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

coldhealing.substack.com

211–220 of 291 posts

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

#211
post #65

> 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 ful…

> 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.

Not sure that anyone could do it. He made the job easier by forking with the guy and providing human contact. Should have left the guy alone. 100 days of solitary confinement can literally drive you nuts.

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

#213
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I'm not defending him but am curious what cultural values you're observing? I see a guy that basically operates like a game show host but also does things like TeamSeas, cleaning 30 million pounds of trash out of seas/oceans.

a bit of a tangent. what's art. and so is following the trends to produce youtube no1 videos art?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPrNWuppMcc&t=3790s

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

#215
post #137

>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…

Not to say, people go to work at 9 and leave at 5 for years and years for small recurring amounts of money

> go to work at 9 and leave at 5

Most people aren't even lucky enough to have this much consistency, and for even less money.

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

#216
post #152

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/val…

[deleted]

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

#217

>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…

No, the ideal world is where everyone gets everything at no cost. That’s basically utopia. The only difference is we can’t make it happen yet.

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

#218
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

Yes, but the difference here is that the mission is inherently unnecessary. Consider the JFK speech and what went before choosing to go to the moon: "But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?" Perhaps we've conquered all the naturally "hard" things and are left only with artificial chal…

In fairness, Rice playing Texas is also an artificial challenge.

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

#219
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's some dignity in doing something that has a point . Doesn't negate the need for better, safer working conditions and good pay but there's a big psychological difference between digging coal (which you know will go on to heat homes) and sitting in a circle and having the internet laugh at you.

Creating content that millions will enjoy in exchange for six figures of cash is something that has a point. The internet wasn't laughing at that dude. I assume most people here are too good to watch Mr Beast /this video and are simply inserting into it whatever is most convenient to their argument. The dude is amazing. It was a fun enough video. His family is beautiful and watching how he "survived" based on the str…

No, you don't understand the dignity of court jestering. Humiliation was invented last thursday on twitter.

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

#220
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is so odd to me because this isn't my experience with Youtube at all. I just opened the homepage and it's mostly content I subscribe to and music that I've listened to before (I use Youtube for listening to DJ sets/Live music a lot.) I scrolled for a while and didn't see any Mr. Beast videos recommended. Maybe it's because I pay for Premium? I also don't use Youtube that much.

I also pay for Premium. Nevertheless Youtube ignores the likes/dislike/"not interested in this content"/"do not recommend this channel" signals.

Sure, it stops recommending that Minecraft channel. So that it can recommend 3 other Minecraft channels.

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