21 ms·

On Mr. Beast and being alone in a circle for 100 days

199 points by exolymph 4y ago

isitmadeofglass 4y ago
A lot of Mr. beasts content feel like reverse kidnapping and mental torture situations. And the only “mental trick” you need to pull to illustrate just how horrible a human being he is, is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. That’s what he’s subjecting poor people too, for fun and profit, because he knows the money is worth that much to them. And of cause because he’s making a fortune doing this.
- zemvpferreira 4y ago
  As a content creator Mr Beast only acts as a conduit for what we, the audience, are willing to pay for. It's not he who is the monster but us.
  - Otek 4y ago
    Exactly. Don't hate the player. Hate the game. And the game is humanity, who wants this type of content. But overall i disagree that anyone is monster here. No one forces these people to be a part of these challenges.
    - igorkraw 4y ago
      Why not both? And why does "criticism" imply "hate"?
    - pfisch 4y ago
      You could get people to fight to the death with enough money as a reward. Is that ok?
      - greatquux 4y ago
        No, but we're not talking about that. We're talking only about if these particular videos cross some kind of imaginary line which is different for everyone and constantly shifts in our minds based on the last comment we read on HN.
  - igorkraw 4y ago
    While true I love how the norm of discussion about this is bouncing between two things as if they are mutually exclusive. Yes Mr. Beast is just following incentives that youtube + attention economy + other factors created for him. But also: he chose to do that. I've personally walked away from good gigs when I was eating rice and beans because they didn't align with my values. He doesn't seem to realise or care. And maybe that's because of his situation, which should the also be addressed. But there still remains some personal responsibility for choosing to make money (lots of money) this way
    - colinmhayes 4y ago
      Mr. Beast is giving away millions of dollars. Imo his channel is unequivocally making the world a better place by providing entertainment and giving people the choice to forego a decade of work for 100 days of humiliation.
  - noja 4y ago
    > only acts as a conduit That's a lazy analysis. His creation is expanding a small audience into a larger one.
  - jrootabega 4y ago
    Our children are the victims. They're willing to watch anything, and unfortunately this is the kind of stuff that they think is normal and good.
  - wil421 4y ago
    That’s like saying it’s OK to create CP or torture someone because there’s an audience. Complete nonsense.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      No, it’s not like that.
  - dustedcodes 4y ago
    But we are not paying for it. He just gets the views and Google (YouTube) are those who think it is ok to pay for this content. People will always consume content about some crazy shit if it is made for free, but would we actually have to pay for it then it would show that most kids who watch MrBeast content today couldn’t actually care less about it. Let’s look at it from another angle to bring my point home. If a person gets assaulted and the assault gets recorded by CCTV cameras and then shown on BBC news then lots of people click the article and view the video, but nobody (or mostly nobody) would pay the BBC to assault another person and film it and then stream it. Do you see the difference?
    - sumedh 4y ago
      > But we are not paying for it. Not sure who "we" you are talking but his fans buy lot of merch from his store which brings in lot of profit.
    - unglaublich 4y ago
      No, Google doesn't think it's okay. A company has no such emotions. The financial benefits just outweigh the financial downsides.
    - em-bee 4y ago
      would we actually have to pay for it then it would show that most kids who watch MrBeast content today couldn’t actually care less about it but the kids are not the ones paying. if we had to start paying for it, the result would be an argument between parents and kids.
  - tpush 4y ago
    Nonsense. Mr. Beast isn't an unthinking tool, but an intelligent human being. Exploiting people for money is unethical no matter how much 'the audience' wants to see it.
    - gambiting 4y ago
      I mean, so is something like Who Wants To Be a Millionare[0] exploitative as well? The whole idea is that people voluntarily sign up, to be "tortured" with difficult questions, for a chance to win some money. Of course the TV producers make money on the show, by broadcasting the whole thing for the audience's amusement. I'm just curious where you think the line lies between this and what Mr Beast is doing? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Be_a_Millionaire%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Be_a_Millionaire%...
      - zigman1 4y ago
        That's an interesting thought. I'll try to brainstorm a bit, since my meeting is a bit boring :) First, what was also mentioned in the linked blog post, Mr Beast's videos lack a certain level of fairness, winners of his competitions are often decided by luck, not merit. Second, maybe there's an added benefit for both competitors and audience when watching Who Wants To Be a Millionare. I'm not sure if that's measurable metric, but it's definitely present. I can learn something new, or test my own knowledge, maybe even decide to sign up.
        sumedh 4y ago
        > winners of his competitions are often decided by luck, not merit. So just like real life?
      - notafraudster 4y ago
        The air quotes around tortured are doing 100% of the work here. There may indeed be some nervousness associated with taking part in any sort of competition, but I think most people would stipulate that white collar adult professionals answering 15 multiple-choice questions in 30 minutes in a comfortable studio wearing clothes of their choice, preparing in a green room, given access to water and bathrooms is pretty low on the torture scale. Likewise, we don't typically consider, say, taking part in a poker tournament to be torture, or taking part in a 10K race or submitting something to an art contest. There are, in fact, quiz shows that add torture elements. Rob Lowe hosts Mental Samurai, which is a quiz show where participants are put through physical disorientation[0]. This might be a closer parallel to what you are highlighting, but even still there are coherent and easily articulated ways in which this is not torture. There are a great many reality programs that do actually involve a sort of physical depravation which is closer to torture. Big Brother and Survivor both involve not just physical challenges, but also punishments that are centered around depriving people of the sorts of creature comforts they are accustomed to in normal life. Even then you don't have torture, because again the vast majority of the experience involves being treated with comfort and dignity, the punishments that are small in scale and support systems in place to ensure they do not present real threat. So, for instance, you might have someone being awoken in the middle of the night as a part of a challenge, but they will be informed of that in advance, given additional time to sleep later, and the disruption will be minimal. Mr. Beast's stuff has more in common with challenges like the Hands on a Hardbody challenge[1], where poor people go to a car dealership and have to touch a truck for an extended period of time to win the truck.[1] The contestant pool are mostly people who are quite poor, some of whom seem to be mentally ill, the willingness to do it for the prize almost surely implies they have inadequate access to transportation, and it's extremely undignified. But even this has hourly breaks. It seems like a bit of feigned ignorance to respond to someone criticizing the Mr. Beast stuff by suggesting it is difficult or impossible to draw a coherent line in the sand, and then offering such a patently absurd example as something you think would have to be definitionally included. It comes off as playing language games rather than seriously engaging the substance of the criticism. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3gglCEsvGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3gglCEsvGg [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_on_a_Hardbody:_The_Documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_on_a_Hardbody:_The_Docum...
  - emptyfile 4y ago
    You're both equally disgusting.
- gjulianm 4y ago
  While I'm no fan of him, I think you might be too harsh. > is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. People enter those challenges fully knowing how they're going to go. It's random, rules don't matter, you might get money you don't expect or not get money you expected. The point at which they get the money doesn't really matter, I don't find it a different situation. > That’s what he’s subjecting poor people too, for fun and profit, because he knows the money is worth that much to them Well, he gives amounts of money that are worth very much for a lot of people. I doubt there's a lot of people that can make $500k in 100 days, for example. I watched the one where there's 100 people in a circle, and people got quite a lot of money for the most random things (I think one gets several thousand dollars for being the first to go, for example). I'd get this criticism if the amounts of money were lower, but I don't think it's really the case. A lot of non-poor people would consider those challenges very much worth the money. > And of cause because he’s making a fortune doing this. He says that a lot of his videos lose money and I honestly believe it. Between the money he gives and the amounts he spends to make the videos (like renting entire stadiums) his costs must be incredibly high, even with as many subscribers as he has I imagine some videos might not break even. And he could very easily break even on all of them just by lowering the amounts of money and toning it down a little.
  - dustedcodes 4y ago
    MrBeast is pushing the boundaries on the ethics and morals of how easily people with money can coerce poor people who are in dire need to perform extremely questionable things for the sake of his own amusement. Personally I don’t think this is good in any meaningful way. You could only rationalise such behaviour with the same arguments that other forms of exploitation are explained.
    - gjulianm 4y ago
      I'm not arguing that it's good, only that it's not as exploitative as the parent made it to be. Also, until now, the most questionable thing would be the 100 days in a circle one, and the reward is $500k. I think most people, even if not in dire need, would happily go and do that. Here in the comments you already see examples of that. And, most importantly, I don't see the "coercion" anywhere. Most of the people participating are subscribers to him, he's not just searching for poor people out of the street.
- strken 4y ago
  I'm not that badly off and have never watched a Mr. Beast video prior to this. I would gladly stay within a 300ft circle for 100 days while some dude blasted clown noises at me in return for $500k. There's a library, a garden, some exercise bands, stationery, and 3000cal/day of food. I did 21 days isolation in an apartment at the start of the pandemic, which is 20% of the way there except with less floorspace. There's a really good essay titled The Copenhagen Interpretations of Ethics[0], which makes an argument that the moment you interact with a problem you become responsible for it in the eyes of the world, even if you strictly improved it in a utilitarian sense, and even if the people judging you have done exactly nothing to fix the problem. Reminds me a bit of this. [0] https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
  - isitmadeofglass 4y ago
    Sure, people enter in willingly. And you’d be able to find quite a lot of Poot people who’d do really shitty stuff and let you be extremely shitty to them for money. But so what? He’s still kidnapping and terrorizing poor people and excusing it by paying them off. And Better yet he’s doing so for profit, but he’s effectively have them sign a contract that means they don’t get paid if he gets them to break. It screams of what a shitty person he is in setting this up. If it was just about giving money to poor people there would be no need for the sick games he plays with them, just do a feel good show about how much the money change their lives. But propably not as much add money in it for him doing that. He used to plant trees, now he brutalizes poor people. It’s sick even if it is with consent from the victims.
    - warent 4y ago
      You can dislike his work, but FYI you cannot repurpose the word "kidnapping" like this. First, it's a lie. Second, it diminishes the traumatic experience of real kidnapping survivors. Stop repurposing real words and making a joke of real experiences to satisfy for your own emotional position. Don't bother quoting the definition here and bending around the truth to further your distortion.
    - strken 4y ago
- Aunche 4y ago
  Mr. Beast himself used to subject himself to torture for profit, so it's not surprising that other people are happy to do the same. His first viral video was counting to 100,000. There was another video where he tried to spend 24 hours underwater and stopped because he had built to much CO2.
Gregioei 4y ago
While I subscribed to mb and unsubscribed quite quickly again, I would do that. Easy life changing money. Once in a life opportunity.
- prepend 4y ago
  The hardest part is having a job that allows this. If I could telework than 100% this is easy.
imperialdrive 4y ago
The author (coldhealing) sure can write. I've seen maybe 3 Mr. Beast vids in passing, but now I want to really watch a few more. His bit on Joe Rogan about translating content was pretty clever too.
- a3w 4y ago
  > His bit on Joe Rogan OT, but was Joe Rogan during that time (playing) an idiot that never second guesses blatant lies? I find it hard to watch obscure experts, that are either genius' or delusional, and not know what I heared/watched due to no classification by a reliable source, as any journalist should provide with any third party statement. Therefore, I'd rather watch an interview elsewhere. I think he now has a "fact checker" who googles questions (nope, not scholar.google.com, regular google queries), but interviews seem to stick to their obscure logic even if a house of cards was just debunked at the very foundation by five minutes of fact checking.
nullc 4y ago
I've never seen a mr. beast video because I found the weird sex-doll gaping face on all his videos extremely off-putting and so I block every channel that displays one whenever they're suggested. In fact, the reason I learned it was possible to block channels at all was specifically due to these videos constantly being suggested. I only know what the name is because a picture of him showed up in some other video-- and because I'm constantly reminded by how often I need to block new stuff because more of it keeps showing, even though I always block it. I'm kinda surprised to read this article and hear how awful the content is-- esp given that many other YT channels have spoken highly of him. The face just seemed to non-genuine and engineered to overstimulate some neural network (artificial or organic) and left me feeling that watching even one would be contributing to the downfall of civilization. It's interesting to see that my initial highly negative impression may have had some basis: it certainly doesn't sound like content I would find worthwhile.
- EdwardDiego 4y ago
  That sex-doll gaping face or the fake shocked "Omg I cannot believe everything I'm seeing" face is de rigeur for YT, and I'm guessing it's because The Algorithm (blessed be its bytes) has determined kids click on thumbnails with incredibly exaggerated facial expressions. It's... weird and a tad scary.
  - idontwantthis 4y ago
    I use an extension called click bait remover that replaces thumbnails with an actual frame from the video. Also normalizes capitalization.
    - bhhaskin 4y ago
      That sounds like a great extension, but at the same time I just block those channels that engage in that. None of them make any content worth consuming.
      - idontwantthis 4y ago
throwaway12388 4y ago
I never watched his videos. Do yourself a flavour by blocking his and similar channels they all produce nothing but crap.
- unsupp0rted 4y ago
  I really try to block them but somehow Youtube keeps finding new ones to put in my feed every single day. How can I tell Youtube: * I will never watch a Mr. Beast video * I will never watch a music video * I will never watch a sports video * I will never watch a video about cars * I will never watch a video about Minecraft, or any video game at all
  - unglaublich 4y ago
    - Click 'not interested' whenever you see such a suggestion. - Never click the suggestion! - Like and subscribe to content that you want to see instead.
    - sph 4y ago
      Not all videos have a 'not interested option'.
      - dr-detroit 4y ago
    - unsupp0rted 4y ago
      I go out of my way to select the 3-dot menu and select not only "not interested", but then go to the second step of saying "because I don't like this content". It makes zero difference. User is "not interested" in this Football video because he "doesn't like this content"? User did the same for 15 Football videos? Perhaps user just has been exposed to enough Football videos yet.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    not having a youtube account seems to help. i watch different types of videos in different firefox containers and my kids watch on a different laptop. they see mr beast all the time, but i never notice him showing up for me.
flappyeagle 4y ago
Someone is going to die in one of his stunts. It’s inevitable.
- prydwen 4y ago
  By standing in a circle ? Touching an expensive car ? Playing red light green light ? His videos aren't exactly Fear factor/Jackass style
- hnbad 4y ago
  The question isn't whether someone will die but what happens after. 80s shlock like Running Man used to be portrayals of a ridiculous dystopia, but at this point they should be considered a warning. We already increasingly undervalue human life and have culturally accepted avoidable deaths as long as they can be justified with "personal responsibility" or follow from a perceived moral failing. We're not there yet, but we're inching ever closer. The first article of the post-WW2 constitution of Germany does not establish freedom of speech but the sanctity of human dignity. Of course in practice only lip service is paid to this, but it feels like "entertaintment" like Mr Beast's videos are the exact antithesis.
melvinmelih 4y ago
Can’t imagine it’s mentally healthy to record yourself for 40 hours straight counting to 100,000: https://youtu.be/xWcldHxHFpo https://youtu.be/xWcldHxHFpo
- ugjka 4y ago
  There are plenty of jobs that are not good for you in the long run and being a Youtuber is a job for some
bb123 4y ago
This blogger is acting like traditional network television has never mentally tortured people for our viewing pleasure. Have they never seen an episode of Hell's Kitchen, Dr Phil, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here or Big Brother? Basically the entire reality TV genre is based on that premise. Edit: Seeing as they mention Joe Rogan, Fear Factor is another great example of a reality TV version of basically the same thing.
- citizenkeen 4y ago
  Fox had a reality shoe where they just tortured people for money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_(TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_(TV_series)
  - permo-w 4y ago
    and only for the chance of winning $50k
    - Retric 4y ago
      Lower stakes might be a good thing. I think a high payout could push some people to significant psychological harm.
      - permo-w 4y ago
        it’s just not at all worth that much money to put yourself through this awful torture. how long will $50k last you in the US? it’s ridiculous. the person who voiced the “AI” was probably paid more
        Retric 4y ago
        It’s a contest so people are going to be willing to endure more torture the larger the prize. One self limiting option might be to pay per day and decrease the amount every day split amount the remaining contestants.
  - 4y ago
mdrzn 4y ago
"It’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. It’s even more terrifying that this is solely at the whims of a single former Minecraft YouTube creator who happened to find the perfect niche to build a platform and happens to have a perfect sense for what his millions of anonymous viewers want from a video." Cannot agree less on this take. There's dozen of interviews with Jimmy (Mr. Beast himself) where he explains his POV, why he does what he does, and what his goal is: make the best YT videos possible. Nobody is forced to partecipate in his videos. Maybe this difference in opinion in based on age? Or some other metric?
- antasvara 4y ago
  Some people fundamentally have an issue with the idea of making money off of what essentially amounts to embarrassment or (depending on the challenge) light mental torture. Mr. Beast's motives are irrelevant if that's the belief you're operating under.
  - astura 4y ago
    In that case singling out Mr. Beast makes no sense, there's reality TV shows which are much more extreme in embarrassment and torture than any Mr. Beast video.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - antasvara 4y ago
      Part of the article is about the intersection of embarrassment for money and algorithmic content recommendations. Mr. Beast is an example that embodies both of these trends, whereas reality TV is necessarily less "online" than a social media influencer. In a lot of ways, online content is an intensification of the trend that reality shows like "Fear Factor" started. It's also a short article. Bringing in other examples would necessarily lengthen the piece and potentially distract from the major points of the piece.
  - 4y ago
pjc50 4y ago
> "Whenever I watch these videos I’m awed and scared at the lengths to which humans in the twenty-first century will go to slurp up the drips of unimaginable wealth that the algorithm leaks out through Mr. Beast." That's it, isn't it? It's the exact opposite of dignity of labour: it's compensation for degradation. The "voluntary" part is just highlighting how willing people are to trade in unnecessary misery for the entertainment of the comfortable.
- mylons 4y ago
  agree —- i kept waiting for the author to spend more time on the indignity and exploitation Mr. Beast is dispensing. there are desperate people out there that will leap at a chance for this much cash. how long until we see a Mr. Beast version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(King_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(King_novel) (the arnold movie is ultra cheesey and fun too)
  - GameOfFrowns 4y ago
    I think we're already halfway there with the "MrBeast Squid Game".
    - mylons 4y ago
      I don’t disagree here either, but nobody is dying yet and it’s not a recurring series :)
- SkipperCat 4y ago
  On many levels I agree with you. But, you can also look at this thru the paradigm of the "hero's journey". A normal person, plucked from the masses is given a harrowing mission. If they survive, there is glory ($$$), if not, then there is failure (Internet ridicule). Granted, Mr. Beast is not giving us the story of Luke Skywalker, but I can understand the rational of the person taking the challenge. For most people watching, it's just torture porn, but content providers have to give the people what they want to make a buck....
keiferski 4y ago
A lot of the Internet popular culture really is just an echo of something someone else did years before, but with less fanfare, no money involved, and without the desire to get as much attention as possible. One of my favorite performance artists is Tehching Hsieh, who did 4 time-based works: - One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece) "In this performance, which lasted from 29 September 1978 through 30 September 1979, the artist locked himself in an 11.5-by-9-by-8-foot (3.5 by 2.7 by 2.4 m) wooden cage, furnished only with a wash basin, lights, a pail, and a single bed. During the year, he did not allow himself to talk, to read, to write, or to listen to radio and TV. A lawyer, Robert Projansky, notarized the entire process and made sure the artist never left the cage during that one year. His loftmate came daily to deliver food, remove the artist's waste,[3] and take a single photograph to document the project. In addition, this performance was open to be viewed once or twice a month from 11 am to 5 pm. - One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece) For one year, from 11 April 1980 through 11 April 1981, Hsieh punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Each time he punched the clock, he took a single picture of himself, which together yield a 6-minute movie. He shaved his head before the piece, so his growing hair reflects the passage of time. - One Year Performance 1981–1982 (Outdoor Piece) In his third one-year performance piece, from 26 September 1981 through 26 September 1982, Hsieh spent one year outside, not entering buildings or shelter of any sort, including cars, trains, airplanes, boats, or tents. He moved around New York City with a packbag and a sleeping bag. - Art / Life: One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece) In this performance, Hsieh and Linda Montano spent one year between 4 July 1983 and 4 July 1984 tied to each other with an 8-foot-long (2.4 m) rope. They had to stay in the same room when inside, but were not allowed to touch each other until the end of the one-year period. Both shaved their hair in the beginning of the year, and the performance was notarized initially by Paul Grassfield and later by Pauline Oliveros. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehching_Hsieh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehching_Hsieh
lawrenceyan 4y ago
Is this the algorithm or just late-stage capitalism / pre-post scarcity economics? I think situations like these will only become increasingly prevalent as time passes thanks to technological development decreasing the raw resource cost of goods and services. Because while we have a good mechanism for reliably increasing productivity and efficiency, no analogous mechanism exists for distribution. Thus profit / wealth inevitably concentrates and you end up with > the lengths to which humans in the twenty-first century will go to slurp up the drips of unimaginable wealth that the algorithm leaks out through Mr. Beast. I have no idea how you actually come up with a reasonable solution for this since communism/socialism clearly failed. My hope is that there's enough trickle down from technological growth, that despite increasing wealth inequality, at least the baseline minimum will be high enough that even the poorest people will be able to have a decent standard of living.
- mcv 4y ago
  > I have no idea how you actually come up with a reasonable solution for this since communism/socialism clearly failed. You could simply give people more than just some drips that keep them on the edge of desperation. Whether or not you consider that socialism, it has been quite successful in a lot of countries. The failure of a totalitarian dictatorship in no way implies that excessive wealth inequality is the only alternative.
  - ryan93 4y ago
    However much money your imagined society gives out people will still gladly do game shows for extra cash. Unless you want to be honest and say no one should have even a single extra penny to spend how they please
    - mcv 4y ago
      Possibly, but hopefully it would be driven by a desire to participate instead of desperation. That's the thing I want to take out of the equation.
      - 4y ago
kwhitefoot 4y ago
IS this real?
- elp 4y ago
  He kept coming up when my kid watched YouTube. I sat through a few before I started blocking them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Personally I'm pretty sure its all fake. The reactions are not quite right for people winning so much money. I'm pretty sure I've seen some of the winners as extras in other videos. He got caught handing out fake money which he claimed was for "security". If you were Mr Beast would you really give away $500k plus the costs of spending a full 100 days of filming when you could just get some actors to do it in a week? Especially when you would get the same view count either way.
  - prepend 4y ago
    It would save a lot of money if he just did stunts with friends who didn’t actually keep the money. Kind of like all the NFT wash trades.
lettergram 4y ago
> That’s the world we’re headed into. In the future, content is ruled by algorithmic desire, and those best suited to steer on the seas of the algorithm’s waves and whims. What’s often misunderstood and unaccounted for is that this algorithm is a feed back loop. We are adapting to it as much as it’s adapting to us.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bambax 4y ago
> How does Mr. Beast have the money to create these videos? He’s the fifth most subscribed to YouTube channel in the world. I had never heard of him or watched any of his videos. And now I have, and I'm afraid YT will recommend more. Not that I would ever watch one again except by accident, but still. I feel dirty. Also, about this: > t’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. It’s even more terrifying that this is solely at the whims of a single former Minecraft YouTube creator (...) But there’s no standards, no compliance department telling Mr. Beast that this video maybe isn’t the best idea Apparently the author has never heard of Tomoaki Hamatsu (Nasubi), a Japanese guy who was tricked into surviving off sweepstakes, fully naked, not for 100 days but for 15 months, while filmed and broadcasted 24/7 (without him even knowing it). This stunt was organized by Nippon TV in 2000. It fascinated the whole country of Japan for as long as it ran, and some time after that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi
- cube00 4y ago
  But it's all for the viewers...he's only doing it for you. > In interviews, he explains that many of his videos lose money, and he invests almost all of his earnings from You back into more videos.
- tenpies 4y ago
  At this point he's quite likely the majority shareholder of a fast food empire, a chocolate bar company, and the owner of the Youtube channel. On top of that there is a layer of distribution deals and sub-channels (I mean there's even a Mr. Beast in Español channel). I suspect that early on much of it was carried on the back of personal and business debt, but once the fast food division took off it all made more sense. I also don't like where this is heading culturally, and while I find him odd, his crew or whatever the other members are seem incredibly annoying and vapid. It's also through watching Mr Beast videos, that every Westerner should immediately be able to understand why so much of the world has varying degrees of hate towards the West.
  - n-i-g-g-e-r 4y ago
    [dead]
shitloadofbooks 4y ago
I watch most of Mr Beasts videos (primarily because "the algorithm" throws them at my face until I give in), but his recent interview with Graham Stephen[1] shows another side of him. He lives in his office, doesn't care about personal wealth and is absolutely dedicated to making YouTube videos. He's definitely an odd fellow. [1] https://youtu.be/yADi4cs4Dhw https://youtu.be/yADi4cs4Dhw
- prepend 4y ago
  He says he doesn’t care about personal wealth yet doesn’t donate to charity and instead amasses quite a bit of wealth. He’s not odd, he’s just a YouTuber who is really good at SEOing youtube and getting billions of views.
  - simplyinfinity 4y ago
    Oh, belive me, he does donate to charity quite a bit. Check out his charity channel and videos. He has a charity manager that distributes food and do food drives in a couple of states.
  - M4v3R 4y ago
    > yet doesn’t donate to charity You obviously have no idea what are you talking about. He not only donates to charity, he actually set up a charity by himself called Beast Philanthropy where he supplies people in need with food, schools with supplies, etc. He also spearheaded two huge ecological campaigns - Team Trees (to plant millions of trees around the globe) and Team Seas (to clean up tonnes of garbage from the sea).
    - prepend 4y ago
      Thanks, I stand corrected as Beast Philanthropy is a 501(c)3 charity. I don’t see it on CharityNavigator.org so not sure how it’s audited and how effective it is but at least he seems to have filed the proper paperwork.
- Euphorbium 4y ago
  “Do not recommend channel” is an option hidden in a three dot menu on the video thumbnail. Without it youtube is unusable. You do not have to consume the shit it forces into your eyeholes.
6stringmerc 4y ago
It’s right there in the name - Mr. Beast. I wouldn’t seek out a personal trainer who chooses the name Mr. Hyde personally. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes - the $500k isn’t stupid, but the psychological effects are forever. Hope some of that money got earmarked for therapy and counseling! Not kidding, I am an advocate for CBT and I’m pretty sure this situation is pretty similar to stories where lottery winners end up with mo money mo problems.
- core-utility 4y ago
  Psychological effects? The contestant volunteered for this, and was able to step out at any time (many times while still making a good amount of money). How many people were kept locked in their - possibly smaller - homes during COVID with no option to exit and no end date in sight?
- astura 4y ago
  LMAO, this stunt is a lot less psychologically damaging than my first job I worked as a teenager for $6.15/hr. At that job people lobbed personal insults at my daily, I was treated like human garbage, I was touched inappropriately many times, and I was always getting a raise "next week." Get over yourself.
myaccount80 4y ago
Reminds me of the story of Nasubi: “Tomoaki Hamatsu was challenged to stay alone, unclothed, in an apartment for Susunu! Denpa Shōnen (January 1998 – March 2002), a Japanese reality-television show on Nippon Television, after winning a lottery for a "show business related job". He was challenged to enter mail-in sweepstakes until he won ¥1 million (about US$10,000) in total. He started with nothing (including no clothes), was cut off from outside communication and broadcasting, and had nothing to keep him company except the magazines he combed through for sweepstakes entry forms. After spending 335 days to reach his target, he set the Guinness world record for the "longest time survived on competition winnings".” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi https://youtu.be/DWWK05t98os https://youtu.be/DWWK05t98os
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
This feels very doom and gloom. Mr Beast gets to make the videos he wants, viewers get to watch amazing videos and people who are featured in the videos generally get paid. Everyone wins. Most of his videos are basically excuses to give people money and you rarely see participants not having a good time. Having the guy sit around for 100d is the most 'exploitative' video I've seen, but that really doesn't seem like the goal. If he starts making real-life Hunger Games videos I'd be worried, but it doesn't feel like he's heading in that direction at all. More like a new version of game shows, except it's way less forced, more varied and very lighthearted.
- prydwen 4y ago
  To be fair this video also felt a lot like an excuse to give someone half a million dollars. He brought his kids around on Father's day so it wouldn't be too difficult. The circle was big enough and equipped enough to be able to exercise, maintain good hygiene, do some gardening... The 'toughest' bit was having a marching band play all night, ONE night. I'm a fan of the survival show 'Alone' and there people have to survive out of pretty much nothing for 50-100 days in the hope of earning the same amount of money. This guy had everything provided, the only challenge was boredom and missing people !
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    Exactly. He's hardly torturing these people. On the contrary, most of the challenges are pretty damn cushy.
- loceng 4y ago
  Should we ignore that all of this is funded by the advertising industrial complex, advertisements which are arguably extremely harmful to society due to the cheap-shallow manipulation that occurs with them?
  - seydor 4y ago
    Should we ignore the fact that so many people watch his videos that it's impossible to ignore the number? I agree that his videos are basically a polished version of "give a homeless guy money to do something cruel". People watch them to see what people do for money. There s nothing beautiful in that, but it's a curiosity and it grabs attention. If it wasnt through ads, someone else would be funding it, i dont think that being ad-supported changes the dynamic of his audience.
mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
Many people are ignoring some interesting aspects of Mr. Beasts business and instead are focusing on the content which is mostly attention grabbing, silly, ridiculous game show premises. The content isn't for me or likely many HNers but I see similarities with startups and his business model. From watching a couple of interviews, things I've picked up - when his youtube videos were grossing $20-30k a month he started hiring people and said he hires about 1 person per month since then. He has a teams of accountants, editors, producers, etc. He decided early on to have videos translated but would hire premier voice actors in countries, like someone that voice acted Batman to do his voice. He has an obsessed culture of making the best videos. He built a huge studio and lives there. I see many similarities to what I've read about startup founders and a growth mindset. If anything, there are some huge marketing lessons to be learned from how he runs his business. I would love to see an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups interview him.
- andrewfromx 4y ago
  My kid made me listen to the whole joe rogan interview with him. It was very insightful. Maybe rogan isn't "an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups" in some people's mind, but I thought he covered many issues well.
  - hnrodey 4y ago
- prydwen 4y ago
  Just this week he did a one hour interview with 'The iced coffee hour' (I think that's the name of the channel), and he goes really into details about his revenue streams, costs, his plans for the future etc. Really interesting
- hnrodey 4y ago
  >I would love to see an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups interview him. It doesn't fully match your requirements but Mr. Beast was on Joe Rogan a few months ago. A fantastic interview and they talk a lot about the stuff you mention (voice actors, hiring people, etc.)
prepend 4y ago
> In interviews, he explains that many of his videos lose money, and he invests almost all of his earnings from You back into more videos I dont think this is true. He either doesn’t understand his revenue and costs or is misleading and spinning BS to seem more relatable. He’s the 5th most subscribed YouTube channel. He’s making gobs of money off all his videos. That’s why he’s quite wealthy now. He seems totally full of horse apples and is the closest we’ve gotten to “Ass: the Movie” in my lifetime. I don’t want to be an old person yelling at clouds so if people like watching him then I leave it alone. I suppose there are worse things to watch. But it all seems too contrived for me to enjoy it. In this case it was a simple, boring task and 100/100 anyone dropped into that circle would stay for 100 days to get $500k.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  He spends hundreds of thousands to millions on producing videos, it's very likely he doesn't make a profit on a lot of them. It also seems like he's expanding at a pretty incredible rate. >In this case it was a simple, boring task and 100/100 anyone dropped into that circle would stay for 100 days to get $500k Crazy how the video of this simple, boring task has 32M views. Mr Beast manages to make this kind of stuff very engaging.
  - prepend 4y ago
    It is kind of crazy, but people like it. The Kardasians tv show gets bizarre (to me) views as well. People find it engaging. That’s ok, people can like their thing. But that doesn’t make it bullshit. Lots of people read The Secret and like it. It doesn’t stop the book from being absolute poppycock.
- jccalhoun 4y ago
  It depends on how he is measuring it. If it is just in terms of what he gets from youtube and not advertising then it is easier to imagine. Then there is also the fact that it is probably the case that for every one of these big budget videos that don't make money he has several smaller ones that do make money. The big ones bring in the audience and the small ones bring in the money.
Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
>Their strict standards resulted in content that was homogeneous and boring, but safe. It’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. This isn't terrifying. People do much worse for 100x less. Prostitution and porn, for example, many times drive people to suicide. People stay on ships for months at a time without seeing their family, not too long ago, sailors would go years on ships. Why? For money. The author wants to live in a world where everyone gets everything at no cost: that isn't even admiribale, it's childish.
- Barrin92 4y ago
  The issue here isn't the money in a direct sense. People in the real world do worse jobs for less money, yes. But those jobs aren't intermediated by some benefactor who essentially treats human beings like lab rats. Prostitution may be grueling but people generally do it to pay the bills in a trivial sense. Being put into some sort of alternate reality where you are being treated and experimented on like a video game character, to an audience who also probably perceives you as a virtual source of entertainment deserves to be looked at through a different lens than just bucks/hour made. It's a sort of low stakes hunger games where rich patrons throw people into an arena for their fun and benefit. The Mr Beast content could be its own Black Mirror episode. And it's terrifying not despite but because the money isn't even that relevant. There's probably people who would do that stuff for free just to meet Mr Beast or get five minutes of online attention.
- sweetheart 4y ago
  > The author wants to live in a world where everyone gets everything at no cost: that isn't even admiribale, it's childish. Why is it childish to want a life in which you don’t need to labor to have everything you need to be happy? It’s childish to think that human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life? Why do we need to earn those things? Are they not inherent within us?
  - M4v3R 4y ago
    Because at the end of the day you need to obtain food, clothing, shelter and other necessities to even survive to the next day, not even mentioning doing anything for pleasure. Either through labor of your own, or by doing labor to earn money to buy these for you possibly your family. Thinking that "human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life" is childish - the world doesn't owe us anything, and if we want to continue living on it we have to earn it.
williamcotton 4y ago
Many things can become popular and then disappear when social mores change in response to negative outcomes. https://bonjourparis.com/history/the-paris-morgue-a-gruesome-tourist-attraction-in-19th-century/ https://bonjourparis.com/history/the-paris-morgue-a-gruesome... We’re as stuck with the machinations of click-bait as fin de siècle Parisians with their morgue.
dr-detroit 4y ago
verytrivial 4y ago
So, basically "Ow My Balls!" from Idiocracy, but with more money changing hands.
Invictus0 4y ago
An interesting premise for an article with ultimately no worthwhile analysis. Not worth anyone's time.
lazyjones 4y ago
I won't complain about this new world of "algorithmic desire" because my desires provide me with interesting and enjoyable content (none of Mr. Beast). Perhaps the problem isn't the algorithms of yt and Tik Tok, but rather the people who decide to watch these things instead of moving on?
seydor 4y ago
those videos are crafted to be impressionable and consumable, almost too fast to watch, no time spent to know the protagonists etc. But it also feels terminal, like, there is nothing else after he will have rehashed every major TV trope in 10 minutes. He will certainly bank big and retire soon , this is not a long-term sustainable operation. I don't think he s pointing to any particular direction in entertainment. He's making a soft versions of a squid game, but after that, what? It strikes me that he doesnt have competition in youtube currently, because nobody else (?) makes videos with somewhat substantial budgeting that feel like TV. So his videos get all the attention among the various podcast/travel/other kinds of slow-paced, monothematic videos. BUT he might start a trend here of big budget youtube productions. This will depend on his margins, but I m not sure that the relatively small payout of youtube will allow such trend
mihaic 4y ago
I think one thing most posts saying "he optimizes for the algorithm" ignore is that content also slowly influences our desired and our culture. It's all a gigantic and relatively slow-moving feedback loop, where content influences culture and desires, which again influences content. MrBeast's videos I find particularly damaging to culture, since it's incredibly dehumanizing and stripped of any nuance of the labor/value/money dynamic. It's sad that I've become less and less confident that people can be trusted with what they consume -- food, content, anything.
- Karsteski 4y ago
  > It's sad that I've become less and less confident that people can be trusted with what they consume -- food, content, anything. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by this?
  - thisoneworks 4y ago
    I think they are talking about our proclivity to get addicted to something similar to high fructose corn syrup in any shape or form.
  - mihaic 4y ago
    I mean, the more complex the world become, the worse our choices are in free market, since we don't see the long term consequences of some decisions. For instance, getting a streaming-service subscription is convenient for the consumer, but in practice it seems like making a customer binary (either on board or out) has made content more a race-to-the-bottom. In the end, I think that gatekeeping of some kind can increase both quality and the tastes of the average consumer. The fact that it's hard has led us to abandon it completely though, similarly to how people say now "the government can't make anything". I also know that I'm a weak creature, and could use some external help to not deliver me constant temptations. If you see content as food for your mind, I find it easy to binge junk, only to be left with a feeling of emptiness after a while.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
viridian 4y ago
I'm surprised at how many people view this as legitimately torturous. I'd happily do the same for twice as long and for half the money. Hell, Henry David Thoreau did this in the woods, on purpose, for two years, with only a brief refrain when he was arrested for not paying his taxes.
atribecalledqst 4y ago
I'm not really interested in Mr. Beast's content but there is a video from one of the engineers involved in his Squid Game recreation that I thought was pretty interesting. Seems like this guy went for three whole weeks without sleeping, just piling on hack after hack to make the event come together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdt18p-VMmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdt18p-VMmQ
warent 4y ago
There's a lot of severe, judgemental commenting going on here, stooping to actually name-calling Mr. Beast. Guys, relax. He's an entertainment entrepreneur. He's a circus ringleader. He gives normal people a chance to be trapeze artists for a day. Is it easy? No. It's hard work. But it's a once in a lifetime experience that people sign up for, mostly for that experience, with the money being secondary. Nobody gets hurt, and he pays his people extremely, extremely generously. His business model isn't cruelty and torture. It's just a circus that gives away huge sums of money.
mech987 4y ago
Seems to me that people are much more upset about this particular video (guy in circle for 100 days) because he's a husband and father. If it had been a young 20-something person, nobody would bat an eye.
daltonlp 4y ago
Some big spin in this piece. > During the pandemic, he partnered with local restaurants to sell “Beast Burgers”, a proprietary burger recipe that any kitchen could make and sell with his branding, and in interviews he speaks proudly of restaurants that would have gone out of business without the interest Beast Burgers provided. No. He inked a deal with a kitchen arbitrage venture. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/dining/ghost-kitchen-mrbeast-burger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/dining/ghost-kitchen-mrbe... The $24 burger was...not good.
nsonha 4y ago
Did an AI write this?
MPSimmons 4y ago
This reminds me of The Bet, by Chekhov - https://www.shortstoryguide.com/read-bet-anton-chekhov/ https://www.shortstoryguide.com/read-bet-anton-chekhov/
rufius 4y ago
This is the first time I've heard of Mr. Beast. Seems I haven't been missing a thing.

199 points by exolymph 4y ago

A lot of Mr. beasts content feel like reverse kidnapping and mental torture situations. And the only “mental trick” you need to pull to illustrate just how horrible a human being he is, is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. That’s what he’s subjecting poor people too, for fun and profit, because he knows the money is worth that much to them. And of cause because he’s making a fortune doing this.

zemvpferreira 4y ago
As a content creator Mr Beast only acts as a conduit for what we, the audience, are willing to pay for. It's not he who is the monster but us.
- Otek 4y ago
  Exactly. Don't hate the player. Hate the game. And the game is humanity, who wants this type of content. But overall i disagree that anyone is monster here. No one forces these people to be a part of these challenges.
  - igorkraw 4y ago
    Why not both? And why does "criticism" imply "hate"?
  - pfisch 4y ago
    You could get people to fight to the death with enough money as a reward. Is that ok?
    - greatquux 4y ago
      No, but we're not talking about that. We're talking only about if these particular videos cross some kind of imaginary line which is different for everyone and constantly shifts in our minds based on the last comment we read on HN.
- igorkraw 4y ago
  While true I love how the norm of discussion about this is bouncing between two things as if they are mutually exclusive. Yes Mr. Beast is just following incentives that youtube + attention economy + other factors created for him. But also: he chose to do that. I've personally walked away from good gigs when I was eating rice and beans because they didn't align with my values. He doesn't seem to realise or care. And maybe that's because of his situation, which should the also be addressed. But there still remains some personal responsibility for choosing to make money (lots of money) this way
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Mr. Beast is giving away millions of dollars. Imo his channel is unequivocally making the world a better place by providing entertainment and giving people the choice to forego a decade of work for 100 days of humiliation.
- noja 4y ago
  > only acts as a conduit That's a lazy analysis. His creation is expanding a small audience into a larger one.
- jrootabega 4y ago
  Our children are the victims. They're willing to watch anything, and unfortunately this is the kind of stuff that they think is normal and good.
- wil421 4y ago
  That’s like saying it’s OK to create CP or torture someone because there’s an audience. Complete nonsense.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    No, it’s not like that.
- dustedcodes 4y ago
  But we are not paying for it. He just gets the views and Google (YouTube) are those who think it is ok to pay for this content. People will always consume content about some crazy shit if it is made for free, but would we actually have to pay for it then it would show that most kids who watch MrBeast content today couldn’t actually care less about it. Let’s look at it from another angle to bring my point home. If a person gets assaulted and the assault gets recorded by CCTV cameras and then shown on BBC news then lots of people click the article and view the video, but nobody (or mostly nobody) would pay the BBC to assault another person and film it and then stream it. Do you see the difference?
  - sumedh 4y ago
    > But we are not paying for it. Not sure who "we" you are talking but his fans buy lot of merch from his store which brings in lot of profit.
  - unglaublich 4y ago
    No, Google doesn't think it's okay. A company has no such emotions. The financial benefits just outweigh the financial downsides.
  - em-bee 4y ago
    would we actually have to pay for it then it would show that most kids who watch MrBeast content today couldn’t actually care less about it but the kids are not the ones paying. if we had to start paying for it, the result would be an argument between parents and kids.
- tpush 4y ago
  Nonsense. Mr. Beast isn't an unthinking tool, but an intelligent human being. Exploiting people for money is unethical no matter how much 'the audience' wants to see it.
  - gambiting 4y ago
    I mean, so is something like Who Wants To Be a Millionare[0] exploitative as well? The whole idea is that people voluntarily sign up, to be "tortured" with difficult questions, for a chance to win some money. Of course the TV producers make money on the show, by broadcasting the whole thing for the audience's amusement. I'm just curious where you think the line lies between this and what Mr Beast is doing? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Be_a_Millionaire%3F https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Wants_to_Be_a_Millionaire%...
    - zigman1 4y ago
      That's an interesting thought. I'll try to brainstorm a bit, since my meeting is a bit boring :) First, what was also mentioned in the linked blog post, Mr Beast's videos lack a certain level of fairness, winners of his competitions are often decided by luck, not merit. Second, maybe there's an added benefit for both competitors and audience when watching Who Wants To Be a Millionare. I'm not sure if that's measurable metric, but it's definitely present. I can learn something new, or test my own knowledge, maybe even decide to sign up.
      - sumedh 4y ago
        > winners of his competitions are often decided by luck, not merit. So just like real life?
    - notafraudster 4y ago
      The air quotes around tortured are doing 100% of the work here. There may indeed be some nervousness associated with taking part in any sort of competition, but I think most people would stipulate that white collar adult professionals answering 15 multiple-choice questions in 30 minutes in a comfortable studio wearing clothes of their choice, preparing in a green room, given access to water and bathrooms is pretty low on the torture scale. Likewise, we don't typically consider, say, taking part in a poker tournament to be torture, or taking part in a 10K race or submitting something to an art contest. There are, in fact, quiz shows that add torture elements. Rob Lowe hosts Mental Samurai, which is a quiz show where participants are put through physical disorientation[0]. This might be a closer parallel to what you are highlighting, but even still there are coherent and easily articulated ways in which this is not torture. There are a great many reality programs that do actually involve a sort of physical depravation which is closer to torture. Big Brother and Survivor both involve not just physical challenges, but also punishments that are centered around depriving people of the sorts of creature comforts they are accustomed to in normal life. Even then you don't have torture, because again the vast majority of the experience involves being treated with comfort and dignity, the punishments that are small in scale and support systems in place to ensure they do not present real threat. So, for instance, you might have someone being awoken in the middle of the night as a part of a challenge, but they will be informed of that in advance, given additional time to sleep later, and the disruption will be minimal. Mr. Beast's stuff has more in common with challenges like the Hands on a Hardbody challenge[1], where poor people go to a car dealership and have to touch a truck for an extended period of time to win the truck.[1] The contestant pool are mostly people who are quite poor, some of whom seem to be mentally ill, the willingness to do it for the prize almost surely implies they have inadequate access to transportation, and it's extremely undignified. But even this has hourly breaks. It seems like a bit of feigned ignorance to respond to someone criticizing the Mr. Beast stuff by suggesting it is difficult or impossible to draw a coherent line in the sand, and then offering such a patently absurd example as something you think would have to be definitionally included. It comes off as playing language games rather than seriously engaging the substance of the criticism. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3gglCEsvGg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3gglCEsvGg [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_on_a_Hardbody:_The_Documentary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hands_on_a_Hardbody:_The_Docum...
- emptyfile 4y ago
  You're both equally disgusting.
gjulianm 4y ago
While I'm no fan of him, I think you might be too harsh. > is to imagine he’d given them the money up front and told them that to leave his enter-torture-ment they have to pay up a ransom matching the initial gift. People enter those challenges fully knowing how they're going to go. It's random, rules don't matter, you might get money you don't expect or not get money you expected. The point at which they get the money doesn't really matter, I don't find it a different situation. > That’s what he’s subjecting poor people too, for fun and profit, because he knows the money is worth that much to them Well, he gives amounts of money that are worth very much for a lot of people. I doubt there's a lot of people that can make $500k in 100 days, for example. I watched the one where there's 100 people in a circle, and people got quite a lot of money for the most random things (I think one gets several thousand dollars for being the first to go, for example). I'd get this criticism if the amounts of money were lower, but I don't think it's really the case. A lot of non-poor people would consider those challenges very much worth the money. > And of cause because he’s making a fortune doing this. He says that a lot of his videos lose money and I honestly believe it. Between the money he gives and the amounts he spends to make the videos (like renting entire stadiums) his costs must be incredibly high, even with as many subscribers as he has I imagine some videos might not break even. And he could very easily break even on all of them just by lowering the amounts of money and toning it down a little.
- dustedcodes 4y ago
  MrBeast is pushing the boundaries on the ethics and morals of how easily people with money can coerce poor people who are in dire need to perform extremely questionable things for the sake of his own amusement. Personally I don’t think this is good in any meaningful way. You could only rationalise such behaviour with the same arguments that other forms of exploitation are explained.
  - gjulianm 4y ago
    I'm not arguing that it's good, only that it's not as exploitative as the parent made it to be. Also, until now, the most questionable thing would be the 100 days in a circle one, and the reward is $500k. I think most people, even if not in dire need, would happily go and do that. Here in the comments you already see examples of that. And, most importantly, I don't see the "coercion" anywhere. Most of the people participating are subscribers to him, he's not just searching for poor people out of the street.
strken 4y ago
I'm not that badly off and have never watched a Mr. Beast video prior to this. I would gladly stay within a 300ft circle for 100 days while some dude blasted clown noises at me in return for $500k. There's a library, a garden, some exercise bands, stationery, and 3000cal/day of food. I did 21 days isolation in an apartment at the start of the pandemic, which is 20% of the way there except with less floorspace. There's a really good essay titled The Copenhagen Interpretations of Ethics[0], which makes an argument that the moment you interact with a problem you become responsible for it in the eyes of the world, even if you strictly improved it in a utilitarian sense, and even if the people judging you have done exactly nothing to fix the problem. Reminds me a bit of this. [0] https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
- isitmadeofglass 4y ago
  Sure, people enter in willingly. And you’d be able to find quite a lot of Poot people who’d do really shitty stuff and let you be extremely shitty to them for money. But so what? He’s still kidnapping and terrorizing poor people and excusing it by paying them off. And Better yet he’s doing so for profit, but he’s effectively have them sign a contract that means they don’t get paid if he gets them to break. It screams of what a shitty person he is in setting this up. If it was just about giving money to poor people there would be no need for the sick games he plays with them, just do a feel good show about how much the money change their lives. But propably not as much add money in it for him doing that. He used to plant trees, now he brutalizes poor people. It’s sick even if it is with consent from the victims.
  - warent 4y ago
    You can dislike his work, but FYI you cannot repurpose the word "kidnapping" like this. First, it's a lie. Second, it diminishes the traumatic experience of real kidnapping survivors. Stop repurposing real words and making a joke of real experiences to satisfy for your own emotional position. Don't bother quoting the definition here and bending around the truth to further your distortion.
  - strken 4y ago
Aunche 4y ago
Mr. Beast himself used to subject himself to torture for profit, so it's not surprising that other people are happy to do the same. His first viral video was counting to 100,000. There was another video where he tried to spend 24 hours underwater and stopped because he had built to much CO2.

Gregioei 4y ago

While I subscribed to mb and unsubscribed quite quickly again, I would do that. Easy life changing money. Once in a life opportunity.

prepend 4y ago
The hardest part is having a job that allows this. If I could telework than 100% this is easy.

imperialdrive 4y ago

The author (coldhealing) sure can write. I've seen maybe 3 Mr. Beast vids in passing, but now I want to really watch a few more. His bit on Joe Rogan about translating content was pretty clever too.

a3w 4y ago
> His bit on Joe Rogan OT, but was Joe Rogan during that time (playing) an idiot that never second guesses blatant lies? I find it hard to watch obscure experts, that are either genius' or delusional, and not know what I heared/watched due to no classification by a reliable source, as any journalist should provide with any third party statement. Therefore, I'd rather watch an interview elsewhere. I think he now has a "fact checker" who googles questions (nope, not scholar.google.com, regular google queries), but interviews seem to stick to their obscure logic even if a house of cards was just debunked at the very foundation by five minutes of fact checking.

nullc 4y ago

I've never seen a mr. beast video because I found the weird sex-doll gaping face on all his videos extremely off-putting and so I block every channel that displays one whenever they're suggested. In fact, the reason I learned it was possible to block channels at all was specifically due to these videos constantly being suggested. I only know what the name is because a picture of him showed up in some other video-- and because I'm constantly reminded by how often I need to block new stuff because more of it keeps showing, even though I always block it. I'm kinda surprised to read this article and hear how awful the content is-- esp given that many other YT channels have spoken highly of him. The face just seemed to non-genuine and engineered to overstimulate some neural network (artificial or organic) and left me feeling that watching even one would be contributing to the downfall of civilization. It's interesting to see that my initial highly negative impression may have had some basis: it certainly doesn't sound like content I would find worthwhile.

EdwardDiego 4y ago
That sex-doll gaping face or the fake shocked "Omg I cannot believe everything I'm seeing" face is de rigeur for YT, and I'm guessing it's because The Algorithm (blessed be its bytes) has determined kids click on thumbnails with incredibly exaggerated facial expressions. It's... weird and a tad scary.
- idontwantthis 4y ago
  I use an extension called click bait remover that replaces thumbnails with an actual frame from the video. Also normalizes capitalization.
  - bhhaskin 4y ago
    That sounds like a great extension, but at the same time I just block those channels that engage in that. None of them make any content worth consuming.
    - idontwantthis 4y ago

throwaway12388 4y ago

I never watched his videos. Do yourself a flavour by blocking his and similar channels they all produce nothing but crap.

unsupp0rted 4y ago
I really try to block them but somehow Youtube keeps finding new ones to put in my feed every single day. How can I tell Youtube: * I will never watch a Mr. Beast video * I will never watch a music video * I will never watch a sports video * I will never watch a video about cars * I will never watch a video about Minecraft, or any video game at all
- unglaublich 4y ago
  - Click 'not interested' whenever you see such a suggestion. - Never click the suggestion! - Like and subscribe to content that you want to see instead.
  - sph 4y ago
    Not all videos have a 'not interested option'.
    - dr-detroit 4y ago
  - unsupp0rted 4y ago
    I go out of my way to select the 3-dot menu and select not only "not interested", but then go to the second step of saying "because I don't like this content". It makes zero difference. User is "not interested" in this Football video because he "doesn't like this content"? User did the same for 15 Football videos? Perhaps user just has been exposed to enough Football videos yet.
- em-bee 4y ago
  not having a youtube account seems to help. i watch different types of videos in different firefox containers and my kids watch on a different laptop. they see mr beast all the time, but i never notice him showing up for me.

flappyeagle 4y ago

Someone is going to die in one of his stunts. It’s inevitable.

prydwen 4y ago
By standing in a circle ? Touching an expensive car ? Playing red light green light ? His videos aren't exactly Fear factor/Jackass style
hnbad 4y ago
The question isn't whether someone will die but what happens after. 80s shlock like Running Man used to be portrayals of a ridiculous dystopia, but at this point they should be considered a warning. We already increasingly undervalue human life and have culturally accepted avoidable deaths as long as they can be justified with "personal responsibility" or follow from a perceived moral failing. We're not there yet, but we're inching ever closer. The first article of the post-WW2 constitution of Germany does not establish freedom of speech but the sanctity of human dignity. Of course in practice only lip service is paid to this, but it feels like "entertaintment" like Mr Beast's videos are the exact antithesis.

melvinmelih 4y ago

Can’t imagine it’s mentally healthy to record yourself for 40 hours straight counting to 100,000: https://youtu.be/xWcldHxHFpo https://youtu.be/xWcldHxHFpo

ugjka 4y ago
There are plenty of jobs that are not good for you in the long run and being a Youtuber is a job for some

bb123 4y ago

This blogger is acting like traditional network television has never mentally tortured people for our viewing pleasure. Have they never seen an episode of Hell's Kitchen, Dr Phil, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here or Big Brother? Basically the entire reality TV genre is based on that premise. Edit: Seeing as they mention Joe Rogan, Fear Factor is another great example of a reality TV version of basically the same thing.

citizenkeen 4y ago
Fox had a reality shoe where they just tortured people for money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_(TV_series) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_(TV_series)
- permo-w 4y ago
  and only for the chance of winning $50k
  - Retric 4y ago
    Lower stakes might be a good thing. I think a high payout could push some people to significant psychological harm.
    - permo-w 4y ago
      it’s just not at all worth that much money to put yourself through this awful torture. how long will $50k last you in the US? it’s ridiculous. the person who voiced the “AI” was probably paid more
      - Retric 4y ago
        It’s a contest so people are going to be willing to endure more torture the larger the prize. One self limiting option might be to pay per day and decrease the amount every day split amount the remaining contestants.
- 4y ago

mdrzn 4y ago

"It’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. It’s even more terrifying that this is solely at the whims of a single former Minecraft YouTube creator who happened to find the perfect niche to build a platform and happens to have a perfect sense for what his millions of anonymous viewers want from a video." Cannot agree less on this take. There's dozen of interviews with Jimmy (Mr. Beast himself) where he explains his POV, why he does what he does, and what his goal is: make the best YT videos possible. Nobody is forced to partecipate in his videos. Maybe this difference in opinion in based on age? Or some other metric?

antasvara 4y ago
Some people fundamentally have an issue with the idea of making money off of what essentially amounts to embarrassment or (depending on the challenge) light mental torture. Mr. Beast's motives are irrelevant if that's the belief you're operating under.
- astura 4y ago
  In that case singling out Mr. Beast makes no sense, there's reality TV shows which are much more extreme in embarrassment and torture than any Mr. Beast video.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - antasvara 4y ago
    Part of the article is about the intersection of embarrassment for money and algorithmic content recommendations. Mr. Beast is an example that embodies both of these trends, whereas reality TV is necessarily less "online" than a social media influencer. In a lot of ways, online content is an intensification of the trend that reality shows like "Fear Factor" started. It's also a short article. Bringing in other examples would necessarily lengthen the piece and potentially distract from the major points of the piece.
- 4y ago

pjc50 4y ago

> "Whenever I watch these videos I’m awed and scared at the lengths to which humans in the twenty-first century will go to slurp up the drips of unimaginable wealth that the algorithm leaks out through Mr. Beast." That's it, isn't it? It's the exact opposite of dignity of labour: it's compensation for degradation. The "voluntary" part is just highlighting how willing people are to trade in unnecessary misery for the entertainment of the comfortable.

mylons 4y ago
agree —- i kept waiting for the author to spend more time on the indignity and exploitation Mr. Beast is dispensing. there are desperate people out there that will leap at a chance for this much cash. how long until we see a Mr. Beast version of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(King_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Running_Man_(King_novel) (the arnold movie is ultra cheesey and fun too)
- GameOfFrowns 4y ago
  I think we're already halfway there with the "MrBeast Squid Game".
  - mylons 4y ago
    I don’t disagree here either, but nobody is dying yet and it’s not a recurring series :)
SkipperCat 4y ago
On many levels I agree with you. But, you can also look at this thru the paradigm of the "hero's journey". A normal person, plucked from the masses is given a harrowing mission. If they survive, there is glory ($$$), if not, then there is failure (Internet ridicule). Granted, Mr. Beast is not giving us the story of Luke Skywalker, but I can understand the rational of the person taking the challenge. For most people watching, it's just torture porn, but content providers have to give the people what they want to make a buck....

keiferski 4y ago

A lot of the Internet popular culture really is just an echo of something someone else did years before, but with less fanfare, no money involved, and without the desire to get as much attention as possible. One of my favorite performance artists is Tehching Hsieh, who did 4 time-based works: - One Year Performance 1978–1979 (Cage Piece) "In this performance, which lasted from 29 September 1978 through 30 September 1979, the artist locked himself in an 11.5-by-9-by-8-foot (3.5 by 2.7 by 2.4 m) wooden cage, furnished only with a wash basin, lights, a pail, and a single bed. During the year, he did not allow himself to talk, to read, to write, or to listen to radio and TV. A lawyer, Robert Projansky, notarized the entire process and made sure the artist never left the cage during that one year. His loftmate came daily to deliver food, remove the artist's waste,[3] and take a single photograph to document the project. In addition, this performance was open to be viewed once or twice a month from 11 am to 5 pm. - One Year Performance 1980–1981 (Time Clock Piece) For one year, from 11 April 1980 through 11 April 1981, Hsieh punched a time clock every hour on the hour. Each time he punched the clock, he took a single picture of himself, which together yield a 6-minute movie. He shaved his head before the piece, so his growing hair reflects the passage of time. - One Year Performance 1981–1982 (Outdoor Piece) In his third one-year performance piece, from 26 September 1981 through 26 September 1982, Hsieh spent one year outside, not entering buildings or shelter of any sort, including cars, trains, airplanes, boats, or tents. He moved around New York City with a packbag and a sleeping bag. - Art / Life: One Year Performance 1983-1984 (Rope Piece) In this performance, Hsieh and Linda Montano spent one year between 4 July 1983 and 4 July 1984 tied to each other with an 8-foot-long (2.4 m) rope. They had to stay in the same room when inside, but were not allowed to touch each other until the end of the one-year period. Both shaved their hair in the beginning of the year, and the performance was notarized initially by Paul Grassfield and later by Pauline Oliveros. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehching_Hsieh https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehching_Hsieh

lawrenceyan 4y ago

Is this the algorithm or just late-stage capitalism / pre-post scarcity economics? I think situations like these will only become increasingly prevalent as time passes thanks to technological development decreasing the raw resource cost of goods and services. Because while we have a good mechanism for reliably increasing productivity and efficiency, no analogous mechanism exists for distribution. Thus profit / wealth inevitably concentrates and you end up with > the lengths to which humans in the twenty-first century will go to slurp up the drips of unimaginable wealth that the algorithm leaks out through Mr. Beast. I have no idea how you actually come up with a reasonable solution for this since communism/socialism clearly failed. My hope is that there's enough trickle down from technological growth, that despite increasing wealth inequality, at least the baseline minimum will be high enough that even the poorest people will be able to have a decent standard of living.

mcv 4y ago
> I have no idea how you actually come up with a reasonable solution for this since communism/socialism clearly failed. You could simply give people more than just some drips that keep them on the edge of desperation. Whether or not you consider that socialism, it has been quite successful in a lot of countries. The failure of a totalitarian dictatorship in no way implies that excessive wealth inequality is the only alternative.
- ryan93 4y ago
  However much money your imagined society gives out people will still gladly do game shows for extra cash. Unless you want to be honest and say no one should have even a single extra penny to spend how they please
  - mcv 4y ago
    Possibly, but hopefully it would be driven by a desire to participate instead of desperation. That's the thing I want to take out of the equation.
    - 4y ago

kwhitefoot 4y ago

IS this real?

elp 4y ago
He kept coming up when my kid watched YouTube. I sat through a few before I started blocking them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Personally I'm pretty sure its all fake. The reactions are not quite right for people winning so much money. I'm pretty sure I've seen some of the winners as extras in other videos. He got caught handing out fake money which he claimed was for "security". If you were Mr Beast would you really give away $500k plus the costs of spending a full 100 days of filming when you could just get some actors to do it in a week? Especially when you would get the same view count either way.
- prepend 4y ago
  It would save a lot of money if he just did stunts with friends who didn’t actually keep the money. Kind of like all the NFT wash trades.

lettergram 4y ago

> That’s the world we’re headed into. In the future, content is ruled by algorithmic desire, and those best suited to steer on the seas of the algorithm’s waves and whims. What’s often misunderstood and unaccounted for is that this algorithm is a feed back loop. We are adapting to it as much as it’s adapting to us.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bambax 4y ago

> How does Mr. Beast have the money to create these videos? He’s the fifth most subscribed to YouTube channel in the world. I had never heard of him or watched any of his videos. And now I have, and I'm afraid YT will recommend more. Not that I would ever watch one again except by accident, but still. I feel dirty. Also, about this: > t’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. It’s even more terrifying that this is solely at the whims of a single former Minecraft YouTube creator (...) But there’s no standards, no compliance department telling Mr. Beast that this video maybe isn’t the best idea Apparently the author has never heard of Tomoaki Hamatsu (Nasubi), a Japanese guy who was tricked into surviving off sweepstakes, fully naked, not for 100 days but for 15 months, while filmed and broadcasted 24/7 (without him even knowing it). This stunt was organized by Nippon TV in 2000. It fascinated the whole country of Japan for as long as it ran, and some time after that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi

cube00 4y ago
But it's all for the viewers...he's only doing it for you. > In interviews, he explains that many of his videos lose money, and he invests almost all of his earnings from You back into more videos.
tenpies 4y ago
At this point he's quite likely the majority shareholder of a fast food empire, a chocolate bar company, and the owner of the Youtube channel. On top of that there is a layer of distribution deals and sub-channels (I mean there's even a Mr. Beast in Español channel). I suspect that early on much of it was carried on the back of personal and business debt, but once the fast food division took off it all made more sense. I also don't like where this is heading culturally, and while I find him odd, his crew or whatever the other members are seem incredibly annoying and vapid. It's also through watching Mr Beast videos, that every Westerner should immediately be able to understand why so much of the world has varying degrees of hate towards the West.
- n-i-g-g-e-r 4y ago
  [dead]

shitloadofbooks 4y ago

I watch most of Mr Beasts videos (primarily because "the algorithm" throws them at my face until I give in), but his recent interview with Graham Stephen[1] shows another side of him. He lives in his office, doesn't care about personal wealth and is absolutely dedicated to making YouTube videos. He's definitely an odd fellow. [1] https://youtu.be/yADi4cs4Dhw https://youtu.be/yADi4cs4Dhw

prepend 4y ago
He says he doesn’t care about personal wealth yet doesn’t donate to charity and instead amasses quite a bit of wealth. He’s not odd, he’s just a YouTuber who is really good at SEOing youtube and getting billions of views.
- simplyinfinity 4y ago
  Oh, belive me, he does donate to charity quite a bit. Check out his charity channel and videos. He has a charity manager that distributes food and do food drives in a couple of states.
- M4v3R 4y ago
  > yet doesn’t donate to charity You obviously have no idea what are you talking about. He not only donates to charity, he actually set up a charity by himself called Beast Philanthropy where he supplies people in need with food, schools with supplies, etc. He also spearheaded two huge ecological campaigns - Team Trees (to plant millions of trees around the globe) and Team Seas (to clean up tonnes of garbage from the sea).
  - prepend 4y ago
    Thanks, I stand corrected as Beast Philanthropy is a 501(c)3 charity. I don’t see it on CharityNavigator.org so not sure how it’s audited and how effective it is but at least he seems to have filed the proper paperwork.
Euphorbium 4y ago
“Do not recommend channel” is an option hidden in a three dot menu on the video thumbnail. Without it youtube is unusable. You do not have to consume the shit it forces into your eyeholes.

6stringmerc 4y ago

It’s right there in the name - Mr. Beast. I wouldn’t seek out a personal trainer who chooses the name Mr. Hyde personally. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes - the $500k isn’t stupid, but the psychological effects are forever. Hope some of that money got earmarked for therapy and counseling! Not kidding, I am an advocate for CBT and I’m pretty sure this situation is pretty similar to stories where lottery winners end up with mo money mo problems.

core-utility 4y ago
Psychological effects? The contestant volunteered for this, and was able to step out at any time (many times while still making a good amount of money). How many people were kept locked in their - possibly smaller - homes during COVID with no option to exit and no end date in sight?
astura 4y ago
LMAO, this stunt is a lot less psychologically damaging than my first job I worked as a teenager for $6.15/hr. At that job people lobbed personal insults at my daily, I was treated like human garbage, I was touched inappropriately many times, and I was always getting a raise "next week." Get over yourself.

myaccount80 4y ago

Reminds me of the story of Nasubi: “Tomoaki Hamatsu was challenged to stay alone, unclothed, in an apartment for Susunu! Denpa Shōnen (January 1998 – March 2002), a Japanese reality-television show on Nippon Television, after winning a lottery for a "show business related job". He was challenged to enter mail-in sweepstakes until he won ¥1 million (about US$10,000) in total. He started with nothing (including no clothes), was cut off from outside communication and broadcasting, and had nothing to keep him company except the magazines he combed through for sweepstakes entry forms. After spending 335 days to reach his target, he set the Guinness world record for the "longest time survived on competition winnings".” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasubi https://youtu.be/DWWK05t98os https://youtu.be/DWWK05t98os

ZephyrBlu 4y ago

This feels very doom and gloom. Mr Beast gets to make the videos he wants, viewers get to watch amazing videos and people who are featured in the videos generally get paid. Everyone wins. Most of his videos are basically excuses to give people money and you rarely see participants not having a good time. Having the guy sit around for 100d is the most 'exploitative' video I've seen, but that really doesn't seem like the goal. If he starts making real-life Hunger Games videos I'd be worried, but it doesn't feel like he's heading in that direction at all. More like a new version of game shows, except it's way less forced, more varied and very lighthearted.

prydwen 4y ago
To be fair this video also felt a lot like an excuse to give someone half a million dollars. He brought his kids around on Father's day so it wouldn't be too difficult. The circle was big enough and equipped enough to be able to exercise, maintain good hygiene, do some gardening... The 'toughest' bit was having a marching band play all night, ONE night. I'm a fan of the survival show 'Alone' and there people have to survive out of pretty much nothing for 50-100 days in the hope of earning the same amount of money. This guy had everything provided, the only challenge was boredom and missing people !
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  Exactly. He's hardly torturing these people. On the contrary, most of the challenges are pretty damn cushy.
loceng 4y ago
Should we ignore that all of this is funded by the advertising industrial complex, advertisements which are arguably extremely harmful to society due to the cheap-shallow manipulation that occurs with them?
- seydor 4y ago
  Should we ignore the fact that so many people watch his videos that it's impossible to ignore the number? I agree that his videos are basically a polished version of "give a homeless guy money to do something cruel". People watch them to see what people do for money. There s nothing beautiful in that, but it's a curiosity and it grabs attention. If it wasnt through ads, someone else would be funding it, i dont think that being ad-supported changes the dynamic of his audience.

mattbrewsbytes 4y ago

Many people are ignoring some interesting aspects of Mr. Beasts business and instead are focusing on the content which is mostly attention grabbing, silly, ridiculous game show premises. The content isn't for me or likely many HNers but I see similarities with startups and his business model. From watching a couple of interviews, things I've picked up - when his youtube videos were grossing $20-30k a month he started hiring people and said he hires about 1 person per month since then. He has a teams of accountants, editors, producers, etc. He decided early on to have videos translated but would hire premier voice actors in countries, like someone that voice acted Batman to do his voice. He has an obsessed culture of making the best videos. He built a huge studio and lives there. I see many similarities to what I've read about startup founders and a growth mindset. If anything, there are some huge marketing lessons to be learned from how he runs his business. I would love to see an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups interview him.

andrewfromx 4y ago
My kid made me listen to the whole joe rogan interview with him. It was very insightful. Maybe rogan isn't "an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups" in some people's mind, but I thought he covered many issues well.
- hnrodey 4y ago
prydwen 4y ago
Just this week he did a one hour interview with 'The iced coffee hour' (I think that's the name of the channel), and he goes really into details about his revenue streams, costs, his plans for the future etc. Really interesting
hnrodey 4y ago
>I would love to see an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups interview him. It doesn't fully match your requirements but Mr. Beast was on Joe Rogan a few months ago. A fantastic interview and they talk a lot about the stuff you mention (voice actors, hiring people, etc.)

prepend 4y ago

> In interviews, he explains that many of his videos lose money, and he invests almost all of his earnings from You back into more videos I dont think this is true. He either doesn’t understand his revenue and costs or is misleading and spinning BS to seem more relatable. He’s the 5th most subscribed YouTube channel. He’s making gobs of money off all his videos. That’s why he’s quite wealthy now. He seems totally full of horse apples and is the closest we’ve gotten to “Ass: the Movie” in my lifetime. I don’t want to be an old person yelling at clouds so if people like watching him then I leave it alone. I suppose there are worse things to watch. But it all seems too contrived for me to enjoy it. In this case it was a simple, boring task and 100/100 anyone dropped into that circle would stay for 100 days to get $500k.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago
He spends hundreds of thousands to millions on producing videos, it's very likely he doesn't make a profit on a lot of them. It also seems like he's expanding at a pretty incredible rate. >In this case it was a simple, boring task and 100/100 anyone dropped into that circle would stay for 100 days to get $500k Crazy how the video of this simple, boring task has 32M views. Mr Beast manages to make this kind of stuff very engaging.
- prepend 4y ago
  It is kind of crazy, but people like it. The Kardasians tv show gets bizarre (to me) views as well. People find it engaging. That’s ok, people can like their thing. But that doesn’t make it bullshit. Lots of people read The Secret and like it. It doesn’t stop the book from being absolute poppycock.
jccalhoun 4y ago
It depends on how he is measuring it. If it is just in terms of what he gets from youtube and not advertising then it is easier to imagine. Then there is also the fact that it is probably the case that for every one of these big budget videos that don't make money he has several smaller ones that do make money. The big ones bring in the audience and the small ones bring in the money.

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago

>Their strict standards resulted in content that was homogeneous and boring, but safe. It’s terrifying that a man spent one hundred days in a small circle in an empty field. This isn't terrifying. People do much worse for 100x less. Prostitution and porn, for example, many times drive people to suicide. People stay on ships for months at a time without seeing their family, not too long ago, sailors would go years on ships. Why? For money. The author wants to live in a world where everyone gets everything at no cost: that isn't even admiribale, it's childish.

Barrin92 4y ago
The issue here isn't the money in a direct sense. People in the real world do worse jobs for less money, yes. But those jobs aren't intermediated by some benefactor who essentially treats human beings like lab rats. Prostitution may be grueling but people generally do it to pay the bills in a trivial sense. Being put into some sort of alternate reality where you are being treated and experimented on like a video game character, to an audience who also probably perceives you as a virtual source of entertainment deserves to be looked at through a different lens than just bucks/hour made. It's a sort of low stakes hunger games where rich patrons throw people into an arena for their fun and benefit. The Mr Beast content could be its own Black Mirror episode. And it's terrifying not despite but because the money isn't even that relevant. There's probably people who would do that stuff for free just to meet Mr Beast or get five minutes of online attention.
sweetheart 4y ago
> The author wants to live in a world where everyone gets everything at no cost: that isn't even admiribale, it's childish. Why is it childish to want a life in which you don’t need to labor to have everything you need to be happy? It’s childish to think that human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life? Why do we need to earn those things? Are they not inherent within us?
- M4v3R 4y ago
  Because at the end of the day you need to obtain food, clothing, shelter and other necessities to even survive to the next day, not even mentioning doing anything for pleasure. Either through labor of your own, or by doing labor to earn money to buy these for you possibly your family. Thinking that "human beings are born worthy of a happy peaceful safe life" is childish - the world doesn't owe us anything, and if we want to continue living on it we have to earn it.

williamcotton 4y ago

Many things can become popular and then disappear when social mores change in response to negative outcomes. https://bonjourparis.com/history/the-paris-morgue-a-gruesome-tourist-attraction-in-19th-century/ https://bonjourparis.com/history/the-paris-morgue-a-gruesome... We’re as stuck with the machinations of click-bait as fin de siècle Parisians with their morgue.

dr-detroit 4y ago

verytrivial 4y ago

So, basically "Ow My Balls!" from Idiocracy, but with more money changing hands.

Invictus0 4y ago

An interesting premise for an article with ultimately no worthwhile analysis. Not worth anyone's time.

lazyjones 4y ago

I won't complain about this new world of "algorithmic desire" because my desires provide me with interesting and enjoyable content (none of Mr. Beast). Perhaps the problem isn't the algorithms of yt and Tik Tok, but rather the people who decide to watch these things instead of moving on?

seydor 4y ago

those videos are crafted to be impressionable and consumable, almost too fast to watch, no time spent to know the protagonists etc. But it also feels terminal, like, there is nothing else after he will have rehashed every major TV trope in 10 minutes. He will certainly bank big and retire soon , this is not a long-term sustainable operation. I don't think he s pointing to any particular direction in entertainment. He's making a soft versions of a squid game, but after that, what? It strikes me that he doesnt have competition in youtube currently, because nobody else (?) makes videos with somewhat substantial budgeting that feel like TV. So his videos get all the attention among the various podcast/travel/other kinds of slow-paced, monothematic videos. BUT he might start a trend here of big budget youtube productions. This will depend on his margins, but I m not sure that the relatively small payout of youtube will allow such trend

mihaic 4y ago

I think one thing most posts saying "he optimizes for the algorithm" ignore is that content also slowly influences our desired and our culture. It's all a gigantic and relatively slow-moving feedback loop, where content influences culture and desires, which again influences content. MrBeast's videos I find particularly damaging to culture, since it's incredibly dehumanizing and stripped of any nuance of the labor/value/money dynamic. It's sad that I've become less and less confident that people can be trusted with what they consume -- food, content, anything.

Karsteski 4y ago
> It's sad that I've become less and less confident that people can be trusted with what they consume -- food, content, anything. Can you elaborate more on what you mean by this?
- thisoneworks 4y ago
  I think they are talking about our proclivity to get addicted to something similar to high fructose corn syrup in any shape or form.
- mihaic 4y ago
  I mean, the more complex the world become, the worse our choices are in free market, since we don't see the long term consequences of some decisions. For instance, getting a streaming-service subscription is convenient for the consumer, but in practice it seems like making a customer binary (either on board or out) has made content more a race-to-the-bottom. In the end, I think that gatekeeping of some kind can increase both quality and the tastes of the average consumer. The fact that it's hard has led us to abandon it completely though, similarly to how people say now "the government can't make anything". I also know that I'm a weak creature, and could use some external help to not deliver me constant temptations. If you see content as food for your mind, I find it easy to binge junk, only to be left with a feeling of emptiness after a while.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

viridian 4y ago

I'm surprised at how many people view this as legitimately torturous. I'd happily do the same for twice as long and for half the money. Hell, Henry David Thoreau did this in the woods, on purpose, for two years, with only a brief refrain when he was arrested for not paying his taxes.

atribecalledqst 4y ago

I'm not really interested in Mr. Beast's content but there is a video from one of the engineers involved in his Squid Game recreation that I thought was pretty interesting. Seems like this guy went for three whole weeks without sleeping, just piling on hack after hack to make the event come together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdt18p-VMmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdt18p-VMmQ

warent 4y ago

There's a lot of severe, judgemental commenting going on here, stooping to actually name-calling Mr. Beast. Guys, relax. He's an entertainment entrepreneur. He's a circus ringleader. He gives normal people a chance to be trapeze artists for a day. Is it easy? No. It's hard work. But it's a once in a lifetime experience that people sign up for, mostly for that experience, with the money being secondary. Nobody gets hurt, and he pays his people extremely, extremely generously. His business model isn't cruelty and torture. It's just a circus that gives away huge sums of money.

mech987 4y ago

Seems to me that people are much more upset about this particular video (guy in circle for 100 days) because he's a husband and father. If it had been a young 20-something person, nobody would bat an eye.

daltonlp 4y ago

Some big spin in this piece. > During the pandemic, he partnered with local restaurants to sell “Beast Burgers”, a proprietary burger recipe that any kitchen could make and sell with his branding, and in interviews he speaks proudly of restaurants that would have gone out of business without the interest Beast Burgers provided. No. He inked a deal with a kitchen arbitrage venture. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/dining/ghost-kitchen-mrbeast-burger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/dining/ghost-kitchen-mrbe... The $24 burger was...not good.

nsonha 4y ago

Did an AI write this?

MPSimmons 4y ago

This reminds me of The Bet, by Chekhov - https://www.shortstoryguide.com/read-bet-anton-chekhov/ https://www.shortstoryguide.com/read-bet-anton-chekhov/

rufius 4y ago

This is the first time I've heard of Mr. Beast. Seems I haven't been missing a thing.