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How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

simonwillison.net

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Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#561

Post by jrflowers »

smsm42 wrote: post #136
jrflowers wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the idea that entertainment made for broad appeal is an existential threat to society worthy of comparison to drugs that kill hundreds of thousands of people per year. People have been appealing to the lowest common denominator for forever and yet the world soldiers on. Your larger question of “why haven’t they made things I don’t personally find appealing illegal yet?” is worthy of exploration, though I don’t…

It's not just "broad appeal". Shakespeare plays were made for broad appeal (he was a professional playwright, after all). Mozart's music was made for the broad appeal. I see nothing wrong with the broad appeal. It's what this appeal is made to and how. Humans have a lot of ways to appeal to them, and this particular way of appealing targets very base very addictive psychological mechanisms that ultimately hurt the pe…

> I specifically said "I am not calling for government intervention or any of such BS" because I knew you are around and you are going to maliciously misunderstand me.

What does this mean? You introduced the idea of government intervention unprompted because you wanted to be misunderstood by me?

Generally speaking if I do not want to introduce a topic to a conversation I just don’t do that. The laying of rhetorical traps is too complex for me when conveying something simple like “I don’t like this guy on youtube”

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#562

Post by bit_4l »

gleventhal wrote: post #359

I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. I don't follow or watch Mr Beast videos, but from what I've seen, they are largely driven by a money fetish and as far as "creativity", it feels on par with the more boring "What would you rath…

I would disagree on the net bad for the world, or at least be skeptical about it. Personally, Youtube was my life changing tool which I used to learn almost everything essential to my career and personal development, and I would assume lots of others would be the same. The type of content it recommends goes with the type of content you interacted with in the past. It just a tool and it matters how you use it

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#563

Post by Etheryte »

rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote: post #541
tkgally wrote: post #335

It might be interesting to contrast MrBeast’s management approach with that of Marques Brownlee (MKBHD). He is also a successful YouTuber who leads a team that puts out videos on several channels. While his videos don’t have the huge production scale of MrBeast’s, they seem to be produced on short deadlines and must require close coordination among his team. If I were young and wanted to work in online media producti…

MKBHD is not even in Top 500 of the most subscribed Youtube channels, first give me the details of what those other 500 channels are doing then maybe MKBHD... (and I'm saying this as a long time subscriber)

Would you say the same about companies, that the only interesting ones worth talking about are the ones in the Fortune 500? If anything, I would say many of them are rather boring examples, we all know roughly how they're managed and run.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#564

Post by hnbad »

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #214
ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd love to see that document and I'm sure there's a lot to learn from it and a lot of knowledge to use for the good of humanity. The fact that a shady business used some tactics to advance its cause doesn't automatically condemns the means.

Most shady businesses can be boiled down to, “we exploit people for personal gain”. Which is always bad.

Exploitation and profit are the same concept just different framing. The distinction between shady and non is usually more about who is being exploited, to what extent they're being exploited and how transparent the business is about that exploitation.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#565

Post by malthaus »

gleventhal wrote: post #359

I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. I don't follow or watch Mr Beast videos, but from what I've seen, they are largely driven by a money fetish and as far as "creativity", it feels on par with the more boring "What would you rath…

youtube still has a net positive value. the amount of knowledge & learning (and ok, entertainment) i get out of it on a daily basis is immense and i can't imagine the amount of wisdom i'd have sucked up as a kid if i had access to all this.

if it comes at the price of having it subsidised by the likes of mrbeast, i'm all for it. same trade-off as getting ads on instagram to enjoy it as a free service.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#566

Post by laserbeam »

BrenBarn wrote: post #559

Some people have alluded to this, but I find it sad that so much energy in our modern society goes towards trying to exploit arbitrary particularities of arbitrary platforms. Even if we set aside the stuff like "you're taking a risk building on YouTube because they could ban you", there's the more practical stuff about how the plan is all about the title and thumbnail. Like if YouTube somehow switched to letting you…

> suddenly everyone playing this game would have to scramble to figure out how to maximize in that environment

These people are the best positioned to figure this out. They've been experimenting with youtube changes for years and they already know how to experiment out the particularities.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#567

Post by ponector »

calmbonsai wrote: post #545
wrsh07 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the ethics of Mr Beast, he is producing real videos at an incredibly high volume and they consistently do numbers. None of those videos is easy to make. Sure, it's maybe not great to be so impressed by logistics or supply chain of a tobacco company, but from a business and systems view some of it is interesting

You lost me at "ignoring the ethics". By de facto, you never ignore ethics. You may disregard them, but they're never ignored.

There is no ethics in business, only revenue and profits.

Name any ethical company and I'm sure there will be questionable actions they did in past with "due to the market conditions" excuse.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#568

Post by sigmoid10 »

BrenBarn wrote: post #559

Some people have alluded to this, but I find it sad that so much energy in our modern society goes towards trying to exploit arbitrary particularities of arbitrary platforms. Even if we set aside the stuff like "you're taking a risk building on YouTube because they could ban you", there's the more practical stuff about how the plan is all about the title and thumbnail. Like if YouTube somehow switched to letting you…

It's clear by now that youtube is just a platform designed to produce the Infinite Jest video. Mr. Beast accordingly just appears to be a step on the way there.

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#569

Post by hnbad »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #474
latexr wrote: post #200

> Lot of people critiquing this, but you can't deny the success. You could say that about literally any shady business. Imagine seeing a PDF proving tobacco leaders knew for decades that it caused cancer and saying what you did. Being monetarily successful does not mean you’re good or shouldn’t be criticised.

What’s shady about producing entertaining videos that people want to watch? Are Marvel films shady for being popular? Is HN shady for adding features which increase engagement?

Marvel films, which (like much of big budget Hollywood at this point sadly) at this point are infamous for their exploitation of cheap unorganized effects artists, are probably a bad example for something being "not shady".

HN actually discourages high engagement by having the front page items change fairly slowly (rather than algorithmically customizing them to each user), not making scrolling beyond that (i.e. pagination and the "latest" feed) any less awkward to navigate than it has been forever and actively preventing you from commenting too much within a given timeframe (which it doesn't actively disclose when you hit the limit). That's probably a bad example for something being "shady".

Re: How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)

#570

Post by omnicognate »

brigadier132 wrote: post #445
gleventhal wrote: post #359

I don't have the energy for an intellectual debate, but personally, I have the sense that Youtube is net bad for the world and the monetization of Youtube has incentivized and amplified mediocrity, stupidity, and social decay. I don't follow or watch Mr Beast videos, but from what I've seen, they are largely driven by a money fetish and as far as "creativity", it feels on par with the more boring "What would you rath…

This type of criticism reads to me as a general hatred of what humanity actually is. Mr Beast exists because humans like to watch it. By blaming Mr Beast, you are putting the effect before the cause. There is no enlightened society that is only watching MIT linear algebra lectures for fun, it doesn't exist.

Are you arguing that the public fascination with it makes it morally acceptable? If so would you consider gladiatorial fights to the death and gruesome public executions, both of which have been massive crowd-pleasers in the past and no doubt would be again if they became socially accepted, justified by the same argument? If not, what do you think is different here that makes condemning Mr. Beast for feeding unwholesome public appetites wrong, but condemning Roman emperors for it right? Just a question of the degree of nastiness?

Personally, I think human behaviour is massively influenced by culture and that we have an individual moral responsibility to take actions that work in favour of having a healthy culture. And I see that individual moral responsibility as resting particularly on those who profit from culturally influential activities (and if Mr. Beast isn't "culturally influential", please can we retire the term "influencer"). I see arguments often made that amount to justifying amoral, or even actively immoral, behaviours by the fact that money can be made from them, with an implicit assumption that humans have no free will when it comes to money, that an action that makes money has to be carried out and that this somehow morally absolves the one who does it. I see that as a corrosive meme and evidence of a deeply unhealthy culture, not as a conclusion that follows from adopting capitalism as the primary organising principle in a society.

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