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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

#61

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

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 hiring people and said he hires about 1 person per month since then. He has a teams of accountants, editors, producers, etc. He decided early on to have videos translated but would hire premier voice actors in countries, like someone that voice acted Batman to do his voice. He has an obsessed culture of making the best videos. He built a huge studio and lives there.

I see many similarities to what I've read about startup founders and a growth mindset. If anything, there are some huge marketing lessons to be learned from how he runs his business. I would love to see an experienced interviewer with knowledge of the business world/startups interview him.

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

#63

Post by citizenkeen »

bb123 wrote: post #29

This blogger is acting like traditional network television has never mentally tortured people for our viewing pleasure. Have they never seen an episode of Hell's Kitchen, Dr Phil, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here or Big Brother? Basically the entire reality TV genre is based on that premise. Edit: Seeing as they mention Joe Rogan, Fear Factor is another great example of a reality TV version of basically the same th…

Fox had a reality shoe where they just tortured people for money.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitary_(TV_series)

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

#64

Post by zigman1 »

gambiting wrote: post #42
tpush wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Mr. Beast isn't an unthinking tool, but an intelligent human being. Exploiting people for money is unethical no matter how much 'the audience' wants to see it.

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 measurable metric, but it's definitely present. I can learn something new, or test my own knowledge, maybe even decide to sign up.

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

#65

Post by prepend »

> 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 full of horse apples and is the closest we’ve gotten to “Ass: the Movie” in my lifetime.

I don’t want to be an old person yelling at clouds so if people like watching him then I leave it alone. I suppose there are worse things to watch. But it all seems too contrived for me to enjoy it.

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.

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

#66

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

>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 ships. Why? For money. The author wants to live in a world where everyone gets everything at no cost: that isn't even admiribale, it's childish.

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

#67

Post by CaptArmchair »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #51
dustedcodes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MrBeast is pushing the boundaries on the ethics and morals of how easily people with money can coerce poor people who are in dire need to perform extremely questionable things for the sake of his own amusement. Personally I don’t think this is good in any meaningful way. You could only rationalise such behaviour with the same arguments that other forms of exploitation are explained.

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 challenging the system and the premises that allow him to make his videos that's - industries generating single-use plastics, people not able to take out a mortgage,... - which is the issue.

His videos aren't in any way a social commentary. They are nothing more then entertainment, and they don't pretend to be anything else. That's what makes all of this morally questionable.

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

#68

Post by prepend »

shitloadofbooks wrote: post #52

I watch most of Mr Beasts videos (primarily because "the algorithm" throws them at my face until I give in), but his recent interview with Graham Stephen[1] shows another side of him. He lives in his office, doesn't care about personal wealth and is absolutely dedicated to making YouTube videos. He's definitely an odd fellow. [1] https://youtu.be/yADi4cs4Dhw

He says he doesn’t care about personal wealth yet doesn’t donate to charity and instead amasses quite a bit of wealth.

He’s not odd, he’s just a YouTuber who is really good at SEOing youtube and getting billions of views.

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

#69

Post by b800h »

hackerlight wrote: post #55
dustedcodes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MrBeast is pushing the boundaries on the ethics and morals of how easily people with money can coerce poor people who are in dire need to perform extremely questionable things for the sake of his own amusement. Personally I don’t think this is good in any meaningful way. You could only rationalise such behaviour with the same arguments that other forms of exploitation are explained.

How can it be unethical if the person knows full well what's coming with no surprises, and the person judged that it was in their best interest to do it? That'd be saying it's unethical to provide someone with a benefit-cost > 0 which they've agreed to, and I don't see why that should be true. I'd agree it's unethical only if their cognition was compromised (meaning he wasn't capable of analyzing the costs and benefi…

There used to be a website where someone gave homeless people money to fight each other. Perhaps it still exists. Is that ethical?

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

#70

Post by montebicyclelo »

bb123 wrote: post #29

This blogger is acting like traditional network television has never mentally tortured people for our viewing pleasure. Have they never seen an episode of Hell's Kitchen, Dr Phil, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here or Big Brother? Basically the entire reality TV genre is based on that premise. Edit: Seeing as they mention Joe Rogan, Fear Factor is another great example of a reality TV version of basically the same th…

Contestants on the reality TV show "The Island with Bear Grylls" get lightly starved. And if you get to the final round of "SAS: Who Dares Wins" you get to be lightly tortured (kept awake, loud music, people shouting at you, bound, blindfolded..). (But they do have medics on hand at least...)
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