• bitofhope@awful.systems
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    25 days ago

    The name and face of the most subscribed man on YouTube keeps changing every few years but my perpetual dislike of him keeps being validated.

    • swlabr@awful.systems
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      25 days ago

      The only youtubers I like are the creatives that have side gigs and alternate sources of income. It’s almost as if having youtube as your main source of income corrupts your incentives to the point of moral bankruptcy, OR, the only people that can have youtube/social media be the money maker are morally bankrupt to begin with. If only we had more data on this!!!

  • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systems
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    25 days ago

    The guy running a hostile workplace while hanging out with Logan Paul, selling junk food to children, and putting on reality shows so hostile to the contestants that they get compared to torture is… into cryptocurrency?! I’m shocked! Shocked!

    Goodness kids need some better role models because sometimes it seems 90% of people on the social networks are morally bankrupt.

    • BlueMonday1984@awful.systems
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      24 days ago

      Goodness kids need some better role models because sometimes it seems 90% of people on the social networks are morally bankrupt.

      The world needs another Mister Rogers, but I’m not sure if the world wants another Mister Rogers.

      • MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world
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        24 days ago

        I don’t think another Mister Rogers could or would want to compete for views based on thumbnails and video titles. I just can’t imagine, “You will NOT BELIEVE how EASY it is to treat your NEIGHBORS with COMPASSION!”

        • corbin@awful.systems
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          24 days ago

          Mr. Rogers’ channel thumbnails would look like one of those full-completion video-gaming channels that involve a controller-holder, sometimes along with a confused roommate or neighbor, logging hour #73 of a 20hr RPG because they can’t figure out how to get a platinum on the last minigame. There’d be a blurry background of the handpuppets and two headshots of Mr. Rogers smiling and his guest freaking out. I think the titles would be fairly tame, though; I’m imagining, “Another Day in the Neighborhood #112 | An Unexpected Guest, Learning to Tie Shoes”

          Now, where it gets fun is imagining that Lamb Chop could have the same setup. “Lamb Chop & Friends #52 | She’s Unstoppable, So Much Blood, Can We Unsummon Lamb Chop?”

      • bitofhope@awful.systems
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        24 days ago

        What the hell do people think they’re adding to the conversation with quips like this? We were talking about how social media personalities should be better role models. Should parents be good role models? Yes, but that’s only relevant to the discussion, if you mean to imply it’s not a problem that social media entertainers are bad ones, and that parents being good ones just solves any issues.

        • froztbyte@awful.systems
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          24 days ago

          didn’t you know? kids exist in perfect social isolation taking social cues only from their parents and no other information or humans they have contact with! and it’s not like parents have issues either, right? I mean who’d have issues and then go pop out some kids?! madness

          (utter and complete /s ofc. the aforeposter in question is the intended recipient)

    • froztbyte@awful.systems
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      25 days ago

      for many years, I went blessedly unaware of who this random fuckjack was, knowing only: 1) ambiently knowing the name, 2) that I ambiently know the name (these two things together are usually a decent heuristic for me to not bother digging)

      and then I got jumpscared by a full-scale mrbeast standee in a shop some months back

      may I soon be able to forget about this fuckjack once again

        • froztbyte@awful.systems
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          25 days ago

          I got a handful of paragraphs into reading that and then realized I definitely don’t want to read that tonight

          def fuck that guy tho

      • V0ldek@awful.systems
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        25 days ago

        All you need to know is that his real name is Jimmy Donaldson and he’s exactly the type of person you expect to be named Jimmy Donaldson.

        • Alk@sh.itjust.works
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          25 days ago

          I’ll be honest, that name gives me the vibe of some somewhat good guy who got straight A’s but has worked at a sandwich shop for 10 years.

          • V0ldek@awful.systems
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            25 days ago

            Old Donaldson had a grift, E-I-E-I-O

            And he would often pump-and-dump, E-I-E-I-O

            With a wallet here and a wallet there, Here a pump, there a dump, everywhere pump-dump,

            Old Donaldson had a grift, E-I-E-I-O.

          • froztbyte@awful.systems
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            25 days ago

            that was indeed another input to the heuristics

            (post-hoc, to be honest. but it’s still fucking hilarious)

  • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems
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    25 days ago

    This is cool but will any of it explain the most pressing MrBeast question: why does he smile like that? I’m assuming it’s because he’s always thinking about how terrible a person he is.

    • FredFig@awful.systems
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      25 days ago

      I believe its because they A-B tested his thumbnails, editors found that they vacuumed slightly more eyeballs when he was smiling, and updated the thumbnail images of him not smiling with photoshop.

      The fault isn’t with the photoshop though, he just doesn’t have a soul so it actually looks like that when he smiles.

        • Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems
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          25 days ago

          I’m honestly obsessed with it because it’s so baffling. It takes effort to make your smile look this fake, and dedication to stick with it year after year. There’s no way he hasn’t been told how bad it looks, and how he could simply squint his eyes just a tad and it would look so much more natural. It’s got to be a choice.

      • Mii@awful.systems
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        25 days ago

        I keep hearing that stupid-face thumbnails generate more clicks and more and more people do it, and yet every single person you ask says they think it’s fucking stupid, including the creators themselves. I really wonder who these people they A-B test this with are, or if this is just some Google Autoplag Bot that estimates it’s better because it falls flat into their uncanny valley home territory.

        • dev_null
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          25 days ago

          The masses that watch his videos are not the people you’d find on Lemmy and probably not in your friend circle. They are people who click the videos on the YouTube homepage from their Smart TV and probably aren’t even logged in.

        • IMongoose@lemmy.world
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          25 days ago

          They A-B test it themselves. At least some do. You can actually run multiple thumbnails on YouTube for the same video and see what does best. Linus Tech Tips also did this manually and found the face ones do better.

      • o7___o7@awful.systems
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        24 days ago

        I’ve heard the theory that dumb youtube-face impresses the algorithm itself, somehow. This causes the videos to surface at a higher rate, which leads to more eyeballs (but with a layer of indirection) even though no human actually prefers it. Sort of a reverse-slop situation.

    • swlabr@awful.systems
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      25 days ago

      I had heard a bunch of positive press about him (the trees stuff, etc.) but didn’t look into him because why should I care about a youtuber? Then I found out he was part of the ghost kitchen craze and was selling candy bars. I saw his face on a supermarket standee and thought: that is mason verger after consulting a PR firm. That’s the pre-evolution of mitch mcconnell. Of course he does squid game shit to entertain children.

    • ChronosTriggerWarning@lemmy.world
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      24 days ago

      I wouldn’t clarify barring your teeth as a smile, but that’s me. Someone told me to zoom in on his eyes. Real smiles touch the eyes. Does that look like a smile when you do that?

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    25 days ago

    Same experience with Sam bankman-fried. Suddenly hearing about them elsewhere as a super ethical billionaire or whatever shit only to turn out that they’re a shit stain billionaire like all the rest.

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    23 days ago

    Finally something to actually get mad at him for. 100% arrest and charge him for pump and dumping crypto.