• BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    What is Mr Beast? Is he like a new form of Pewdiepie who just does shit and gets assloads of money to film himself doing some script stuff with the caption “I DID THIS TOTALLY WEIRD THING AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED”

    • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      He often does the reverse, paying people exorbitant sums to do mundane things like spending 3 days in a circle. He practically started and got famous of that genre.

        • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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          5 months ago

          They’re leaving out that philanthropy is a big part of his videos. Sometimes it’s game show style where the winner(s) get huge rewards and sometimes it’s direct charity like the “I built 100 houses” video. People watch them because they’re often feelgood stories.

          It can be a bit controversial as well because people who are more politically engaged often get frustrated by charity when they believe the problem the charity purports to solve is systemic. Whenever he posts philanthropy videos it triggers a huge shitstorm on Twitter of people expressing that frustration and a bunch of people coming to his defense.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      He got his very first start doing weird things for views.

      But he got really famous by being a clickbaity charity funded by viewers. For example he paid for eye surgeries for 1000 people.

      That got him mainstream because the religious right started publicly denouncing him for helping people without it being about Jesus.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That got him mainstream because the religious right started publicly denouncing him

        He’s constantly being front-paged on YouTube and getting shoved into everyone’s recommended feeds. I have never heard anyone on the religious right mention his name positively or negatively. I doubt the Zoomers and GenAlpha folks who subscribe to him have either.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Not mine. I only know of him from my son.

          My feeds are all techy stuff. Cherno, level 1 techs, Adam Savage, and lots of Dragonball shorts.

      • ImpressiveEssay@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        If he had done it quietly without a video crew I would have a lot more respect for him… Actually… I would have any respect for him

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If he had done it quietly without a video crew, Google wouldn’t have given him millions to do his next project which was building free homes for the homeless.

          • ImpressiveEssay@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Precisely my point…

            Now he has a fucking netflix deal. His face in household around the world… & he’ll get paid.

            He’s a businessman, that’s for sure.

            • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              You would have more respect for him if he stopped doing charity work???

              He gets money for charity from the advertisers. If he stops the videos the charity stops.

              He funnels a greater percentage into charity than any other charity like habitat for humanity or the Red Cross. Would you be happier if he funneled his YouTube profits into a prostitution ring like Andrew Tate?

              What do you want from him?

              • ImpressiveEssay@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Intent matters to me.

                He seems incredible fake and artificial. I get zero trust from him. Just because someone hide some shit to charity doesn’t mean shit. ESPECIALLY, if you consider his charity as a % of his wealth.

                If you look at it that way, he gives less to charity than most of us, I would imagine.

                JC yeah, he’s like a family friendly Andrew Tate… hahaha good one

                • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  His intent is to help people. If his intent was getting as rich as possible he would have continued filling swimming pools with orbeez.

                  It doesn’t matter how fake he is. He gets results.
                  That’s why the religious right hates him.

                  • ImpressiveEssay@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    Hahah religious? Fuck those people. They in a cult.

                    I dunno… he seems to be getting pretty rich. And very loved by American children . I think he knows what he’s doing…

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If he’d have done it quietly and without a video feed, he’d be called “Medicaid” and we’d be arguing over how much we need to defund him.

        • PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz
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          5 months ago

          He donates to a bunch of noble causes, and people like to see that. For example building 100 homes for people under the poverty line

          • SchizoDenji@lemm.ee
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            5 months ago

            And it makes pathetic contrarians seethe because they have nothing going in their lives.

            • PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz
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              5 months ago

              Well I’ve had a similar anti-most-popular-youtuber phase too with Pewdiepe too. Logic really went through the window with me, and I’ve also felt this phenomenon with MrBeast, and idk why.

              • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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                5 months ago

                I mean it’s better than reaction channels who say you should disable Adblock because they do this for free and you are a bad person if you enable Adblock (Michelle debris or something like this said this in a video)

            • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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              5 months ago

              People definitely go overboard with their criticisms, but there are legitimate criticisms to be made. While his philanthropy is objectively good and makes a positive difference in people’s lives, it does nothing to address the systemic causes of the problems he highlights.

              His content is also completely apolitical, which rubs people the wrong way when he covers topics a lot of people see as inherently political like extreme poverty, homelessness, and healthcare.

              • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                5 months ago

                Were you also critical of Jimmy Carter for building homes for habitat for humanity?

                Because Carter helped build homes for decades after retirement without politicizing it or addressing the systemic causes.

                • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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                  5 months ago

                  Yes, because it’s not enough. It’s possible to acknowledge good work while also criticizing the ways that it falls short, otherwise we risk cheering for the drop-in-the-bucket charity that doesn’t challenge the status quo and credulously thinking our problems are being solved when more needs to be done.

        • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
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          5 months ago

          I suspect people watch it because it gives them that dopamine hit of helping someone, without actually doing anything. “Oh my gosh, he’s so charitable!”

          Commodified charity is a very effective way to get views and followers, so many people copy his format, doing “charity” for personal fame and gain - i’ve heard of some “charity” tubers/tokers that start selling ad space to fucking online casinos once they get enough viewers.

          • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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            5 months ago

            So those “charity” YouTubers let the online casinos have their ad space so those casinos can give them more homeless people…

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            That he gets money from advertising increases the effect you described because simply by watching the video, they are contributing money to the charity they are watching.

    • λλλ@programming.dev
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      5 months ago

      He started out doing challenge videos like “counting to x” and it was literally like a multi-hour long video where he counted to 10,000 I believe. It’s insanely boring but it showed his “dedication to the bit”. Another is saying " pewdiepie like 10,000 times. I may have exaggerated, I’m not at a computer to look up the numbers. Eventually, after tormenting himself and gaining some followers and he got paid some money from youtube. With his first paycheck he made a video of him taking that check and giving it to a homeless person (IIRC). His philosophy was always to take any money he makes and dump it right into the next video. This has allowed him to slowly make bigger and bigger videos. He still regularly does challenge videos (buried himself alive for multiple days, not eating for several days, etc.) But, him dumping all of the money he makes, into the next video has grown from giving his first, probably couple hundred dollar check, to a homeless man, into giving literally millions away per video.

      He also kind of pioneered the thumbnails you are talking about. And yelling at the beginning of the video to grab your attention by showing enthusiasm was also really his thing too. I mean some people had probably used it before. But, he used it regularly and had the type of content that really was that exciting.

      Whether you care for challenge content, giving away money, some combination of both, or neither he also has Beast Philanthropy. That’s his channel where he does good “because he can”. He puts a bunch of money and gets sponsors to give money for causes like, building wells, building houses, paying for surgeries, building hospitals, etc. I thought it was a bit gross to make videos out of charity work at first. But, it helps a lot of people in under served countries, and raises awareness to them and the charities that try to help them. Also, all the money they make on that channel goes to the charity of each episode.

      That was more than I thought I would type for sure…