4 ms·

I have kids and I'm really bothered by MrBeast. I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. I acknowledge he is creative and driven but the c

by xrd 2y ago

I have kids and I'm really bothered by MrBeast. I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. I acknowledge he is creative and driven but the content is such crap, with a few exceptions that my kids point out. But, what's the alternative? For example, I love 3brown1blue videos. But, it is too advanced even for my eleven year old. Mark Rober videos are great, and my kids love them, but he's even inside MrBeast's orbit. And, he's not putting out as much content. What are the good channels that create creative and stimulating videos that are a benefit to humanity. Does YouTube kill those channels?

debacle 2y ago
> I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. Nah, you didn't. You're the parent, if you don't like the content, don't let your kids watch it.
- throwaway984393 2y ago
  [dead]
np_tedious 2y ago
Idk much about him but stacking school busses on top of each other with a crane or driving a train into a sinkhole seem like pretty interesting things to do. Better than geeking out over the bloodiest Mortal Kombat fatality or whatever I was doing at that age. What's an example of the more "crap" content?
bondarchuk 2y ago
Why watch youtube at all? It's not obligatory.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
maltalex 2y ago
> But, what's the alternative? Good question. I'm also on the lookout for quality content for my kids. I recently learned that YouTube Kids can be put into whitelist-only mode, and that specific channels, videos, or collections of channels can be picked individually. Google aren't making it easy, but the option is there. > Does YouTube kill those channels? I don't think it's about YouTube. Mr Beast is good at what he does, and manages to produce very marketable content. It's fast-food entertainment. It's a newer take on what's been on our TV screens for decades in the form of reality TV and game shows.
ChiefNotAClue 2y ago
It doesn't kill them per se, but it doesn't seem to promote them either. The good content takes a lot more digging to find. Not an easy task, considering how bad the search on YouTube is.
redox99 2y ago
I don't think buying some chocolate bars is such a big deal. Just like buying some Mickey Mouse toy or sticker is fine. And nothing wrong with some entertainment videos, some leisure is good. It doesn't need to be all educational.
cynicalsecurity 2y ago
An alternative would be to use YouTube Kids instead of a regular YouTube and to ban MrBeast's channel. Problems solved.
Jun8 2y ago
Try Vihart on YT, eg this one is one of the most awesome explanations I’ve seen: https://youtu.be/VIVIegSt81k?si=yRlWlEf2-rEICgtk https://youtu.be/VIVIegSt81k?si=yRlWlEf2-rEICgtk. And kids love this stuff.
userbinator 2y ago
good channels that create creative and stimulating videos that are a benefit to humanity Restoration and repair videos could be a good choice, although there's also plenty of fake clickbait content there too now. I usually actively avoid content with sensationalised titles and look for smaller non-profit creators.
- saltcod 2y ago
  We successfully moved to restoration videos. They’re great. Agreed with everything said about both Mr Beast and Mark Rober. Not what I want my kids watching a lot of.
raydev 2y ago
The funny thing about those chocolate bars is that (I think) they're better than the century old brand names they're competing with.
guywithahat 2y ago
I know this is beside the point but I remember the first time I bought a Mr Beast bar, I bit into it, and realized their standard bar was actually a pretty dark chocolate. I think they changed the labeling but I imagine there must have been a lot of kids who bought the candy bar and hated it lol
Barrin92 2y ago
>But, what's the alternative? The alternative is grabbing The Little Prince or My Neighbor Totoro and watching or reading it with the kids. I have a very simple rule, if something isn't good enough to be engaging for parents and kids just throw it the hell out. It reminds me of a discussion between a Japanese coworker and an American expat. The Japanese guy was disgusted by lunchables, and the expat went "oh yeah, they're just for kids", and he just said "you feed your kids something you wouldn't eat yourself"? Stop normalizing feeding garbage to children, metaphorically or literally. There's enough stimulating media in the world outside of Youtube.
loughnane 2y ago
i don't know of many, but I've got kids in a similar range and I endorse Kurzgesagt. CGP Grey hits nice sometimes too (they loved the flags, hexagons, and dragon videos)
pnathan 2y ago
> But, what's the alternative? Ban YouTube. Have only 1 movie/TV night. Mandate books as primary entertainment. Stock the home library with classic tales of heroism and adventure. Own an encyclopedia set. Reject the brainshinker system and look to works of more enduring worth. Videos should be thoughtful. If that's not possible in the family dynamic, shut it down.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  People might downvote this but it’s what our family is doing. We barely watch any TV and do t spend a lot of time on screens. We have a lot of books and entertainment for my kids is primarily through reading physical books, sports, hanging out with friends in their backyard etc.
  - GlacierFox 2y ago
    I salute you for taking this approach. At least I know your kids are going to grow up well-rounded.
    - qwertytyyuu 2y ago
      Not quite “well rounded” as they’ll miss a lot of cultural context from YouTube that all the others watch.
      - someothherguyy 2y ago
        I think many people conflate popular and accessible media with essential culture.
        johnfn 2y ago
        Many people, when they say 'culture' in the context of kids, mean something that kids can discuss around a lunch table. If OP's kids don't watch youtube, they won't have this particular aspect of culture as an inroad to make friends.
lostdog 2y ago
Tell your kids they have to perform a challenge worthy of getting the chocolate bars.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kumarvvr 2y ago
> But, what's the alternative? Avoiding one sided content altogether. Any and all video content must be rejected. Learning to do things from books is the only way we can safeguard the next generation from becoming mind fucked zombies who have lost the cognitive ability to think for themselves.
HKH2 2y ago
> What are the good channels that create creative and stimulating videos that are a benefit to humanity. Kurzgesagt doesn't have daily videos, but it fits that bill.
chevman 2y ago
The whole youtube/streaming/advertiser/influencer/product pusher ecosystem is complete shit for kids and, to a degree, adults. We have a 10 year old son and best approach we have found is VLC on his ipad and family TV, coupled to a NAS that we drop the content on to (downloaded/ripped shows that contain no ads).
runeblaze 2y ago
I know what you mean, but MrBeast cured 1000 people of (a form of) blindness, which is quite a benefit to humanity [1]. I would not be surprised if kids learn a bit of "kindness is good" from him. [1]: Of course among other things, but you can't deny he did quite some philanthropy
- someothherguyy 2y ago
  Or that signaling altruism saves the obscenely wealthy from criticism, which is a popular cynical take on the utility of philanthropy.
- phito 2y ago
  Thinking that kindness content is good is naive. It is exploitative and usually what people get from it is "it could happen to me" rather than "I could help others".
  - runeblaze 2y ago
    It is a fine argument, but I mean it is youtube and it is kids we are talking about. It's really hard to show kids kindness through free content if you want to be nuanced.
shirro 2y ago
My kids have a lot (probably too much) screen time. None of them watch Mr Beast. I think he is recommended to people who don't have well developed Youtube histories. He is sort of the Taylor Swift of Youtube. She might be a fine musician for all I know but no music service is going to recommend her to a listener it knows wants metal. Beast is a safe recommendation for people who only have a casual interest in what the platform has to offer. He never appears in my recommendations. The algorithm knows better. We watched Youtube together as a family at first and when the kids got older I helped them find creators and setup their own subscriptions. The worst thing a parent can do is sit them in front of Youtube Kids brainrot. They started with lots of education,science,maker/craft,animation and PG gamers like Hermitcraft.
ants_everywhere 2y ago
> But, what's the alternative? Personally, I find YouTube to be unusable if you think of it as channel-based. What I do is keep a list of topics and perform a search based on the topics. That pulls in some set of videos, of which maybe about 20-50% are exactly what I want. If the search yields no great results, it's usually because I've gotten the search wrong or the topic isn't well covered on YouTube yet. With the kids, I don't talk about watching "YouTube", I talk about watching "learning videos" and if they want to watch a learning video, I ask them to tell me what they want to learn before we turn the screens on. Usually it's building something, like "I want to learn how to build a doll house" or "I want to learn how to make a shark sculpture Channels are push content, this is more of a pull approach.
- BrenBarn 2y ago
  Yeah, I sometimes think that the shift to "push content" is the underlying problem here.
prmoustache 2y ago
> I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. No you didn't. You chose to do so.
yeukhon 2y ago
I like Practical Engineering. I also watch a lot of quality family vblog. You can tell genuine content vs influencer contents I am sure Mark Rober has turned into very content-driven since a few years ago. He used to spend more time on explaining how the science works. His “toys” are also copycat from existing competitors
0x1ceb00da 2y ago
Face full of eyes makes long form video essays analysing video games. https://m.youtube.com/@FaceFullofEyes https://m.youtube.com/@FaceFullofEyes

by xrd 2y ago

debacle 2y ago

> I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. Nah, you didn't. You're the parent, if you don't like the content, don't let your kids watch it.

throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]

np_tedious 2y ago

Idk much about him but stacking school busses on top of each other with a crane or driving a train into a sinkhole seem like pretty interesting things to do. Better than geeking out over the bloodiest Mortal Kombat fatality or whatever I was doing at that age. What's an example of the more "crap" content?

bondarchuk 2y ago

Why watch youtube at all? It's not obligatory.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

maltalex 2y ago

> But, what's the alternative? Good question. I'm also on the lookout for quality content for my kids. I recently learned that YouTube Kids can be put into whitelist-only mode, and that specific channels, videos, or collections of channels can be picked individually. Google aren't making it easy, but the option is there. > Does YouTube kill those channels? I don't think it's about YouTube. Mr Beast is good at what he does, and manages to produce very marketable content. It's fast-food entertainment. It's a newer take on what's been on our TV screens for decades in the form of reality TV and game shows.

ChiefNotAClue 2y ago

It doesn't kill them per se, but it doesn't seem to promote them either. The good content takes a lot more digging to find. Not an easy task, considering how bad the search on YouTube is.

redox99 2y ago

I don't think buying some chocolate bars is such a big deal. Just like buying some Mickey Mouse toy or sticker is fine. And nothing wrong with some entertainment videos, some leisure is good. It doesn't need to be all educational.

cynicalsecurity 2y ago

An alternative would be to use YouTube Kids instead of a regular YouTube and to ban MrBeast's channel. Problems solved.

Jun8 2y ago

Try Vihart on YT, eg this one is one of the most awesome explanations I’ve seen: https://youtu.be/VIVIegSt81k?si=yRlWlEf2-rEICgtk https://youtu.be/VIVIegSt81k?si=yRlWlEf2-rEICgtk. And kids love this stuff.

userbinator 2y ago

good channels that create creative and stimulating videos that are a benefit to humanity Restoration and repair videos could be a good choice, although there's also plenty of fake clickbait content there too now. I usually actively avoid content with sensationalised titles and look for smaller non-profit creators.

saltcod 2y ago
We successfully moved to restoration videos. They’re great. Agreed with everything said about both Mr Beast and Mark Rober. Not what I want my kids watching a lot of.

raydev 2y ago

The funny thing about those chocolate bars is that (I think) they're better than the century old brand names they're competing with.

guywithahat 2y ago

I know this is beside the point but I remember the first time I bought a Mr Beast bar, I bit into it, and realized their standard bar was actually a pretty dark chocolate. I think they changed the labeling but I imagine there must have been a lot of kids who bought the candy bar and hated it lol

Barrin92 2y ago

>But, what's the alternative? The alternative is grabbing The Little Prince or My Neighbor Totoro and watching or reading it with the kids. I have a very simple rule, if something isn't good enough to be engaging for parents and kids just throw it the hell out. It reminds me of a discussion between a Japanese coworker and an American expat. The Japanese guy was disgusted by lunchables, and the expat went "oh yeah, they're just for kids", and he just said "you feed your kids something you wouldn't eat yourself"? Stop normalizing feeding garbage to children, metaphorically or literally. There's enough stimulating media in the world outside of Youtube.

loughnane 2y ago

i don't know of many, but I've got kids in a similar range and I endorse Kurzgesagt. CGP Grey hits nice sometimes too (they loved the flags, hexagons, and dragon videos)

pnathan 2y ago

> But, what's the alternative? Ban YouTube. Have only 1 movie/TV night. Mandate books as primary entertainment. Stock the home library with classic tales of heroism and adventure. Own an encyclopedia set. Reject the brainshinker system and look to works of more enduring worth. Videos should be thoughtful. If that's not possible in the family dynamic, shut it down.

dyauspitr 2y ago
People might downvote this but it’s what our family is doing. We barely watch any TV and do t spend a lot of time on screens. We have a lot of books and entertainment for my kids is primarily through reading physical books, sports, hanging out with friends in their backyard etc.
- GlacierFox 2y ago
  I salute you for taking this approach. At least I know your kids are going to grow up well-rounded.
  - qwertytyyuu 2y ago
    Not quite “well rounded” as they’ll miss a lot of cultural context from YouTube that all the others watch.
    - someothherguyy 2y ago
      I think many people conflate popular and accessible media with essential culture.
      - johnfn 2y ago
        Many people, when they say 'culture' in the context of kids, mean something that kids can discuss around a lunch table. If OP's kids don't watch youtube, they won't have this particular aspect of culture as an inroad to make friends.

lostdog 2y ago

Tell your kids they have to perform a challenge worthy of getting the chocolate bars.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kumarvvr 2y ago

> But, what's the alternative? Avoiding one sided content altogether. Any and all video content must be rejected. Learning to do things from books is the only way we can safeguard the next generation from becoming mind fucked zombies who have lost the cognitive ability to think for themselves.

HKH2 2y ago

> What are the good channels that create creative and stimulating videos that are a benefit to humanity. Kurzgesagt doesn't have daily videos, but it fits that bill.

chevman 2y ago

The whole youtube/streaming/advertiser/influencer/product pusher ecosystem is complete shit for kids and, to a degree, adults. We have a 10 year old son and best approach we have found is VLC on his ipad and family TV, coupled to a NAS that we drop the content on to (downloaded/ripped shows that contain no ads).

runeblaze 2y ago

I know what you mean, but MrBeast cured 1000 people of (a form of) blindness, which is quite a benefit to humanity [1]. I would not be surprised if kids learn a bit of "kindness is good" from him. [1]: Of course among other things, but you can't deny he did quite some philanthropy

someothherguyy 2y ago
Or that signaling altruism saves the obscenely wealthy from criticism, which is a popular cynical take on the utility of philanthropy.
phito 2y ago
Thinking that kindness content is good is naive. It is exploitative and usually what people get from it is "it could happen to me" rather than "I could help others".
- runeblaze 2y ago
  It is a fine argument, but I mean it is youtube and it is kids we are talking about. It's really hard to show kids kindness through free content if you want to be nuanced.

shirro 2y ago

My kids have a lot (probably too much) screen time. None of them watch Mr Beast. I think he is recommended to people who don't have well developed Youtube histories. He is sort of the Taylor Swift of Youtube. She might be a fine musician for all I know but no music service is going to recommend her to a listener it knows wants metal. Beast is a safe recommendation for people who only have a casual interest in what the platform has to offer. He never appears in my recommendations. The algorithm knows better. We watched Youtube together as a family at first and when the kids got older I helped them find creators and setup their own subscriptions. The worst thing a parent can do is sit them in front of Youtube Kids brainrot. They started with lots of education,science,maker/craft,animation and PG gamers like Hermitcraft.

ants_everywhere 2y ago

> But, what's the alternative? Personally, I find YouTube to be unusable if you think of it as channel-based. What I do is keep a list of topics and perform a search based on the topics. That pulls in some set of videos, of which maybe about 20-50% are exactly what I want. If the search yields no great results, it's usually because I've gotten the search wrong or the topic isn't well covered on YouTube yet. With the kids, I don't talk about watching "YouTube", I talk about watching "learning videos" and if they want to watch a learning video, I ask them to tell me what they want to learn before we turn the screens on. Usually it's building something, like "I want to learn how to build a doll house" or "I want to learn how to make a shark sculpture Channels are push content, this is more of a pull approach.

BrenBarn 2y ago
Yeah, I sometimes think that the shift to "push content" is the underlying problem here.

prmoustache 2y ago

> I had to buy goddamn chocolate bars at Walmart because of him. No you didn't. You chose to do so.

yeukhon 2y ago

I like Practical Engineering. I also watch a lot of quality family vblog. You can tell genuine content vs influencer contents I am sure Mark Rober has turned into very content-driven since a few years ago. He used to spend more time on explaining how the science works. His “toys” are also copycat from existing competitors

0x1ceb00da 2y ago

Face full of eyes makes long form video essays analysing video games. https://m.youtube.com/@FaceFullofEyes https://m.youtube.com/@FaceFullofEyes