I know this is going to sound like some clickbait bullshit title, but I’m genuinely curious, asking in good faith. My two oldest sons are enamored with him, and he seems like a genuine guy, so I’m asking - is he a nice guy? If you google the question, you get a bunch of reddit hate, which I don’t always trust, because…it’s reddit. I have not watched much content (not my thing, I’m old) but I’m just curious what the fediverse has to say.
kinda cringy, but seems like a nice guy.
sure, he does his philanthropy “for views” but that’s what allows him to continue doing it.
not a fan of his, but he’s alright.
He also does a lot of philanthropy that doesn’t get made into content, which leads me to believe he is just a philanthropist. Making content out of it isn’t negative in my mind anyway, it just allows more philanthropy to take place.
He is one of the kindest people you can find on social media. He has helped lots of people through financial and other means. Some say he’s evil for recording and posting these acts of kindness but the views from his channels are what enable him to do these things. He also has a philanthropy channel named Beast Philanthropy.
Basically this, he does a lot of good stuff, but since he does it “for views” some people hate him/think he’s “taking advantage of their situations.”
IMO, he didn’t make those situations, and he’s providing an avenue for those situations to get resolved (even if maybe someone has to get “embarrassed” by virtue of appearing as the benefactor of one of his videos – to be clear, he to my knowledge never does anything like “kiss my feat and I’ll give you a million dollars” to these people).
Kind of one of those, “there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like you” things; if you ask me, he’s overall doing good.
General takeaway is: letting your kids be enamored by mr beast is teaching them to get clout. Teaches them that to do nice things, they must be recording themselves doing it. Its different if youre an adult that can think for themself
“If i cant record myself helping this person out then ill wait till i can find a camera.” Theres a good chance thats the type of thing your kids are gonna unconsciously think about.
I completely disagree. Mr beast genuinely does good. To say that you have to be completely selfless, and can’t want anything in return from helping people is a good way to keep people from helping. Philosophy tube has a great video about just this. She’ll be able to elaborate far better than I can.
I somehow agree with both of you. It’s okay to do good things to feel good, but it’s also not good to glamorize chasing clout.
I somehow agree with both of you. It’s okay to do good things to feel good, but it’s also not good to glamorize chasing clout.
Holy crap, two people with different opinions having a civilized discussion?!?!?!!
it’s nice to see more of these on Lemmy.
I’d rather have a generation of clout chasers giving their money away for fame, than a generation of hoarding billionaires. I know it’s not a dichotomy, but it still serves to illustrate the point.
Yeah but his general point about kids thinking nothing is worthwhile unless it is recorded goes far beyond philanthropy. Many times they’re thinking so much about how something will be filmed that they are never actually present for that something. Or they do only things that will film well because that’s how they register value. You can say that Mr Beast does well AND it’s not good for kids to watch those videos, and both can be true.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I stated at some point that this isn’t a dichotomy, and there are legitimate concerns with the system he’s playing into, but I think that those concerns exist without Mr beast. He may be feeding into a bad system, but at least the how of it is helping a significant number of people. Often, that’s the best an individual can do.
It’s an interesting dilemma. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said but, at the same time, Mr Beast is helping people, even if he’s also personally benefitting. And the only reason he’s in a position to help as many people as much as he does is because of his “clout” - without his platform and the sponsors he attracts, he wouldn’t be able to have nearly as much of an impact as he does. And I’d rather influencers like Mr Beast exist than the Andrew Tate of the world, or the nasty “prank” influencers.
But, at the same time, you’re right that it teaches people they’ll be rewarded more if they wait until they’re on camera before doing any acts of charity. If he can inspire people to do charitable things just for the the sake of helping make the world better then that’s great, but if people are only doing charitable things for “clout” then it’s definitely not ideal.
There’s definitely not a black and white answer or solution. I think Mr Beast has a positive impact on the world overall, but there are definitely both good and bad things people could take away from watching his videos if they don’t consider things correctly. It’s something that touches on a number of philosophical subjects: capitalism, materialism, individualism versus collectivism, the influence of social media, external validation versus internal satisfaction, to name but a few.
The best thing OP can do is to teach their sons the nuances of it all.
I wish there were some way to know the net impact of this. Once helping the poor becomes entertainment, do people actually get up and go do it themselves anymore? Very often these days people don’t actually do things but rather watch others do them online. You can say sure that one person did get money and help, but what is the larger impact of this phenomenon? Are more people inspired to go give? Or do more people “get that itch scratched” and walk away from the video feeling all warm inside just from watching it? And what is the impact to the poor person of their publicity? This stuff is hard to know but I point it out to say there is more to it than “well one person did get help so it must be good.”
One thing it reminds me of is prosthetics viral videos. People love videos where a kid with one arm sees their new robotic prosthetic for the first time. We get all misty watching their excitement. But many people actually go on to have a crappy experience with their prosthetic. There’s one woman I heard on the radio who said she tried many of them and they were heavy, painful, and hard to make work right. She just prefers to use her stump now. And she wishes people would watch a video celebrating that, instead of everyone telling her she should get a cool robot arm. People are icked out by her stump and they all ask her why she doesn’t get a cool robot arm like in the video they saw.
Feelgood porn is problematic.
I feel like it might show them that doing nice things is a way to get attention. Maybe that’ll encourage them to do nice things. Is probably more favourable than influencers that teach doing mean things is ok because it’s on camera or it’s funny or just a joke, and that being mean is a way to get attention. Though its important for children to know that attention isnt everything.
I agree with you, although I prefer this to “it’s just a prank bro” kinda stuff that kids see and want to do for “fun” and clout.
I would ask a different question - is Mr. Beast a good role model for the kids or not? Whether he’s a “good person” or not is largely irrelevant, the fact is he is doing good.
Personally I’m a big fan of his philathropy, but I don’t think he makes for a good role model. He’s found a way to influence and doing good for the world, but I don’t think it’s easily replicable nor should kids try to emulate him - because to be Mr. Beast, you need to be in the influencer / clout-chasing game, which can have roads that lead to success but at the end of the day, it’s an endless game of trying to get eyeballs and capture attention.
I would encourage the kids to forge their own path and not necessarily emulate Beast, but try to make the types of impact he makes in the world.
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Gonna preface by saying I’m not a Mr Beast fan and I’ve only watched about 2 of his videos…
But that said, the fact he films them and puts them online to millions of viewers is how he’s able to do all of this. He likely couldn’t keep doing this without the YT, sponsor, and merch income. While I agree that it’s icky, it is definitely necessary to continue doing it.
My personal take is that content creators and celebrities in general should never be judged as “people” in the sense that you might deem a teacher or a neighborhood kid as a “good” or “bad” influence. Rather, you should treat them as “media personalities”. Content creators are characters. They’re personas meant to drive engagement and clicks. Some achieve this by engaging in risky behavior or drama. Some just do wacky challenges. The motivation is the same in that the persona presented on the screen is a combo of the creator and the engagement from their community meant to drive up click rates and brand-building.
Mr Beast has kind of a “wacky semi-wholesome” image. Odd challenges and charities that hand out cash to random people for views. That’s a cynical take, but at the end of the day he’s a content creator, that’s it. If handing out free surgeries to correct childhood blindness didn’t drive engagement, he wouldn’t do it. If anything, the fact that his community is interested in seeing that project reflects more on them as people than on him.
So in my opinion the better questions for assessing his influence on your children are things like “why does his content appeal to you?” “What about his character do you find likable?” “What aspects would you want to emulate in your own life if you could?”
Again, just my personal view.
The main problem is that his videos are like “I saved 1000 kids from the orphan grinding machine!”, and I’m just like, why is the orphan grinding machine even a thing.
Like when he restored sight to 1000 blind people. It’s a good thing, but also, it’s a drop in the bucket and why isn’t public healthcare doing that for all blind people?
Your problem with him is that he tries to help people that society isn’t? That’s a weird beef to have.
Right, there are a ton of systemic issues, but unfortunately someone like Mr beast can’t really do anything about that. What he can do is his best within the system we have, and the resources and platform he has. He also seems like he genuinely wants to just help people. I think overall, he’s pretty clearly a force for good given the totality of the situation.
Yeah, I don’t think your issue is with Mr Beast in this scenario lol
And that’s fine. But given he can’t just magic public healthcare, does that make his drop in the ocean “bad”?
I watched some really interesting video essays on him and his style and I think the general sense that his philanthropy is good holds true. I think there are two consequences of his videos and content that are negative and have had negative consequences for the rest of YouTube as channels copy his style. The first being the glorification of money and materialism as many videos feature expensive products and piles of money. While they are used in a positive way, they are promoted in a light which I think is negative especially for kids and which has created a genre of YouTube videos focusing on giving and spending huge amounts of cash. The second is the loud jumpy editing style which has spread similarly to copycats. That seems less existentially negative and more just annoying. But ultimately, I think he contributes good to the world, perhaps more in the way that Oprah does than a charity.
I’ve never watched any of his content but I’ve been loosely following the discussion (so I’m clearly more than qualified to comment and have my opinion be taken entirely serious).
What he does is obviously fantastic for the individual people receiving help, whether he does it out of genuine concern or for the attention. There are however concerns that he’s (involuntarily) distracting from efforts to actually fundamentally change stuff about how our society works. Nothing he does goes to the root of any issues, it’s just treating symptoms.
And he literally recreated Squid Game. I don’t know wtf to think about that.
Yeah he’s treating a symptom, but at the same time it’s kinda all he can do. An individual has scant little ability to change an economic system, but they can still use their resources to better those around them.
I don’t think that it boils down to him being a good or bad person. Is Jimmy the person who hit upon the idea of giving g money away to his mom a good person? Probably as much as anyone generally is. Is Mr. Beast the self promotion based, overexagerated youtube personality a good person? Is he even meant to be?
I think the best analogy is that the shows he produces are a lot like reality television. In that way they are based off the appeal of watchung people display “real” and “authentic” emotional reaction that you just can’t get out of actors. But behind the scenes, those are produced and somewhat manipulated to provoke these reactions, and that is the dishonest aspect of it. And while what he is doing is honestly not as bad as most reality television, I do think it is powered by that same kind of dishonesty.
I don’t think it is bad for children to watch this stuff, but I think you do have to explain how many subscribers he has and how many people watch his videos, and that the people he involves in his videos is such an astronomically small percentage of people. Kids seem really susceptible to “sweepstakes” stuff - I know I was as a kid. But my parents did a good job of explaining to me how I probable it was for me to win that stuff without judging me for wanting to.
I still think the best way to engage with children’s interest is to try to understand it, and then helping them understand more about the world.
he seems mostly well-intentioned, and probably won’t be a terribly bad influence on your kids, moreso than any other algorithm slurry youtube videos, so on that scale he’s probably fine for your kids to watch
if we were trying to assess his overall morality it would get into “is clickbait millionaire philanthropy an ethical way to spend your wealth” territory, which is a huge can of worms that’s difficult to find a solid answer for
From his own personal content I haven’t seen a single thing that would indicate otherwise though I’m not entirely up to date with what he’s made. I think the majority of people who no longer directly work with Mr. Beast had nothing negative to say about him when they parted ways.
I think that’s been my reservation about Mr Beast. I don’t have an issue with him recording his good deeds or whatnot. I’ve just been concerned that when you put someone up there … They’ll come out with some controversy down the road.
So I’ve never been a fan of Mr Beast, mainly because his videos aren’t my thing. I’m not a hater neither.
If all is on the up and up, and like you said, so far no one’s said anything negative … then more power to him. He’s also quite young, so he should have a good amount of leeway too.
I think he does good things for the wrong reasons but I don’t think that takes away from all the kind things he’s done. So maybe?
I would say he is good enough. He does a lot of philanthropic work and most of his videos are at least “neutral”. He doesn’t promote hate, discrimination, or spout other nonsense. Yes, he is earning money with his videos but there is nothing wrong with that. Just because his main form of entertainment is about giving away money, doesn’t make it bad or evil. There are tons of game shows out there that give away money that aren’t criticized. How is it any different from something like “Deal or No Deal”? It’s still about making giving money entertaining.
He is still a businessman and not all of his decision can be considered “ethical”. For example, his Beast Burger is a rather big money grab and promoted a bit misleading. It’s a Ghost Kitchen Franchise managed by one of the biggest Ghost Kitchen company out there. But it was promoted as him actually “opening” 300 restaurants. While in reality, existing restaurants just started serving Beast Burgers under the Beast Burger franchise. In Interviews, he is more honest about this but I would say a lot of customers have the wrong impression of what’s really going on.
He uses private jets, which are bad for the environment. That’s a legitimate point to criticize him but I wouldn’t say that makes him a bad person. I wouldn’t call him a saint but as far as influencers/entertainers go, he is definitely not near the bottom of the barrel either. And even compared to most regular people he is somewhere around average.
