For those out of the know:
Video 2 (CONTENT WARNING: Torture, SA)
I’m not much for YouTube drama but never liked Mr. Beast’s child lotteries and wealth glorification. If you wanted to improve society you could put that money into actual charity, but of course that isn’t a profitable strategy. Oh well.
No idea how valid the youtuber’s claims are, but it’s so obvious how manipulative beast’s videos are. And it’s wild how many people jump to his defense whenever his exploitation of people for videos is criticized. He made a literal Squid Games reenactment and people ate it up with zero sense of irony.
I’ve commented flavors of this one or two times but:
The major issue I have with Mr. Beast, if you watch any interview with him, is that first of all, he got his money by a fluke. It’s a little vague (I admittedly don’t watch much of his content and only tertiarily gained knowledge of him) but he got his initial money off of investing in Bitcoin super early and parlaying that into a YouTube career.
The insidious thing about Mr. Beast is that if you watch his interviews, he thinks that he is an example of how the world is supposed to work. People are supposed to get obscenely rich by chance or by the occasional virtue and are then supposed to filter that money back down by giving back to the world like senor beast. The only problem is that there aren’t more people like him.
It’s been his deal for a while but his sentiment is seen as wholesome because he plays it off by admitting “yeah I’m lucky so I’m just trying to give back.”
I was a fan when I was younger, back when he was just some guy doing funny shit, but a mix of me growing up and him becoming more corporate caused me to stop watching.
Yeah the wealth glorification and massive pollution made every video and just the waste of money turned me off
I went from ambivalent to angry when he started doing ads. He’s known to kids as “do what I say and you’ll make money”. And then he started saying “buy this thing”. Kids are stupid, so they’ll probably think if they buy the stupid mobile app he’s pushing, then they’ll become rich
It is because people have parasocial relationships.
Did you watch the second video? That guy is fucked up by the experience Mr Beast put him through. Also, the child lottery allegations are right there for everyone to see (though most of the livestreams are taken off the official YouTube, some still exist out there). Plus, selling chocolates (that are actually not healthier) to kids while also doing the lottery thing is pretty shady.