr. Beast.
* This post and the Times piece showed up in my inbox.
I am choosing to keep my powder dry and not watch an actual Mr. Beast video, which I am also choosing to think is brave/commendable in these trying times.
Can you do some investigating into the artwork for the thumbnails? Is it made by the Beast himself? They're incredibly off putting to me but do the youngins find them on putting?
I have the answer to this one! It’s for algorithmic engagement (or as a Redditor posted, “kids like weird faces, and kids are raised on YouTube.”). The popular tech channel Linus Tech Tips made this switch six years ago (!!), caught a ton of flack for it, and instead of changing turned it into a bit of content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRGBAUz5mA
It’s a very…mercenary approach to content creation. Which is not surprising the deeper you go into the Content Mines.
I'm teaching An Inspector Calls at the moment here in the UK and I asked at the start of the module whether they thought MrBeast was a capitalist or a socialist (after we had studied the definitions) and a lot of them felt he was a socialist, which I found interesting... if I remember, I'll ask again at the end of the module.
Also, MrBeast > Bumfights and Jackass, I think. Maybe Zoomers are a cut above us Millenials in the viral content they consume. My memory from school is that many of my male classmates spent IT lessons on rotten.com
Millennials find MrBeast distasteful because of his Oprah-fication of philanthropy. We've known since 2004 (before YouTube existed!) that "you get a car" could drive views. The difference is that MrBeast's business is solely based on monetizing the spectacle of performative sweepstakes (e.g. Publishers Clearing House). His videos more resemble lotteries, game shows, and giveaways than they do philanthropy. Although he does great philanthropic work separately through Beast Philanthropy and Team Trees/Team Seas, it's pretty clear that his primary day-to-day focus is growing his for-profit YouTube channel and related business ventures. That's okay! Lots of professional athletes split their time the same way.
The bigger problem is that MrBeast is Gen Z's version of Kony 2012, where you can feel good about yourself just by watching a video. It's a categorical mistake to conflate MrBeast's individual giveaways with actual philanthropy. His intent doesn't really matter — he's still doing unequivocally great things for a small number of people — but it's deeply ironic that his giveaways depend on the policy failures and structural inequities of American capitalism rather than trying to solve them. To be clear, I don't think he has an obligation to use his channel to solve anything. It's just that "paying for 1000 cataract surgeries" is basically what a 13-year-old thinks philanthropy is, when in reality it's unsexy stuff like "providing scientists with grant funding to develop cheaper tuberculosis tests in Asia."
tldr - MrBeast seems like a good dude who runs a lot of dope sweepstakes that help small numbers of people for views ... but we shouldn't be judging him as a philanthropist any more than we're judging Leonardo DiCaprio
my main problem with mr beast - as someone who wilfully refuses to learn anything about him - is that his face and thumbnails are very annoying
tbh i don't see how "if you watch my channel I get more money to do things you like watching" is in any way unusually cynical (though maybe i'm just used to it, as I back a lot of podcasts, patreons, substacks etc). the appeal of Mr Beast escapes me but that's also true of most youtube personalities and frankly most celebrity followings in general. the only thing that makes Mr Beast stand out among them is how viscerally offputting I find his marketing
there's a comparison to be made here with the kony 2012 campaign. the unique aspect of that video, and the reason for its virality, was that the video explicitly stated that you can just repost it to your friends on facebook and make a difference. i think millenials turned against this sort of "engagement is philanthropy" idea since then.
One of the cultural currents that I think underpins a lot of this is the re-ascendence of the "amateur". Gen X was famously obsessed with selling out, and millenials are still squeamish about the malign influence of money on culture. But big tech has pushed so many of these "outsiders" to the forefront because their content can be advertised against without all the pain of dealing with a major studio, and in turn the "relatable" vloggers and influencers have slowly normalized the idea that we should actually root for them getting a bag.
I think the issue at the root of people's dislike of MrBeast is less the performative aspect and more that they all have that "Feel Good Story That Is Actually A Policy Failure" vibe to them. It's not really about MrBeast himself, it's about how the very existence of his channel documenting his acts of charity via extravagant spending is a reminder of how many public initiatives to address these failures starve from underfunding.
This is all well and good and now I have a question: how much money is going to charity thanks to my eyeballs on this piece?
This isn’t sophistication. It’s embracing the commodification of everything.
How about something far simpler. There are more Z on YouTube, and the algorithm caters to the most users, so maybe gen Z just likes Eyes, Blind, Cures in their searches.
A related factor at play here is that millenials still cling to a belief that one's personal integrity is tied to the systems they associate with, and especially the system that pays them, whereas Gen Z embraces a more "do what you gotta do to get by" ethos. Millenials were raised in a a baby boomer environment that that held the promise of morally righteous institutions and especially an environment where there was still some moral sanctity reserved for the free market and the private corporation. Gen Z however, given their Gen X parents, were raised in more of an environment that was honest that corporations are all out to screw you. Gen Z's solution though wasn't to avoid the corporation altogether, but to join them, admitting honestly that it was exploiting a corrupt system, because that's where the money is. In conversations with Gen Z friends about people like Mr Beast, they freely admit that he is exploiting a perverse system of clicks and algorithms, but their defense is something like "don't hate the player, hate the game."
Reminds me of the "Stop Kony" viral sensation video. Its audience was congratulated for successfully accomplishing a diplomatic intervention by dint of watching a video. At the same time it presented a kind of pre-existing grassroots movement that you were late for if you found out about it through the video. I guess what I mean is: go easy on the self-congratulation, video-watchers!
This past year is the closest I've come to having to engage Mr. Beast as an actual thing:
* My CEO asked me what I thought about the negative response to the cataract surgery video.
* My daughter told an increasingly high volume of anecdotes that involved boys in her class that are really into Mr. Beast.
* This post and the Times piece showed up in my inbox.
I am choosing to keep my powder dry and not watch an actual Mr. Beast video, which I am also choosing to think is brave/commendable in these trying times.
Is it okay for me to share a gift link to the article? It’s paywall-free, one of the perks of me subscribing to the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/12/magazine/mrbeast-youtube.html?unlocked_article_code=uDocr5PTjS8MGBrGoIGLwVxkTPSMC0lGRj4KXvVRHNdrj7PMfF3zLpDLrTz5Xa2a-HlOpevVkqXt_AuTguxFD70T2zDZQQ-2PvgEBmdfI06RJfseAppvYEmAztZ19lcHPKLFVFhxJoH-NL-QXvIpvD7-GBKqpwJ67zqpFMfQ-fW15emz7DiWBe0QDzpyhynw77VNa2HFoRaOqWbSbA0eKlGMWHYOfuGGaoBuNlXS5mSouic_19frKWORbej86c1GCG8aJ69YPdtHHtRiiSesxGR5NTKkbcbrZCUlmLqiz8zpwMJsNi1y5SkyBa7A2rka5DxOI5Oe5mlLXw&smid=url-share
Can you do some investigating into the artwork for the thumbnails? Is it made by the Beast himself? They're incredibly off putting to me but do the youngins find them on putting?
I have the answer to this one! It’s for algorithmic engagement (or as a Redditor posted, “kids like weird faces, and kids are raised on YouTube.”). The popular tech channel Linus Tech Tips made this switch six years ago (!!), caught a ton of flack for it, and instead of changing turned it into a bit of content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzRGBAUz5mA
It’s a very…mercenary approach to content creation. Which is not surprising the deeper you go into the Content Mines.
I'm teaching An Inspector Calls at the moment here in the UK and I asked at the start of the module whether they thought MrBeast was a capitalist or a socialist (after we had studied the definitions) and a lot of them felt he was a socialist, which I found interesting... if I remember, I'll ask again at the end of the module.
Also, MrBeast > Bumfights and Jackass, I think. Maybe Zoomers are a cut above us Millenials in the viral content they consume. My memory from school is that many of my male classmates spent IT lessons on rotten.com
good ad for your article, my eyeballs will see it & the NY Times will ca$h in
Millennials find MrBeast distasteful because of his Oprah-fication of philanthropy. We've known since 2004 (before YouTube existed!) that "you get a car" could drive views. The difference is that MrBeast's business is solely based on monetizing the spectacle of performative sweepstakes (e.g. Publishers Clearing House). His videos more resemble lotteries, game shows, and giveaways than they do philanthropy. Although he does great philanthropic work separately through Beast Philanthropy and Team Trees/Team Seas, it's pretty clear that his primary day-to-day focus is growing his for-profit YouTube channel and related business ventures. That's okay! Lots of professional athletes split their time the same way.
The bigger problem is that MrBeast is Gen Z's version of Kony 2012, where you can feel good about yourself just by watching a video. It's a categorical mistake to conflate MrBeast's individual giveaways with actual philanthropy. His intent doesn't really matter — he's still doing unequivocally great things for a small number of people — but it's deeply ironic that his giveaways depend on the policy failures and structural inequities of American capitalism rather than trying to solve them. To be clear, I don't think he has an obligation to use his channel to solve anything. It's just that "paying for 1000 cataract surgeries" is basically what a 13-year-old thinks philanthropy is, when in reality it's unsexy stuff like "providing scientists with grant funding to develop cheaper tuberculosis tests in Asia."
tldr - MrBeast seems like a good dude who runs a lot of dope sweepstakes that help small numbers of people for views ... but we shouldn't be judging him as a philanthropist any more than we're judging Leonardo DiCaprio
my main problem with mr beast - as someone who wilfully refuses to learn anything about him - is that his face and thumbnails are very annoying
tbh i don't see how "if you watch my channel I get more money to do things you like watching" is in any way unusually cynical (though maybe i'm just used to it, as I back a lot of podcasts, patreons, substacks etc). the appeal of Mr Beast escapes me but that's also true of most youtube personalities and frankly most celebrity followings in general. the only thing that makes Mr Beast stand out among them is how viscerally offputting I find his marketing
this man helped grifter gary vee pull off an nft scam. not exactly harmless
there's a comparison to be made here with the kony 2012 campaign. the unique aspect of that video, and the reason for its virality, was that the video explicitly stated that you can just repost it to your friends on facebook and make a difference. i think millenials turned against this sort of "engagement is philanthropy" idea since then.