this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse
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In the 80s, there were lots of "sweepstakes" grifts that vaguely promised money for signing up for grifty nonsense.
"MrBeast" is doing that tired old shit but in a more obnoxious way.
Mr Beast is more banal than that. He’s tapping in to the same economic model as game shows. Give away money/prizes with some spectacle attached, make content out of it, make more money selling the content than you spent on giveaways. Nothing really grifty about it, just boring. Anyone who thinks of him as a “philanthropist” is a gigantic rube, though.
There's the grift, in my opinion. His brand presents him doing this wacky stunts out "philanthropy" and even does cynical edits of tears of joy on kids' faces and the like for more clickbait.
For sure. We can debate the nuances of the word “grift”, but I don’t think there’s any doubt about what he’s doing or what his motives are.
He does have his own "ghost kitchen" brands and peddles sugary junk to children, too. He even asks his fans to do free labor to "face" his brand products in stores.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/mrbeast-countersued-for-100m-over-contract-spat-with-ghost-kitchen-company/ar-AA1eVcFr
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mrbeast-tweet-walmart-feastables-rcna73546
The ghost kitchen stuff is more nakedly exploitative than the content, imo. His videos are just reality tv, no better or worse (which, granted, isn’t saying much). Using the brand he built from making reality tv as leverage to extract profit from small restaurants is way worse.
My issue with him is that he exploits people in sensitive situations for video content. His "restoring eyesight to the blind" video was egregious.
He's the zoomer equivalent of Oprah or Dr. Phil. He makes whatever will get the most attention, and invariably that means exploiting people to the maximum degree that won't hinder his ability to continue to exploit people. I'm not defending him, to be clear, I'm only trying to describe what he's doing. I don't like what he does, nor do I think it has any value to society.
Lol, that's a really good comparison. My nephew loves Mr. Beast just as much as my Dad likes Dr. Phil. Agreed.
A lot of people genuinely think he does the videos to support the charity, not the other way around. It's mind-blowing.