I never understand why people love Mr Beast content. I never enjoyed it.

  • viking@infosec.pub
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    2 months ago

    Kid got rich by streaming and shitposting. Ultimate hero for 14 year olds.

      • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
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        2 months ago

        I peg him at upper middle, but that would be family wealth, not his. My kids watched him when he was really taking off, and he was just figuring out the content math. He started fairly small, spending a few hundred to buy people groceries, to in a few years was loading up a car lot and selling the vehicles for under $10. As his income got more ridiculous his stunts got more ridiculous.

        There seems to be a wave of posts going after him lately, and I feel he’s flawed, but I don’t think his original intent was to do harm. He always gave the impression of someone who wanted to do good in the world while chasing fame, and I feel he succeeded more than many who go in with good intentions. I won’t be accepting the complimentary torch and pitchfork with all these posts, but they do raise some points where he should admit fault and clean up his act. The guy tried to get people to plant a billion trees and put a lot of time and money into it - I’ll grade him on a curve.

  • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works
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    2 months ago

    A) flashy, loud, snippy content that works on people with no attention span or who are easily amused like kids (and annoys everyone else)

    And B) clickbait-type, over-the-top content and games that no one else does - the sorts of things that, even if not high-brow, are still interesting. For example, blowing up a Lambrogini appealing to the action-movie lizard-brain, or a giant game of hide and seek appealing to the sort of person who daydreams about how to survive a zombie apocalypse.

    Basically, its the peak of broad-appeal, low-brow, high effort/production value media.

  • ShortFuse@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    The way his content is structured and edited is like junk food for your brain. There’s a formula that appeals to the least lowest common denominator and he (his team) excels at it.

    The topics he picks usually hit some nerve of vicariousness (game shows contestants) or suspense from wanting to know what happens next (challenges and clickbait).

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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        2 months ago

        Not really. You might think that from looking at thumbnails, because thumbnails all have to basically look like clickbait for people to actually engage with your videos. But there’s tons of good YouTube content out there.

        • NecroParagon@lemm.ee
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          2 months ago

          It’s the only platform I still regularly engage with minus this, being lemmy, tildes, and watchpeopledie.tv/h/slavshit because I get a lot of interesting stuff to watch and people still come on there on their own to express themselves about stuff I care about. But yeah, the fact that YouTube weathered the onslaught of russian bots and kept all my UA supporting channels up earned my respect. Which it’s a great way to keep up if you’re not on Telegram, or are just depressed by the shit, I think it’s a damn good platform. Best thing google has imo.

          But to each their own. I’m not like the vast majority of people.

          Edit: I’ve been suspicious of Mr. Beast for many years. The deadness behind the eyes clued me into him actually. No one that successful with that kinda look is squeaky clean. That’s been the only thing besides the obvious this person is wealthy, probably not amazing, that’s made me dislike his stuff. Also the clickbaity nature of his content.

  • Fades@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Fuck Mr. Beast, he literally preys on children by falsely framing his videos all as possibilities for them if they subscribe to the channel. He shills things like chocolate bars that are healthy to defeat obesity yet those same bars have twice the sugar than others like hershey bars. He gets kids to buy his shit on the guise of ‘oh maybe we’ll slip something in your order box! Maybe an iphone!!!’ and now you have kids stumbling over themselves to beg their parents to buy Mr. Beast merch / mr. beast burger / mr. beast feastables / etc.

    He’s not a terrible person but this shit is gross, a lot of it is gambling-adjacent and the kids EAT IT THE FUCK UP. Yeah Mr. Beast is a businessman, but his business is manipulating children.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5xf40KrK3I

    • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      I don’t disagree, but it feels like every other cereal, pack of crisps and bar of chocolate I see in stores advertises you can win a car or something. Which is stupid, but it’s weird to call out some guy for doing something very common across many other products.

      I was buying crisps to win plastic Pokémon and ice cream to win money 25 years ago. Sure, call out the practice, but you are making it sound like it’s not an ubiquitous type of promotion.

  • solrize@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I don’t watch him either, but the was some drama about him recently. I was sort of half wondering what it was about. Anyone got a quick explanation?

    • mke@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Supposedly, a lot of lying, staging, faking, possible fraud, generally shady and consciously exploitive behavior towards viewers, many of which are kids.

      This is stuff I remember off the top of my head, according to 1 (one) half-watched video on the topic. In other words, I’m not exactly in the know.

        • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Not just any streamer though, this guy has chocolate bars at Walmart and shit.

          He is THE streamer. Ive even seen ads on Roku for his show.

          • itsathursday@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            I’ve started seeing the bars pop up in shops… what the fuck is wrong with parents is my question. Spend time with your kids and then I don’t have to spend time wondering what chocolate has to do with some YT personality and how that’s a real business decision that makes sense and is viable.

    • PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      Basically a for profit philanthropist. He does dumb content that brings in the dough and then uses that for big bombastic charity projects.

      A lot of people like to hate on him because “rich kids shouldn’t be the ones helping others out of poverty!” but like, as long as that’s the way the world is I don’t see any issues with it since he does actually go pretty above and beyond with his acts of good will, legit building homes for the poor, wells for communities with low safe water access, paying for sight restoration surgeries for the poor, I think one of his vids was traveling about and providing community solar networks to impoverished communities, which as someone who works in that field, he’s doing a double service there since even if they end up having to pay for it themselves, it’ll be a net savings vs traditional utility costs.

  • ExtraordinaryJoe@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    My 8 year old loves his videos. I don’t get it, but I’m an old man (57). I don’t understand a lot of what he likes.

  • linearchaos@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Most of his content is gameshows. Some people catch a serotonin high watching other people win money.

  • s08nlql9@lemm.ee
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    2 months ago

    I’m not a fan, but his philanthropy work is also popular. I only started to know him because of his project trees and not about his streaming

      • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        I’m always suspicious of people who make a show of their philanthropy. It just makes it seem like they’re either exploiting people for their own gain, or they have something to hide and are trying to do so with philanthropic work.

        • JimmyMcGill@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          I mean yes but isn’t that being extremely pedantic?

          Take Mr Beast or an hypothetical example. Give 1M to strangers in need, record it, upload it to YouTube make 4M on ads and other sponsors (content is still free). Pocket 2M, make second video where he gives 2M to other strangers in need. Record it, upload it to YouTube etc etc

          Now I agree with you, philosophically it’s best to give without expecting or earning anything in return. But is that really the best outcome? Isn’t it actually arguably better to publicize it and with it reach and help way more people?

          For me the answer is clear. I’d rather have someone record and even make money of this type of content (as long as there’s no exploitation or slimy shit) than have that same someone not do that and instead only help a fraction of the people. I’ll argue that the people being helped don’t give a crap about it, so it feels a bit patronizing to say that they shouldn’t be helped because of X or Y

          This isn’t specific to Mr Beast, I don’t even know the details of the recent scandal. I just see this argument everywhere and I feel it’s very naive

        • dev_null@lemmy.ml
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          2 months ago

          Well, without making money on the philanthropy videos he wouldn’t have money to continue making philanthropy videos. He may be doing it as a 100% selfish thing, but so what? The end result is that lots of lives are improved. I won’t watch his videos, but I’m glad people are being helped.

      • pop@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        Guy brought crypto-bros’ fake twitter/telegram giveaways scheme to youtube. Anybody with some knowledge of social media scams should have been suspicious. But his viewers were mostly kids and kids like flashy over the top content.

        Anyone remember these on Xitter?

        Like, subscribe, follow me and 10 other accounts and post proof in comments for a chance to win 0.0000000000000001 buttcoin.

        5 comments after this post get a NFT worth $NOTHING

        With a bot farm driving engagement, there’d be 1000s of comments in few hours. Probably mostly fake but still a lot of suckers reeled in everyday.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        That’s not the philanthropy part, the games he does are usually with his friends yeah, also in a smaller town in the Carolinas so you probably already know most everyone. The philanthropy stuff is building wells, bridges, houses, planting trees, and what not in other countries, I really don’t see those being his friends as he doesn’t know their languages.

  • Dog@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I liked his content when he did a series called “Worst Intros”. Ever since those were set private, I haven’t enjoyed that content.