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

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

#91

Post by sumedh »

CaptArmchair wrote: post #67
mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The premise is mostly the same as a lot of game shows. You don't see rich people showing up to get on game shows. From glimpses I've seen of Japanese game shows, Mr Beast's takes a lot from them with the ridiculousness and over the top entertainment factor, the money involved is much more. Another counterpoint is that they do good as well - 30+ million pounds of trash cleaned out the ocean with TeamSeas. Go see the o…

The problematic part is that Mr Beast offers little if any critical reflection about the systems that create wealth inequality, pollution, etc. and even less regarding his own role as a perceived philanthropist within that context. It's not that it's inherently morally wrong to clean up the ocean, open a free bank or handing someone 500k for staying 100 days in a 100ft circle. It's the manifest obliviousness of not c…

> Mr Beast offers little if any critical reflection about the systems that create wealth inequality

Why should he?

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

#92

Post by antasvara »

mdrzn wrote: post #33

"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…

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.

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

#93

Post by sumedh »

zigman1 wrote: post #64
gambiting wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

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 measurabl…

> winners of his competitions are often decided by luck, not merit.

So just like real life?

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

#94

Post by sumedh »

dustedcodes wrote: post #28
zemvpferreira wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 p…

> 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.

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

#95

Post by Barrin92 »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #66

>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…

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.

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

#97

Post by emptyfile »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #4
isitmadeofglass wrote: post #2

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 kn…

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.

You're both equally disgusting.

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

#99

Post by andrewfromx »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #61

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…

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.

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

#100

Post by sumedh »

nullc wrote: post #9

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-- an…

> I found the weird sex-doll gaping face on all his videos extremely off-putting

The contestants have to play by Mr Beast's rules, Mr Beast has to play by Youtube's algorithm rules. The algorithm recommends videos with clickbait thumbnails and titles.

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