Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 565 posts

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#51

Post by prepend »

renewiltord wrote: post #44

MrBeast has a higher philanthropy rate than the mega-non-profits in the US: Harvard et. al. Good for him for having elevated doing good things to an art form. Though I did enjoy this dark gory horror version of him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV7ef2Y0bcE (a genre that is surprisingly popular and snowcloned)

How do you determine this? He’s not a charity so isn’t forced to file data so charitynavigator can determine his payout rate.

What percent does he give to charity? And how is it audited?

How does he compare to top charities?

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#52

Post by freddie_mercury »

bitcurious wrote: post #34

Two reasons I find this distasteful. It might be a net good still, I’m not sure. It’s not obvious however. One downside is that it competes for the same “feel-good” feeling which much more effective charities compete for. Someone engages with Mr.Beast, feels like they did good. Later they walk by a food shelter in need of volunteers and thinks “I already did my part.” As we have parasocial relationships, we have para…

> One downside is that it competes for the same “feel-good” feeling which much more effective charities compete for. [...] Later they walk by a food shelter in need of volunteers and thinks “I already did my part.”

The exact same argument is made against government programs. And there's a long history of research showing just how much government grants crowd out charitable giving because tax payers feel like "I already did my part".

But I don't see how you can consistently argue against Mr. Beast without also arguing against government funding, if crowding out is the issue you're concerned about.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#53

Post by bitcurious »

Invictus0 wrote: post #39
bitcurious wrote: post #34

Two reasons I find this distasteful. It might be a net good still, I’m not sure. It’s not obvious however. One downside is that it competes for the same “feel-good” feeling which much more effective charities compete for. Someone engages with Mr.Beast, feels like they did good. Later they walk by a food shelter in need of volunteers and thinks “I already did my part.” As we have parasocial relationships, we have para…

> One downside is that it competes for the same “feel-good” feeling which much more effective charities compete for. Talk about grasping at straws. Seriously?

100%. Everything is in competition for attention. That’s the market world we live in.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#54

Post by maximus-decimus »

I think a reason why people are uncomfortable about him is that boasting about giving to charity is very unchristian. "Be careful that you don't do your charitable. giving before men, to be seen by them, or else. you have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 6:1

If you're not allowed to even tell people you give to charity, I can't imagine what God in the old testament would do to you if you profit from it.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#55

Post by amanzi »

I don't mind MrBeast, but what I really hate is how every other YouTuber has decided to copy his "screaming face" thumbnail strategy. My YouTube home page is full of screaming faces and bright text with some clickbait title. Even middle-age woodworkers (the polar-opposite audience to MrBeast) fall prey to this strategy, and I've started to unsubscribe from channels that insist on doing this.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#56

Post by Brian_K_White »

zik wrote: post #12
xrd wrote: post #4

My kids love Mr Beast. I'm uncomfortable with it and can't put my finger on it. It feels like he makes life look like you stand a good chance of having someone walk in and give you $100,000. Maybe there is no harm in thinking that? But it feels like the same thing as buying a lottery ticket. I guess YouTube is free? But is the time spent on that channel worth it over doing other things? I admire the approach he takes…

I'm also uncomfortable with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with philanthropy but what I'm seeing is a very successful business with an enormous and very expensive campus. MrBeast himself is very rich. So what I'm seeing is a corporation claiming to do everything for the benefit of others while actually taking a lot of the money very visibly for themselves. His channel made $54m from youtube in 2021, and probabl…

There's a mr beast product display at my corner 7-11, something like usb cables or some other random plastic junk. Guy must be all over.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#57

Post by renewiltord »

prepend wrote: post #51
renewiltord wrote: post #44

MrBeast has a higher philanthropy rate than the mega-non-profits in the US: Harvard et. al. Good for him for having elevated doing good things to an art form. Though I did enjoy this dark gory horror version of him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV7ef2Y0bcE (a genre that is surprisingly popular and snowcloned)

How do you determine this? He’s not a charity so isn’t forced to file data so charitynavigator can determine his payout rate. What percent does he give to charity? And how is it audited? How does he compare to top charities?

Clever move since Charity Navigator rates you very highly if you spend almost all your charity money on growing yourself like the Harvard Management Company does. I don't outsource my moral judgment so I can safely conclude that HMC isn't a "good charity" as CN calls it.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#58

Post by no_wizard »

prepend wrote: post #47
no_wizard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not attempting to be an apologist, however it sounds to me like there just needs to be some quality control over the licensing of the brand, perhaps? Not sure how that's shady, sounds like it might be a bit egregious but its not like he isn't honest about this being a business based around his brand of philanthropy either.

It’s shady because he puts his name on crap and doesn’t care because everything is BS. Would you start a burger business without quality control? Would you let random companies put your name on crap? That’s shady.

Licensing deals aren’t the same as starting a burger business. Clearly the partnering institutions aren’t living up to par but he’s just licensing and marketing which is a pretty common arrangement for these sorts of things.

Not sure I agree it’s shady, egregious maybe.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#59

Post by voidhorse »

xrd wrote: post #4

My kids love Mr Beast. I'm uncomfortable with it and can't put my finger on it. It feels like he makes life look like you stand a good chance of having someone walk in and give you $100,000. Maybe there is no harm in thinking that? But it feels like the same thing as buying a lottery ticket. I guess YouTube is free? But is the time spent on that channel worth it over doing other things? I admire the approach he takes…

I think the discomfort comes from a deep, pretty much unconscious understanding we all have about how capitalism, taken to it logical extremes, will always perpetuate inequality to the extreme degree, and how gross inequality donned up in the guise of philanthropy is still gross inequality.

His content is a direct display of our economic system at the limit, at which point it becomes absurd. When you recognize that this is quite literally the system under which the majority of the world's economics are organized it becomes deeply serious and deeply uncomfortable.

There's also the plain psychological elements surrounding the fact that the content takes something that used to be valued for its moral goodness (generosity, charity) and transforms it into something valued strictly for its economic fruitfulness (means for generating capital) but this is capitalism's totalizing effect at work: because money is such a pure abstraction it's possible to monetize anything thereby killing off the more humane and traditional values that used to make certain pursuits meaningful to humans.

Re: MrBeast has become a viral sensation for his acts of altruism

#60

Post by sircastor »

PradeetPatel wrote: post #6

The biggest risk of exposing youth to MrBeast is that it devalues the concept of money and hard work. But there's no denial that he's doing some good work for those who are in need.

This may be unpopular, but maybe there’s something to be said for devaluing money and hard work? “Hard Work” is an inherited ethic from Puritanism in the western world. It is often implied that hard work will reap benefits, but the benefits are hit or miss and the rewards are sometimes promised salvation or riches in an afterlife. While I won’t comment on the latter, I think the ethic of hard work is often oversold, and benefits those in power rather than those who issue the effort.

And before someone cries wolf here, this isn’t advocating for laziness or hedonism. I think humans need work. We need to put effort into something whether that’s tilling a field, painting a canvas, or writing a program for a computer. I think everybody needs to experience real challenges to their understanding of life and how other people live. But I don’t think there’s an obvious measuring stick for what that looks like.

As for devaluing money, people need to know how to manage a household, but I think fewer worshippers at the alter of money is a net win.

Post reply on HN