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

451–460 of 565 posts

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

#451

Post by aembleton »

dataviz1000 wrote: post #208
chimen wrote: post #80

It's not altruism if it's your source of income. Sorry but I don't buy this bs. He's doing it to generate income, that's all. Altruism is "unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others" but we have quite the opposite here - a selfish way of milking poor people for emotions in order to generate income. Real altruism is hard and done only by a few. Literally EVERY man/woman/child on this planet will say yes…

After releasing Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg donated several million dollars to the Shoah Foundation. In an interview, he said that he rarely gives his name when he donates to a cause and made the exception because he wanted to use his name to bring light to what the Shoah Foundation was doing — creating an archive of witness accounts of Holocaust survivors. The reason he said he donates anonymously is that, ac…

> God does not recognize giving to charity unless it is anonymous.

So he donates mainly to please God, not to help others.

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

#452

Post by onetimeuse92304 »

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 second that. I try to teach my family that the only way to success and happiness is working for it. Success and happiness come from satisfaction with who you are and that comes from knowing, on a deep level, you earned it.

So not only your chance of winning a lottery is remote, even if you somehow win a lottery it is unlikely to make you happy. Interviews of people who won a lottery show it.

I also think people have very distorted perception of where success comes from. People think it is a matter of chance and luck that somebody made this or that decision at a particular point in time. But my understanding is that luck only plays small part of it, much bigger part is the preparation to increase your luck and to be able to risk it and to be able to make something with it and to be able to avoid bad luck.

All that comes from usually hard work and a certain mindset of being honest with yourself rather than playing a victim on every possible occasion. I have never heard about a person who would be constantly complaining about their bad luck and then got successful.

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

#453

Post by brvsft »

andelink wrote: post #266
brvsft wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Wow man chill. Your aggression doesn’t belong here.

Funny you didn't have a problem with the comment parent to mine summarizing all dislike of Mr Beast as snobbery.

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

#454

Post by hnlmorg »

Aunche wrote: post #261
namarie wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are "poors" too stupid to make decisions for themselves? Everyone in that video received thousands of dollars. I'm nowhere near poor, but if I was given an opportunity, I'd probably participate. No one's saying they're stupid for participating. If I was offered thousands of dollars for peeing in my pants in public for a video, I'd very probably take the offer and no one would think I was stupid for it; it would sti…

Why do you get to be the arbiter of what's demeaning? Are "poors" too stupid to determine their own limits? Playing silly games is hardly comparable to peeing your pants in public.

It's about power imbalance. Using your power (in this case, wealth) to encourage other people to do actions they otherwise would not want to.

It's also not a topic that is easy to define as "right" or "wrong". Some game shows will be more empowering or enjoyable than others. Some contestants on the same show might find the experience more emotionally rewarding than other contestants. There's a very subjective, fuzzy, grey area here rather than a clear line in the sand defining what is morally good or bad.

From the odd Mr Beast video I've watched, it's felt like the driving factor was that the contestant didn't want to be there if it wasn't for the money. And that Mr Beast and his friends go out of their way to make the contestant want to leave. Mr Beast has all the power and makes his contestants perform like dancing monkeys to earn their prize. Now as long as the contestants do still find the overall experience more rewarding than demeaning (and that's for them to decide), then I'm fine with it being made as "entertainment". But like many of the others, I personally don't find it entertaining to watch -- I find it uneasy to watch. And that's fine too, people don't have to enjoy the same things. But it's hard not to claim that there is a massive imbalance of power in his videos. In fact that seems to be the point of his videos.

The earlier comparison with 80s cyberpunk seems quite apt. If you take away the fancy post production editing, there is something rather dystopian about the concept of his videos. Sure the stakes are significantly lower than, for example, Running Man, but the power imbalance isn't that dissimilar.

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

#455

Post by difosfor »

I don't get why people like charity so much. It basically just means that whoever manages to get a lot of money gets to choose who does or does not get money. I'd rather see all of this money go to a government and then democratically determine who gets the money so it really benefits society as a whole.

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

#456

Post by TeMPOraL »

bruceb wrote: post #387
throwaway2037 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am always shocked when I see the prices for "merch". Why does a hooded sweatshirt, that might cost 10-20 USD at Uniqlo, cost 55 USD as "merch" with a 2-5 USD silkscreen print. I agree: It is absolutely "exploiting the parasocial relationship your victims have with you".

No regular price hoodie sweatshirt costs $10-$20 at Uniqlo. They start at $40 for adults, most are $50. They start at $30 for kids. https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/men/tops/sweatshirts-and-hoodie... Uniqlo's core business is apparel. They buy in massive bulk. Mr Beast buys in maybe tens of thousands.

Those are pretty high prices. Are they manufacturing those sweatshirts in the US or other Western country, or are they just positioning themselves as premium brand and selling with 400%+ markup?

Or has the clothing market in the US hollowed out in the middle completely? That's what I'm worried about where I live (Poland, EU) - I feel like the middle tier, of normally priced, regular quality clothes for regular people, is all but gone now, leaving us with the choice between a) second-hand stores and bazaars selling counterfeits imported from the East, and b) lifestyle brands selling rags at ridiculous prices.

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

#457

Post by em-bee »

inconceivable wrote: post #232
memefrog wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your children aren't going to resent you because they can't watch a YouTube channel. Nobody has ever resented their parents as an adult because of something like that. My parents didn't let me watch adult-rated movies or play adult-rated games (eg The Godfather, Call of Duty) as a child, while others' parents did. You'd have to be insane to resent them for that. How far do you take this? No rules? "Sorry, no chores i…

not letting your kids watch saturday morning cartoons because you find them to be annoying seems pretty dickish and seems like it has an extremely asymmetric possible negative long run consequence. you're talking about it to this very day in a way that seems like you can't wait to enforce these rules on your own children. i can't recall a single thing my parents did along these lines. this is just not how they operat…

we didn't even have a TV to begin with, so there was no argument about what we can or can't watch. but it didn't feel like a restriction. we had a lot of freedoms and we could spend money on things that we needed or wanted. the wish to have a TV just didn't come up, and internet wasn't available yet.

now in my home, there is no TV either, but there are computers and internet which provide plenty of entertainment. and yes, MrBeast was popular for a while.

i think the problem is not which restrictions are in place but how they are introduced and enforced.

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

#458

Post by narag »

blitzar wrote: post #430
narag wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listened to the same interview and can recommend it too. The key to understand him is how he views what he does as hacking: mastering all aspects of YouTube, every detail that attracts views. Instead of getting hung up on what is or isn't altruism... It's interesting how people gets stuck in that point. They want him to suffer in order to qualify for saint status. Otherwise, doing good is meaningless. On the contra…

Instead of getting hung up on what is or isn't altruism... Until BeastHQ PR agency decides that it needs to plant stories in major news publications to counter the original narative and rebrand away from hacking: mastering all aspects of YouTube, every detail that attracts views to full fledged saint. > thinks of well-known NGOs. I have many uncharitable words for the vast majority of charities, workers, donors and c…

I haven't heard "altruism" or "charity" from Mr. Beast's mouth, it's the article that uses those words and then proceeds to attack the characterization. He talks about giving away money to get views and entertain watchers.

Let me insist in watching the interviews instead of reading about him. The guy is very straightforward about what he does, why and how.

the problem with both cases is when people stop being honest and go from admitting the reality to claiming they are a saint.

So you judge people for what they will do?

Anyway, the charities, from the start, claim that they're saving the world and keep claiming that when corruption cases arises.

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

#459

Post by subjectsigma »

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…

Whether Beast is a good person and whether what he’s doing actually helps people are two separate questions from whether he’s good for your kids to watch. My answers would be maybe, no, and no.

Why ‘no’ for the third one? Mostly because it’s just intellectual sawdust. Nobody learns anything from a Mr. Beast video or engages with any new concept. It’s just the same ridiculous kinds of jokes and contests and clickbait churned out over and over again. He has literally no reason to stop making the exact same video 500 times over when people will still watch it. His video titles

Obviously up to you and your wife/husband if you want to continue letting them watch it.

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

#460

Post by em-bee »

zpeti wrote: post #421
voidhorse wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And such power dynamics are (at least partially, if not to great extent) enabled by the fact that late-stage capitalism like we have in the US emphasizes individual wealth over social support systems that would otherwise redistribute wealth, make people more equal (read: give them less undue power over each other), and generally remove the conditions of possibility for this sort of content. I'm sorry but to watch Mr…

> And such power dynamics are (at least partially, if not to great extent) enabled by the fact that late-stage capitalism like we have in the US emphasizes individual wealth over social support systems that would otherwise redistribute wealth The social systems you talk about are the biggest they’ve ever been, and the US is going to need to raise tax revenues by 30% just to break even on the current ones. At no time…

the problem with social nets is the holes that some people fall through. most social nets are one size fits all solutions that ignore the individual issues that prevent some people from benefiting from them. so yes, we need to keep working on those social nets until those holes are closed and they will help everyone that is actually in need.
Post reply on HN