YouTuber Chocolate - hard to swallow?

site23 wrote:There's a particular style of YouTubing which revolves around saying "wow, look how rich I am!" to children still impressionable enough to believe that's a cool thing to do.

It also doesn't help when the YouTube algorithm seems hell bent on promoting and pushing this type of content over pretty much everything and everyone else.

jawa_ wrote:

site23 wrote:There's a particular style of YouTubing which revolves around saying "wow, look how rich I am!" to children still impressionable enough to believe that's a cool thing to do. In a just society, the people making these videos would be exiled to some kind of prison-mine to break rocks all day.

Bang on!

"Look at my new video where I spend $452k on Balan" .

Promoting your own video jawa smh

My problem with Mr. Beast is he just feeds to an algorithm, he doesnt care to make sonething better than that.

Also I think hes gonna get his arse sued one day. I dont understand how he can just do Squid Game with absolutely zero permission, if I could do that my job would be so easy.

DML wrote:My problem with Mr. Beast is he just feeds to an algorithm, he doesnt care to make sonething better than that.

Also I think hes gonna get his arse sued one day. I dont understand how he can just do Squid Game with absolutely zero permission, if I could do that my job would be so easy.

I've wondered that with Sidemen, they often do their own versions of TV Shows.

Tomous wrote:

DML wrote:My problem with Mr. Beast is he just feeds to an algorithm, he doesnt care to make sonething better than that.

Also I think hes gonna get his arse sued one day. I dont understand how he can just do Squid Game with absolutely zero permission, if I could do that my job would be so easy.

I've wondered that with Sidemen, they often do their own versions of TV Shows.

Same deal except that time they did The Wheel.

I can't stand his videos and won't be buying his crappy chocolate, but to be fair Mr Beast does do lots of good in some of his videos. I saw one where he was paying for hundreds of people to have eye surgery that they needed but couldn't afford or didn't have access to. Fair play if he can make millions from that sort of stuff. His voice is too annoying for me to watch though.

satriales wrote:I can't stand his videos and won't be buying his crappy chocolate, but to be fair Mr Beast does do lots of good in some of his videos. I saw one where he was paying for hundreds of people to have eye surgery that they needed but couldn't afford or didn't have access to. Fair play if he can make millions from that sort of stuff. His voice is too annoying for me to watch though.

This is the most insidious aspect of his videos, though. His biggest videos are always ones like, "I bought eye surgery for 100 people to see again", "I gave thousands of shoes to kids in Africa", or "I built houses for the homeless", and while on a surface level these are good acts, they create and reinforce a lot of incredibly toxic narratives.

Firstly, this philanthropy creates a shield around him that exists to protect him from any and all criticism. Have something negative to say about Mr Beast online? Good luck buddy, be prepared to have hundreds of tweens flooding your mentions to tell you that you hate the poor and disadvantaged that he helps. Would you rather they starved or stayed blind. Mr Beast does good things, how can you attack that?

The biggest issue with him doing these good things is that, he profits off it! He might put his charity type videos on another youtube channel and ringfence the funds that come from ads there, but it all feeds into brand Beast, and all leads to him being able to exploit that rep for personal profit. It creates an air of angel philanthropist about him, and I can guarantee that people out there will be buying this chocolate under the assumption that it's an ethical product that's helping to heal the sick and clothe the poor.

It's reached a point where the guy has even proposed essentially building his own company town, as he's bought up a street full of houses to provide accomodation for his employees and their families, and people are looking at this like it's a good thing and not a relic of late 19th Century frontier capitalism.

Meanwhile, all this philanthropy is never placed in context. He never explores the reason these 100 people he's buying eye surgery for cannot afford to access that surgery themselves. There's no attempt to address America's busted healthcare systems. There's no attempt to explain why the lack of social safety net and welfare programs has led to the levels of homelessness that exist, as he's performatively housing a dozen people, going no way to even acknowledge the systemic issues that put them and hundreds of thousands of others on the street in the first place. It teaches his audience of impressionable children that these problems are just an innate part of life, with no addressable root cause, and the solution is an altruistic upper class of billionaires who are going to swoop in and save people with a portion of their vast wealth. If only we had more billionaire philanthropist youtube entrepreneurs, we could save help even more people, and also create even more tax write offs. What a dream world.

Gonna ban YouTube for little one when she's old enough to watch this level of stuff.

Ms Rachel is bad enough as an adult, though at least it's no worse than some of the bollocks on CBeebies

Knoyleo wrote:Firstly, this philanthropy creates a shield around him that exists to protect him from any and all criticism.

And I think we all know of a famous celebrity that got away with doing almost exactly that for decades....

Knoyleo wrote:

satriales wrote:I can't stand his videos and won't be buying his crappy chocolate, but to be fair Mr Beast does do lots of good in some of his videos. I saw one where he was paying for hundreds of people to have eye surgery that they needed but couldn't afford or didn't have access to. Fair play if he can make millions from that sort of stuff. His voice is too annoying for me to watch though.

This is the most insidious aspect of his videos, though. His biggest videos are always ones like, "I bought eye surgery for 100 people to see again", "I gave thousands of shoes to kids in Africa", or "I built houses for the homeless", and while on a surface level these are good acts, they create and reinforce a lot of incredibly toxic narratives.

Firstly, this philanthropy creates a shield around him that exists to protect him from any and all criticism. Have something negative to say about Mr Beast online? Good luck buddy, be prepared to have hundreds of tweens flooding your mentions to tell you that you hate the poor and disadvantaged that he helps. Would you rather they starved or stayed blind. Mr Beast does good things, how can you attack that?

The biggest issue with him doing these good things is that, he profits off it! He might put his charity type videos on another youtube channel and ringfence the funds that come from ads there, but it all feeds into brand Beast, and all leads to him being able to exploit that rep for personal profit. It creates an air of angel philanthropist about him, and I can guarantee that people out there will be buying this chocolate under the assumption that it's an ethical product that's helping to heal the sick and clothe the poor.

It's reached a point where the guy has even proposed essentially building his own company town, as he's bought up a street full of houses to provide accomodation for his employees and their families, and people are looking at this like it's a good thing and not a relic of late 19th Century frontier capitalism.

Meanwhile, all this philanthropy is never placed in context. He never explores the reason these 100 people he's buying eye surgery for cannot afford to access that surgery themselves. There's no attempt to address America's busted healthcare systems. There's no attempt to explain why the lack of social safety net and welfare programs has led to the levels of homelessness that exist, as he's performatively housing a dozen people, going no way to even acknowledge the systemic issues that put them and hundreds of thousands of others on the street in the first place. It teaches his audience of impressionable children that these problems are just an innate part of life, with no addressable root cause, and the solution is an altruistic upper class of billionaires who are going to swoop in and save people with a portion of their vast wealth. If only we had more billionaire philanthropist youtube entrepreneurs, we could save help even more people, and also create even more tax write offs. What a dream world.

All good points, I can't disagree with any of that.
I'd just seen a couple of videos and thought he's annoying but at least he's helping people. Actually there's much more to it, like you say.

Great post Knoyleo.

You guys need to stop being furious about this stuff. Don't pretend you weren't just as influenced by marketing campaigns as a child.

Clarkman wrote:You guys need to stop being furious about this stuff. Don't pretend you weren't just as influenced by marketing campaigns as a child.

That doesn't make it right or mean we shouldn't change things for the better.

Yes I came in here to rant about philanthropist Mr Beast but you've covered all the points there. I've had the discussion with my step daughter before about how he's a business man first and not a charity but I gave up when I realised I was coming across all old man yells at clouds and remembered how I would make a point to never listen to my parents when I was 13.

Clarkman wrote:You guys need to stop being furious about this stuff. Don't pretend you weren't just as influenced by marketing campaigns as a child.

I never wanted nor drank a single drop of Sunny Delight.

Kids are stupid and always have been. The problem is that they now have far more purchasing power because certain types of parent pander to their every whim. Child wants, child gets. EVERYTHING.

rinks wrote:Kids are stupid and always have been. The problem is that they now have far more purchasing power because certain types of parent pander to their every whim. Child wants, child gets. EVERYTHING.

This really, really isnt a new thing. Theres always been spoilt kids.

rinks wrote:Kids are stupid and always have been. The problem is that they now have far more purchasing power because certain types of parent pander to their every whim. Child wants, child gets. EVERYTHING.

DML wrote:

rinks wrote:Kids are stupid and always have been. The problem is that they now have far more purchasing power because certain types of parent pander to their every whim. Child wants, child gets. EVERYTHING.

This really, really isnt a new thing. Theres always been spoilt kids.

Yes, but it’s far worse now. How many kids when you were at school would have regularly been bought something of equivalent value to a smartphone? Spoilt is the norm now. If you don’t buy your child everything they demand, you’re a bad parent.

rinks wrote:

DML wrote:

rinks wrote:Kids are stupid and always have been. The problem is that they now have far more purchasing power because certain types of parent pander to their every whim. Child wants, child gets. EVERYTHING.

This really, really isnt a new thing. Theres always been spoilt kids.

Yes, but it’s far worse now. How many kids when you were at school would have regularly been bought something of equivalent value to a smartphone?

How many kids are regularly bought a smartphone? Most surely get given hand me down phones?

But when I was a kid most of us had either a C64, Spectrum or Amstrad, here's the mid-80s prices of those:



£200 in the mid-80s is about £600 adjusted for inflation.