I know this is going to sound like some clickbait bullshit title, but I’m genuinely curious, asking in good faith. My two oldest sons are enamored with him, and he seems like a genuine guy, so I’m asking - is he a nice guy? If you google the question, you get a bunch of reddit hate, which I don’t always trust, because…it’s reddit. I have not watched much content (not my thing, I’m old) but I’m just curious what the fediverse has to say.
Mr Beast is fine. His content is fine for kids to watch, that is his demo. He demonstrates that doing good things with the money you have is the best thing to do. Mr Beast gets a lot of flack for his videos but as far as online entertainers go, he’s a good one. Are his videos entertaining to me? No. Are they entertaining to millions of others? Yes. Is he a negative influence on children? No. The only real PUBLIC criticism for Mr Beast is he supports LGBTQ people and his video “exploit” medical problems of people.
Edit since it seems people think me mentioning he supports LGBTQ. Criticism for his support for Chris exists in the world. OP didn’t mention their politics, I mentioned the two things Mr Beast has received criticism for in the public space.
There isn’t anything wrong with it, but OP didn’t mention their politics. It is a fair warning for someone asking about an influencer they don’t know much about.
The fact that you mention LGBT folks as if they’re a problem or whatever is problematic.
Ah yes, the king of poverty porn.
Wrapping it up in warm fuzzies doesn’t make it any less exploitative. Don’t be confused - he is in it to make money, the people he helps are nothing but props to him, and people like him do nothing to solve the problems they claim to care so much about, they’ve just found a sympathetic way to profit from them while deepening the problem (because if we can’t even treat fellow poor people as humans, not props, what hope do we have of uniting against those who exploit us?).
He is not a good roll model. Teach your kids real compassion (which includes among other things understanding that people who are less fortunate still deserve privacy and respect), teach them that kindness doesn’t need to be broadcast or be produced (because that’s what those videos are - productions), it is something we should all be engaging in all of the time, even, or actually especially, when no one is watching, not because we want more likes and followers. Teach them that if they’re that impressed with his efforts, just imagine what they could do if they actually went out and volunteered or otherwise contributed themselves. That’d be significantly better not just for them, but for your whole community.
I’m not saying there isn’t some truth to your post, but it lacks so much perspective that it’s off-putting. There are actual content creators out there spreading misinformation and dangerous ideas. Not using his platform in the exact way you want doesn’t make him a bad person or influence on his viewers. You clearly have a very dogmatic world view and I’m sure you would say this about almost any content creator.
Talk about lacking perspective lmfao… 😂
N̶o̶t̶ u̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ h̶i̶s̶ p̶l̶a̶t̶f̶o̶r̶m̶ i̶n̶ t̶h̶e̶ e̶x̶a̶c̶t̶ w̶a̶y̶ y̶o̶u̶ w̶a̶n̶t̶
Being an exploitative profiteer who only has a platform due to being an exploitative profiteer
doesn’t make him a bad person
maybe not intentionally or in his own eyes, no, but his actions and the impact of his brand of garbage tell a different story
or (bad) influence on his viewers
Yeah, it does, that’s kind of part of the problem
You clearly have a very dogmatic world view
says the person licking the boot and pretending everything about this is fine lmfao
and I’m sure you would say this about almost any content creator
if they were making money by exploiting others for gain? Yeah, I would, because that’s an actively shit thing to do.
I think you have some valid points, but they all break down when you realize that, in order to continue providing the very real philanthropy he does, he HAS to have a revenue stream. And it seems like feeding his philanthropy back into the system to generate money, to do more philanthropy is a pretty good use of the systems we have in place currently.
There are plenty of people who would do similar things, and then just pocket whatever and fade into the sunset. Mr beast is essentially doing what people always praised billionaire philanthropists but he’s doing it more, and smarter.
And the exploiting them that you’re talking about, that’s giving them cash and cars and stuff? Just trying to be clear on what you’re choosing to be upset about and what you are choosing to use YOUR platform for. The rest is just you throwing spaghetti at the wall.
says the person licking the boot and pretending everything about this is fine lmfao
I think the fact that when challenged you instantly said this this says it all about you and the way you choose to judge people. Which is by just inventing whatever fiction suites your narrative and then insisting that is true because you said it. Someone saying “Mr. Beast is not actually literally hitler” is all it takes for you to assume and fill in the blanks for everything else. It takes zero evidence, zero knowledge of a subject or person for you to feel you have the moral authority on it. That’s who you are. Reminds me of those reddit guys who ruined all those lives after the Boston bomber.
OP’s question was “Is Mr. Beast a good person?” and the answer to that is exceedingly gray and hard to pin down. He does a hell of a lot of philanthropy, but he does it by exploiting people. Do the ends justify the means? One could argue either way.
To the more narrow question that you’re posing, “Is he a good role model for OP’s sons?” the answer is HELL NO, HE EXPLOITS POOR PEOPLE.
My personal take is that content creators and celebrities in general should never be judged as “people” in the sense that you might deem a teacher or a neighborhood kid as a “good” or “bad” influence. Rather, you should treat them as “media personalities”. Content creators are characters. They’re personas meant to drive engagement and clicks. Some achieve this by engaging in risky behavior or drama. Some just do wacky challenges. The motivation is the same in that the persona presented on the screen is a combo of the creator and the engagement from their community meant to drive up click rates and brand-building.
Mr Beast has kind of a “wacky semi-wholesome” image. Odd challenges and charities that hand out cash to random people for views. That’s a cynical take, but at the end of the day he’s a content creator, that’s it. If handing out free surgeries to correct childhood blindness didn’t drive engagement, he wouldn’t do it. If anything, the fact that his community is interested in seeing that project reflects more on them as people than on him.
So in my opinion the better questions for assessing his influence on your children are things like “why does his content appeal to you?” “What about his character do you find likable?” “What aspects would you want to emulate in your own life if you could?”
Again, just my personal view.
He is one of the kindest people you can find on social media. He has helped lots of people through financial and other means. Some say he’s evil for recording and posting these acts of kindness but the views from his channels are what enable him to do these things. He also has a philanthropy channel named Beast Philanthropy.
Basically this, he does a lot of good stuff, but since he does it “for views” some people hate him/think he’s “taking advantage of their situations.”
IMO, he didn’t make those situations, and he’s providing an avenue for those situations to get resolved (even if maybe someone has to get “embarrassed” by virtue of appearing as the benefactor of one of his videos – to be clear, he to my knowledge never does anything like “kiss my feat and I’ll give you a million dollars” to these people).
Kind of one of those, “there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like you” things; if you ask me, he’s overall doing good.
General takeaway is: letting your kids be enamored by mr beast is teaching them to get clout. Teaches them that to do nice things, they must be recording themselves doing it. Its different if youre an adult that can think for themself
“If i cant record myself helping this person out then ill wait till i can find a camera.” Theres a good chance thats the type of thing your kids are gonna unconsciously think about.
I completely disagree. Mr beast genuinely does good. To say that you have to be completely selfless, and can’t want anything in return from helping people is a good way to keep people from helping. Philosophy tube has a great video about just this. She’ll be able to elaborate far better than I can.
Yeah but his general point about kids thinking nothing is worthwhile unless it is recorded goes far beyond philanthropy. Many times they’re thinking so much about how something will be filmed that they are never actually present for that something. Or they do only things that will film well because that’s how they register value. You can say that Mr Beast does well AND it’s not good for kids to watch those videos, and both can be true.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure I stated at some point that this isn’t a dichotomy, and there are legitimate concerns with the system he’s playing into, but I think that those concerns exist without Mr beast. He may be feeding into a bad system, but at least the how of it is helping a significant number of people. Often, that’s the best an individual can do.
I somehow agree with both of you. It’s okay to do good things to feel good, but it’s also not good to glamorize chasing clout.
I’d rather have a generation of clout chasers giving their money away for fame, than a generation of hoarding billionaires. I know it’s not a dichotomy, but it still serves to illustrate the point.
Holy crap, two people with different opinions having a civilized discussion?!?!?!!
it’s nice to see more of these on Lemmy.
It’s an interesting dilemma. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said but, at the same time, Mr Beast is helping people, even if he’s also personally benefitting. And the only reason he’s in a position to help as many people as much as he does is because of his “clout” - without his platform and the sponsors he attracts, he wouldn’t be able to have nearly as much of an impact as he does. And I’d rather influencers like Mr Beast exist than the Andrew Tate of the world, or the nasty “prank” influencers.
But, at the same time, you’re right that it teaches people they’ll be rewarded more if they wait until they’re on camera before doing any acts of charity. If he can inspire people to do charitable things just for the the sake of helping make the world better then that’s great, but if people are only doing charitable things for “clout” then it’s definitely not ideal.
There’s definitely not a black and white answer or solution. I think Mr Beast has a positive impact on the world overall, but there are definitely both good and bad things people could take away from watching his videos if they don’t consider things correctly. It’s something that touches on a number of philosophical subjects: capitalism, materialism, individualism versus collectivism, the influence of social media, external validation versus internal satisfaction, to name but a few.
The best thing OP can do is to teach their sons the nuances of it all.
I wish there were some way to know the net impact of this. Once helping the poor becomes entertainment, do people actually get up and go do it themselves anymore? Very often these days people don’t actually do things but rather watch others do them online. You can say sure that one person did get money and help, but what is the larger impact of this phenomenon? Are more people inspired to go give? Or do more people “get that itch scratched” and walk away from the video feeling all warm inside just from watching it? And what is the impact to the poor person of their publicity? This stuff is hard to know but I point it out to say there is more to it than “well one person did get help so it must be good.”
One thing it reminds me of is prosthetics viral videos. People love videos where a kid with one arm sees their new robotic prosthetic for the first time. We get all misty watching their excitement. But many people actually go on to have a crappy experience with their prosthetic. There’s one woman I heard on the radio who said she tried many of them and they were heavy, painful, and hard to make work right. She just prefers to use her stump now. And she wishes people would watch a video celebrating that, instead of everyone telling her she should get a cool robot arm. People are icked out by her stump and they all ask her why she doesn’t get a cool robot arm like in the video they saw.
Feelgood porn is problematic.
I feel like it might show them that doing nice things is a way to get attention. Maybe that’ll encourage them to do nice things. Is probably more favourable than influencers that teach doing mean things is ok because it’s on camera or it’s funny or just a joke, and that being mean is a way to get attention. Though its important for children to know that attention isnt everything.
