I watched this video when it was posted on r/videos. I watched it at speed 2×, because aint nobody got time for a 1 hour video. I was expecting to watch the first 10 minutes and move on. I have to...
I watched this video when it was posted on r/videos. I watched it at speed 2×, because aint nobody got time for a 1 hour video. I was expecting to watch the first 10 minutes and move on.
I have to admit, it was a great watch. I was anticipating some YouTube drama, revengeful hit piece. If it was, it didn't feel that way. It is extremely well sourced, with original video clips, even live stream clips which have been deleted. Also it's using interviews of Mr Beast production team members on other podcasts. I salute the effort of this YouTuber.
I was not aware how exploitative of Kids gambling Mr Beast was. It is really sickening. I feel for the parents of these kids who are watching/following Mr Beast, and getting drowned into gambling addiction or FoMo or both...
The TL;DR is, according to this youtuber, (but they present evidence): All the "Game shows" done by Mr. Beast are rigged. Contestants are just production employees, other influencers,... Most of...
Exemplary
The TL;DR is, according to this youtuber, (but they present evidence):
All the "Game shows" done by Mr. Beast are rigged. Contestants are just production employees, other influencers,...
Most of the content is basically scripted, sometimes using CGI/edits/cuts, while pretending to be genuine.
Mr Beast inflated his subscribers count thanks to gambling, and kid manipulation. "If you subscribe, I'll pick a random subscriber and give that subscriber a car", which is blatantly false.
Mr Beast will then trick his audience, by picking a member of his crew, and acting like it's a random subscriber getting a new car.
Mr Beast has done multiple "lottery" livestreams, where he has more or less broken every US regulation, while targeting kids.
A lot of Mr Beast merch' is deceptive. It's not really signed by Mr Beast himself, it never arrives, when it arrives it's with the wrong size, there is no customer support.
Mr Beast created a chocolate bar that he advertised as "healthy" to basically promote children gambling. (It was tied to a lottery, and regulations require you to enter the lottery without having to buy the product, but you could not do so) He was comparing the chocolate bar to Hershey's and claiming it was much tastier and healthier. A few months after, he replaced the formula with basically the same ingredients as Hershey's.
Mr Beast also have a pretty good clean up team to remove/copyright-strike any post/video which gives a negative image of him.
It's a long video, that's basically the main points I could pull out. I might have missed some.
Slightly off-topic, I watched this video when it was posted on Reddit the other day, the discussion there was pretty exhausting, mostly just people making statements without even pretending to...
Slightly off-topic, I watched this video when it was posted on Reddit the other day, the discussion there was pretty exhausting, mostly just people making statements without even pretending to have watched the video. Just tons of people talking past each other and being frustrating.
All that is to say I don't intend to his to be that kind of comment, but I wanted to hypothesize that Mr Beast genuinely doesn't see anything wrong with his behavior. I think he believes he's genuinely making the world a better place and that he's making kids' day when he manipulates them into doing things like overspending on his merch or products and commits misdemeanors on Livestream. The dude just seems completely out of touch with any moral or ethical code other than make lots of money and try to appear squeaky clean while doing so (A.k.a the Mark Rober approach.) but what's different is that Mark Rober is incredibly smart and knows not to push it too far and start doing things that will cause this kind of internet uproar.
Yup. I totally agree and share your fustration on the "Mr Beast doesn't seem to even see how much of a wart to society he is." This is especially true with these chocolate bar that he sells as...
Yup. I totally agree and share your fustration on the "Mr Beast doesn't seem to even see how much of a wart to society he is." This is especially true with these chocolate bar that he sells as health products. As somebody mostly buying Tony's Chocolonely after seeing John Oliver show about Chocolate, I was really revolted by him selling garbage chocolate as a "health" product. "Hershey's has 20 ingredients, my chocolate only has 5." Your average fair-trade chocolate already has mostly 5 ingredients, you didn't need to make another garbage chocolate. And while the amount of individual ingredients is definitely a sign of ultra-processed food, free sugars (which his chocolate contains as much as Hershey's) are the real main issue in Chocolate. Chocolate should never be advertised as healthy, it should always be promoted as a treat.
try to appear squeaky clean while doing so (A.k.a the Mark Rober approach.) but what's different is that Mark Rober is incredibly smart and knows not to push it too far
I personally don't like Mark Rober either. His videos are really clickbaity, and I'm convinced that half of his "catching thieves with glitter" are just fake while pretending to be real. (I have no proof of this)
I know people are usually really critical of how much of a hardcore Christian Destin from SmarterEveryDay is. But I respect the Destin Sandlin's integrity. His content, while not being a class, is educational and engaging, in my opinion. And many of his videos are cool :) . (Shooting a bullet with another bullet, in a safe way!? Count me in the audience :P )
My gripe with Mark Rober is that his content is flashy, but shallow. He does these really cool projects, but glosses over the actually interesting/hard parts of engineering or dumbs them down to...
My gripe with Mark Rober is that his content is flashy, but shallow. He does these really cool projects, but glosses over the actually interesting/hard parts of engineering or dumbs them down to the point that it's not all that educational anymore. And I get that the reasoning is that he's targeting a general and younger audience, and he's got a schedule to keep up with, etc. But all the same his videos always leave me wanting more. I genuinely wish he had a second channel where he took the time to go more in-depth so those of us who like the in-depth stuff can get it without disrupting those who just want the flashy pseudo-educational stuff.
For example, his most recent video was making a robot that could solve jigsaw puzzles autonomously. And the robot does it, but there are a few major issues. It takes forever for it it scan each puzzle piece (I want to say like 20 minutes for the # of pieces they had) and it only works on a single-color puzzles (ie an all-white puzzle), so no image puzzles.
My programmer brain immediately wants to know what can be done to solve those issues. Better cameras for the scanning phase? A different approach to scanning entirely? And then the video was framed as a human vs machine competition where the human was forced to put together an all-white puzzle because of the robot's limitations. And the woman (who had broken records for putting together puzzles quickly), admitted to struggling with single-color puzzles because it didn't fit her color/pattern based strategy. But that's just kind of glossed over rather than addressed. Would've been nice to see them let her do an image puzzle while the robot does the all-white one. That way they're both playing their own strengths and it's a closer competition.
StuffMadeHere did a couple videos in 2022 on building a puzzle solving robot, which go into a lot of detail on all the difficulties he faced with both the hardware and software that you might...
I was thinking the same thing while reading the parent comment. If you like Rober's projects but want more in depth engineering content, StuffMadeHere is probably what you're looking for.
I was thinking the same thing while reading the parent comment. If you like Rober's projects but want more in depth engineering content, StuffMadeHere is probably what you're looking for.
All fair criticisms, but he's an entertainment content creator first and an engineer second. There's no audience for the latter, or at least not large enough to get the necessary views. It's...
All fair criticisms, but he's an entertainment content creator first and an engineer second. There's no audience for the latter, or at least not large enough to get the necessary views.
Regarding the glitter bomb, before it happened, I was already following Sean Hodgins. It looks like he’s the one to have actually created the glitter bomb, on what I’m assuming was a development...
I personally don't like Mark Rober either. His videos are really clickbaity, and I'm convinced that half of his "catching thieves with glitter" are just fake while pretending to be real. (I have no proof of this)
Destin is definitely my favourite of these people as well.. he feels so much more authentic. I'm willing to take a dose of religion if it helps tone down the click bait.
Destin is definitely my favourite of these people as well.. he feels so much more authentic. I'm willing to take a dose of religion if it helps tone down the click bait.
All he does is mention God once in a while. I’m all for people believing in a God when it promotes good behavior. Edit: Well in the most recent video (#300) he does go a bit harder. Lots of...
All he does is mention God once in a while. I’m all for people believing in a God when it promotes good behavior.
Edit: Well in the most recent video (#300) he does go a bit harder. Lots of discussion on the possibility of intelligent design and the need for people to open their minds to the possibilities. To be honest I am comfortable considering there may be some deep unknown forces at play in the creation and maintenance of the universe. It could be intelligent. But I think going from an old religion to a specific explanation of a new scientific discovery makes no sense.
It was a few minutes at the end of a quite long video. 26:11 "Scientists are trying to figure it out, and I encourage you to read their papers" Out of 29:30 video. Folks put off by Destiny's faith...
It was a few minutes at the end of a quite long video.
26:11 "Scientists are trying to figure it out, and I encourage you to read their papers"
Out of 29:30 video. Folks put off by Destiny's faith can feel free to stop after the above quote to skip any suggestion of ID or mentions of his own religion
I don't agree with that. His religion is heavily intertwined with the video, and conscious decision or not, feels like him trying to convert the viewer. The video starts with him already heavily...
I don't agree with that. His religion is heavily intertwined with the video, and conscious decision or not, feels like him trying to convert the viewer. The video starts with him already heavily implying creationism. Then during the interview, he tries to compare the mechanism to human inventions, which normally would be benign. However, coupled with the start of the video, it seems like his main intention was to affirm his creationism assertion, especially with him having seemingly an epiphany at that moment. In the end, he tries to push a book on his audience that tries to argue against naturalism.
For a science educator, he spends astonishingly little time asking himself (and the audience) questions on how this could have been created through evolution, and instead immediately jumps to creationism as the answer. Honestly, he makes me a bit sad, as it feels like he is going through something in his life, and needs this to be true.
I wouldn't go that far. While most chocolate palatable to modern consumers probably contains a significant amount of sweetners, there's nothing inherently unhealthy about cacao or its ground up...
Chocolate should never be advertised as healthy, it should always be promoted as a treat.
I wouldn't go that far. While most chocolate palatable to modern consumers probably contains a significant amount of sweetners, there's nothing inherently unhealthy about cacao or its ground up form, and it does contain some somewhat rare nutrients. If you consume it the way the aztecs did - that is, as a drink, spiced, but not sweetened - I don't see any particular health concerns.
And there's no reason you couldn't make a chocolate bar that is healthy, but it'd be somewhat of an acquired taste.
Yes. You're absolutely right. 100% cocoa bar, or even milk with 100% cocoa powder is nutritionally good, and can also be used as a hunger suppressant, which is healthy if you're trying to lose...
Yes. You're absolutely right. 100% cocoa bar, or even milk with 100% cocoa powder is nutritionally good, and can also be used as a hunger suppressant, which is healthy if you're trying to lose weight.
I think legally speaking you'd need to meet a definition similar to yours to sell something as chocolate, and if someone asked for chocolate and you gave them cacao nibs or something else without...
I think legally speaking you'd need to meet a definition similar to yours to sell something as chocolate, and if someone asked for chocolate and you gave them cacao nibs or something else without sugar, they would be annoyed. So I think as far as how the words are used, it's not very different from what you describe. "Cacao" is used for the plant and its direct products, whereas "chocolate" prototypically refers to the sweet with added sugar (and optionally milk).
It’s the reverse for the legal definitions in the US. The FDA sets a limit on how little of your chocolate contains cocoa mass - 10% for milk and 35% for dark chocolate.
It’s the reverse for the legal definitions in the US. The FDA sets a limit on how little of your chocolate contains cocoa mass - 10% for milk and 35% for dark chocolate.
I assume there is a similar minimum value in whatever country @malademental is from that just wasn't mentioned in their initial comment. My point was more that the definition of "chocolate"...
I assume there is a similar minimum value in whatever country @malademental is from that just wasn't mentioned in their initial comment. My point was more that the definition of "chocolate" inherently assumes the presence of sweeteners, which is also the case with the FDA definitions: both dark chocolate (which isn't defined directly but would refer to semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate) and milk chocolate are defined as mixtures of "chocolate liquor" (unsweetened chocolate that can optionally contain spices/flavorings and butter or milk fat but not any other dairy products or sweeteners) with one or more of the approved sweeteners and, in the case of milk chocolate, one or more of the approved dairy products.
My point wasn't so much about how chocolate is regulated, but rather that the terms are defined as including sweeteners -- though I suppose the "chocolate liquor" section does say it can be sold as "baking chocolate" or "unsweetened chocolate" so it is a little more flexible.
[...]
1. Cocoa butter: designates the fat obtained from cocoa beans or parts of cocoa beans with the following characteristics: [...]
2. (a) Cocoa powder, cocoa: designate the product obtained by converting into powder cocoa beans which have been cleaned, shelled and roasted, and which contains not less than 20 % cocoa butter, calculated according to the weight of the dry matter, and not more than 9 % water;
3. Chocolate
(a) designates the product obtained from cocoa products and sugars which, subject to (b), contains not less than 35 % total dry cocoa solids, including not less than 18 % cocoa butter and not less than 14 % of dry non-fat cocoa solids;
4. Milk chocolate
(a) designates the product obtained from cocoa products, sugars and milk or milk products, which, subject to (b) contains:
- not less than 25 % total dry cocoa solids,
- not less than 14 % dry milk solids obtained by partly or wholly dehydrating whole milk, semi- or full-skimmed milk, cream, or from partly or wholly dehydrated cream, butter or milk fat,
- not less than 2,5 % dry non-fat cocoa solids,
- not less than 3,5 % milk fat,
- not less than 25 % total fat (cocoa butter and milk fat).
[...]
Yeah, the definitions are generally similar in their structure and descriptions of different cocoa products (though I'm sure there are sufficient differences in the actual numbers that matter to...
Yeah, the definitions are generally similar in their structure and descriptions of different cocoa products (though I'm sure there are sufficient differences in the actual numbers that matter to the people who produce these products).
"Only 5 ingredients" is laughable. The best chocolate has 1 or 2 ingredients, cacao and (optionally) sugar. We have a really exceptional chocolate brand in my city, Dandelion Chocolate. They show...
"Only 5 ingredients" is laughable. The best chocolate has 1 or 2 ingredients, cacao and (optionally) sugar. We have a really exceptional chocolate brand in my city, Dandelion Chocolate. They show you how good chocolate can be if you take good care of your supply chain. The fact that you can eat their 100% cacao chocolate and enjoy it - in small bits - proves that. That pure stuff could be considered a health food.
In the US, milk chocolate is dramatically more popular than dark (the stuff that can be made with just cacao and sugar). The milk in milk chocolate goes bad a lot faster than the cacao and sugar,...
In the US, milk chocolate is dramatically more popular than dark (the stuff that can be made with just cacao and sugar). The milk in milk chocolate goes bad a lot faster than the cacao and sugar, so more preservatives are necessary for retailers who want to keep them on the shelves longer without spoilage.
Regardless, the big name chocolate producers mix different beans together to make for a more stable flavor profile, so even their dark chocolates are kind of “meh”. You’ve got to search out those single-source bars or small batch manufacturers for the best stuff. Chocolate actually has a lot in common with wine in terms of how flavors are developed.
I know Dandelion Chocolate. A friend of mine brought me some back from San Francisco. It's really good. I don't know what is the regulation in the US. In Europe "Cocoa" (dried cocoa powder) and...
I know Dandelion Chocolate. A friend of mine brought me some back from San Francisco. It's really good.
I don't know what is the regulation in the US. In Europe "Cocoa" (dried cocoa powder) and "Cocoa butter" (cocoa beans fat) are two different ingredients, even though they come from the same raw fruit. This is why you always end up with at least two ingredients on the chocolate bar. Add milk powder, sugar and whole hazelnuts, and you end up with 5 ingredients for my favourite type of chocolate :)
You still need good sourcing of cacao, because without additional flavouring and soy lecithin to bind the whole thing, you're going to end up with a trash taste.
It can be done without separating the fats and solids but even bean-to-bar producers often add extra cocoa butter for a silkier texture or salt or vanilla for flavor. There's one I'm aware of,...
It can be done without separating the fats and solids but even bean-to-bar producers often add extra cocoa butter for a silkier texture or salt or vanilla for flavor.
There's one I'm aware of, Taza, that does stone-ground chocolate and their "Cacao Puro" is just cacao beans and sugar. Unusual texture for people accustomed to very smooth chocolate bars but tasty for sure.
I don't get why people think this? Like...he gives me the exact same vibes as every other scummy scheming snakeoil scammer? I've been baffled forever that people think he's anything but that, it...
I think he believes he's genuinely making the world a better place
I don't get why people think this? Like...he gives me the exact same vibes as every other scummy scheming snakeoil scammer? I've been baffled forever that people think he's anything but that, it seems so obvious?
I think it's from all of his curing blindness or giving people cars videos. Which I cannot deny is putting some good into the world. If it outdoes the harm of his other actions, I doubt. While I...
I think it's from all of his curing blindness or giving people cars videos. Which I cannot deny is putting some good into the world. If it outdoes the harm of his other actions, I doubt. While I would commend him for giving some back, the way he uses it to drive attention to promote his other stuff does kinda put me off.
In a similar vein, Bill Gates has does a lot of work on curing malaria, which has done extreme harm in Africa. But is it out of pure goodness, or a desire to wipe his record clean and cement his name in history as the guy who wiped out a disease? I know which side I suspect.
I feel like this is a such a black and white way to view things. Like with all things, it's a little of column A, a little of column B, a little of column C, a little of column D. Human behaviors...
But is it out of pure goodness, or a desire to wipe his record clean and cement his name in history as the guy who wiped out a disease? I know which side I suspect.
I feel like this is a such a black and white way to view things. Like with all things, it's a little of column A, a little of column B, a little of column C, a little of column D. Human behaviors are complex, and being overly cynical helps no one. You can do good and enjoy make yourself look good at the same time - that is why the former causes the latter to begin with.
Oh absolutely it is more complex than just those two sides, but I also don't have the time to research and type up a paper that adequately goes into detail. I would also point out, however, that a...
Oh absolutely it is more complex than just those two sides, but I also don't have the time to research and type up a paper that adequately goes into detail.
I would also point out, however, that a lot of people doing real good in this world through food banks, refugee help, or fighting disease don't have the skeletons in their closets that Bill Gates has in his. I don't believe that he's doing it just out of genuine concern for humanity, but that's my opinion, and everyone is free to have their own.
Personally, I'm alright with rich people doing good things for vanity and recognition rather than pure goodness. The sad fact is that a lot of meaningful change and good requires a LOT of money to...
Personally, I'm alright with rich people doing good things for vanity and recognition rather than pure goodness. The sad fact is that a lot of meaningful change and good requires a LOT of money to finance. The average person can only do so much, but billionaires can easily fund major research and conservation efforts. I'd much rather they do that, even for selfish reasons like having their names remembered positively, than just hoard their wealth. They'd have that money either way, so at least it can be used for something good.
I only wish that they were mandated to use their money to do good, perhaps from an annual fee they would pay to a large nationwide organization that exists to keep a country running smoothly.
I only wish that they were mandated to use their money to do good, perhaps from an annual fee they would pay to a large nationwide organization that exists to keep a country running smoothly.
Agreed. Humans really don't need that much money, they're likely never going to spend it all anyway. I don't see anything changing anytime soon though, so for now, I'm open to any motivation for...
Agreed. Humans really don't need that much money, they're likely never going to spend it all anyway. I don't see anything changing anytime soon though, so for now, I'm open to any motivation for them to use that money to actually help others.
But, but that would be theft, or something! I have it on the authority of some very prestigious authors of middling science fiction that this is the case.
But, but that would be theft, or something! I have it on the authority of some very prestigious authors of middling science fiction that this is the case.
To me, if the results are good then I don’t really care about pure intentions. If intentions interfere with good results then they become an issue, but if Gates wants to do good for humanity in...
Bill Gates has does a lot of work on curing malaria, which has done extreme harm in Africa. But is it out of pure goodness, or a desire to wipe his record clean and cement his name in history as the guy who wiped out a disease? I know which side I suspect.
To me, if the results are good then I don’t really care about pure intentions. If intentions interfere with good results then they become an issue, but if Gates wants to do good for humanity in the service of his own ego then I’m happy about it. It’s better than a world where he just quietly passes endless wealth down to his generations of descendants even if the intentions are completely selfish.
Pardon, you mean that malaria has done extreme harm to Africa, right? My apologies, the sentence was grammatically ambiguous even if I'm fairly sure you meant malaria is harmful, but I just wanted...
Pardon, you mean that malaria has done extreme harm to Africa, right? My apologies, the sentence was grammatically ambiguous even if I'm fairly sure you meant malaria is harmful, but I just wanted to make sure in case I missed important info about how the malaria work was somehow inadvertently terrible on a wider social level.
But that's the thing, not only are some of these suspicious as fuck (giving people cars), I don't see how it's that much different from anyone else profiting from misery? These are essentially...
I think it's from all of his curing blindness or giving people cars videos.
But that's the thing, not only are some of these suspicious as fuck (giving people cars), I don't see how it's that much different from anyone else profiting from misery? These are essentially "hey watch me help this person so I can make more money". That's not good, it's mercenary?
Like clearly people need to get paid to do things, I get that. Doctors can't eat off of good vibes, but like...this guy is clearly manipulating children by "doing something good". Things don't have to be black and white, but to me he's absolutely just doing this for himself, and would just as quickly blind these people if that's what got the views? And certainly doesn't much care about the people he's "helping" (as again I think all random giveaways are suspicious as fuck).
Typing this out it hit me that the reason this all seems so skeevy to me is this is exactly what politicians, at least at the higher levels, do. They attach themselves to some cause that they essentially could not care less about, but then say "i'm for/against this so GIVE ME MONEY!!!!".
Now i'll be the first to say there are some upsides to this kind of system, in that the kind of people who are power hungry and selfish still can achieve net benefit things because it's in their best interest to do so, but 1. 10 year olds aren't voting, so they're not a target for this and 2. most people are welllll the fuck aware that the average politicians morals are essentially for hire.
I don't see how Mr. Beast is any different in a positive way, and would argue he's actively much worse because he's straight up targeting kids for gambling.
I feel like i'm extra sensitive to this because I live in Vegas and have been in and around the gaming industry most of my life, and am well aware of the NIGHTMARE of shit any casino company, even MGM, would be in for implying they might do something like this. It's just....fucking baffling to me that what would be a huge scandal and possibly cost billions of dollars in Vegas is just....totally ok because it's on youtube?
The most successful shady businessmen–I hesitate to say "scammers"–have always done this: find a market that's new and poorly regulated, find the toe-holds that allow an unscrupulous person to...
It's just....fucking baffling to me that what would be a huge scandal and possibly cost billions of dollars in Vegas is just....totally ok because it's on youtube?
The most successful shady businessmen–I hesitate to say "scammers"–have always done this: find a market that's new and poorly regulated, find the toe-holds that allow an unscrupulous person to profit, often in a way that would be highly illegal in other more established settings. That's how you get oil and railroad barons and the merchants who made fortunes price gouging prospectors, whether '49er gold panners or cryptominers and everything in between.
Mind you, that's not to absolve them; it's pretty obvious to anyone with a modicum of moral sense that charging $50 for a shovel in 1855 or $2500 for an RTX 2080 in 2020 are scummy tactics. But emerging markets and industries are always going to attract snake oil salesmen and price chiselers because those are the places with the highest rewards for the least risk.
Is it really that different from any other content creator? The goal is making money at the end of the day, after all. Main difference is he's more successful than 99.99% of others trying to do...
he's making kids' day when he manipulates them into doing things like overspending on his merch or products and commits misdemeanors on Livestream.
Is it really that different from any other content creator? The goal is making money at the end of the day, after all. Main difference is he's more successful than 99.99% of others trying to do so.
I mean there are other creators who don't manipulate kids to make their money. lol That seems a decently less scummy starting position to work from. shrug
I mean there are other creators who don't manipulate kids to make their money. lol That seems a decently less scummy starting position to work from. shrug
I was legitimately asking. I don't think someone advertising their own merch is inherently a bad thing (if anything, it's more kurt than being sponsored by some random and potentially much...
I was legitimately asking. I don't think someone advertising their own merch is inherently a bad thing (if anything, it's more kurt than being sponsored by some random and potentially much scummier products). But I don't exactly know what they sell.
The main issue was Mr Beast "encouraging" merch sales during live streams by implying that kids would be likely to receive big prizes in their orders, ranging from 100 dollar bills to iPhones, and...
The main issue was Mr Beast "encouraging" merch sales during live streams by implying that kids would be likely to receive big prizes in their orders, ranging from 100 dollar bills to iPhones, and all the way up to flying them out to be in a Mr. Beast video.
Doing such is promoting an illegal lottery, he was basically giving kids a chance at getting a very desirable prize for each T-shirt they bought during his stream. He would often change the rules last minute during these streams and many people reported being chosen to win but never receiving their prizes. On top of that, there are complaints from children and parents that Mr Beast drastically oversold the likelihood of winning a prize, often stating that everyone who bought a shirt would win a prize.
That's just one facet of the video though. It goes on to talking about Mr Beast often "giving" prizes to his employees and their friends/family. It's unclear if these prizes were actually even given out in the first place, but regardless it misconstrued the content because viewers were intended to believe that these were just random people getting lucky.
I will. I just think the comment above didn't construe the issue to well and I was confused. Obliviater's reply helped clarify a lot of the gray areas going on.
I will. I just think the comment above didn't construe the issue to well and I was confused. Obliviater's reply helped clarify a lot of the gray areas going on.
What weirds me out most about Mr. Beast is that merch signing live stream shown in the video. I don't watch him, I find him quite obnoxious and I've always sort of suspected skeletons in the...
What weirds me out most about Mr. Beast is that merch signing live stream shown in the video. I don't watch him, I find him quite obnoxious and I've always sort of suspected skeletons in the closet for no concrete reason, but... This livestream, that's weird, right?
Like, okay, imagine this. You're a YouTuber. You are about to reach a truly obscene milestone, maybe 40 million subscribers or something, and you decide to go to your second channel and watch the number go up live, while people are in chat, you can hang out with them, maybe a Q&A, and your fans can buy merch that you sign for them. Great format, right? You get to celebrate in a low-key way, you make more money, and your audience gets to sort of have an informal heart to heart with you through the live Q&A.
Now, imagine you have no content except for being known as the guy who has money. What's there to ask? What's there to talk about? Nothing, and people quickly lose interest if you have nothing to give away. So what do you do? You pretend to add extravagant gifts to people's orders so the engagement is high and the people are buying as much as they can.
That's... meaningless to me. All the people I watch online I watch because I'm interested in their content, in what they have to say. None of them I just watch because they could make me money. From what I've seen, nothing Mr. Beast has ever made is interesting. It's only about the obscenity of the stunts. It's not about him and his friends, he's not having any fun, the facade crumbles the second the camera is off, and the only thing that carries his work to relevance is the brands Tesla, Lamborghini and other things the common person - especially the children - can only dream about.
I guess I'm asking the question of who Mr. Beast is. What drives him, except for money? I saw an interview here on Tildes with him that was the only time he seemed genuine, and in it, he talks about how his work is killing him. How he's constantly at the edge of depression. How the only reason he's not burnt out is that he constantly works so even burn out doesn't have a chance to set in. How his entire life is maximised around making content, and how that's not only to make him money and fame, but how that's designed to keep his brain from distilling a drop of self-reflection, because that will gum up the gears of the beast and lead to catastrophic failure.
It's easy to say that he's bad for children, or that he's a fraud, or that he breaks gambling regulations - that's true, but it's not surprising. Not for you, not for me, maybe for some of his audience, but even then, who really cares? It's just the rules of the game.
No, what really creeps me out about him not that he's bad for kids, bad for the attention economy, bad for parenting, bad for the culture - it's that it's bad for him.
I've had my own issues with gambling and Mr Beasts videos would set off alarm bells. Never believed he was ever loosing money on his projects but i always assumed they were compliant with...
I've had my own issues with gambling and Mr Beasts videos would set off alarm bells. Never believed he was ever loosing money on his projects but i always assumed they were compliant with regulations. It is a considerable operation associated with most mainstream US YouTubers and poster boy for the platform itself.
And when kids come over, I'm bombarded with the countless clones and knock-offs where it's very obvious that everything is staged and the acting is horrendous. With the views they're drawing, its clear that the the target audience is hooked on a formula I find just as infuriating as the CTAs and candy-sino.
When I think of other channels that do crazy or spectacular videos, the bulk of the video is the work and experience of doing it. The algorithm would demand: thesis, montage, payoff in a sub minute short. But creatives and makers have pride in the process and they take us on journey to share that payoff.
Beast-like videos are just a series of escalating payoffs leading to the big finale. Seriously, watch any of their project style video (like project the prize ones) and the work starts, contestants get Jimmies infinite credit card and its magically done. What does that say to you, because I see that the only way to make life changing amounts of money is to be lucy enough to have that money already. It puts me right back in the mindset that got me to start gambling.
I could go on about the virus of uncanny thumbnails and that horrible subtitle font and the charity porn he's infected the platform with but I'm sure everyone will be putting out video essays like Drake diss tracks.
Took me a minute and some head scratching to understand that word. In retrospect, the suffix is obvious from context (gambling → casino), but due to Wikipedia-related reasons, my immediate mental...
candy-sino
Took me a minute and some head scratching to understand that word. In retrospect, the suffix is obvious from context (gambling → casino), but due to Wikipedia-related reasons, my immediate mentalassociations were less than helpful.
What does that say to you, because I see that the only way to make life changing amounts of money is to be lucy enough to have that money already.
Well put. It's fiction for the purpose of for-profit entertainment, but the implied message (intentional or not) is… not the worst thing a piece of media can communicate, but it's up there. It's a very seductive fiction because it offers a payoff without effort, plus it's a partial truth: a good chunk of success in life does come down to chance! (But if that's the only thing you rely on, your prospects are dim.)
I am convinced the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction is a crucial life skill—perhaps one that should be taught.
Watched the video, Mr Beast is obviously shady and it was fun to hear someone talk about it. Just wait like 10 years and Mr Beast will try to also become the US president, I think he even...
Watched the video, Mr Beast is obviously shady and it was fun to hear someone talk about it.
Just wait like 10 years and Mr Beast will try to also become the US president, I think he even mentioned it on some twitter or something. Nightmarish.
Seems like the filming of his game show is going horribly.
Seems like the filming of his game show is going horribly.
Here’s some additional information provided by a member of the “Beast Games” production team: “Can confirm five days of medication and undergarments, most of which have been lost and not adequately tracked by production...
I remember the interview with him that got posted a while back, and putting that together with this I'm fairly confident just saying the guy himself is a gambling addict, who's projecting his...
I remember the interview with him that got posted a while back, and putting that together with this I'm fairly confident just saying the guy himself is a gambling addict, who's projecting his addictive tendency as a result of exploiting network effects/YouTube success.
He said in that interview that he reinvests everything straight back in, and makes that claim elsewhere too. So it's a pattern of escalating risk, assuming that's actually true. The rules around what he's doing don't matter (he doesn't follow them), the effects don't matter (he continuously teaches children how to gamble), the authenticity of the projects doesn't matter (they're fraudulent/staffed with buddies). He doesn't do anything else (he says so himself). Doing it fraudulently raises the stakes, which is the sort of thing a gambler likes to do.
If he's not a gambling addict he very much looks like one, I guess is what I'm driving at. Doing some charity isn't outside the realm of what a gambling addict can do, either. Plenty will give out money to folks who need it and the intent can be as pure and good as from anyone else. Those moments might have even been him thinking he could take the problem and do some good with it, who knows. Addiction does not make someone comprehensively terrible, and the thought process there isn't going to always make a lot of sense. Pretty simple dynamic too, to avoid awareness by filling the time.
Whether he began that way or intends otherwise doesn't really matter, because if what he says is true he's in the pattern and that will go until it all goes under. Keep betting, keep raising the stakes, until it blows up and he's forced into a position of having to stop. What happens from there is anyone's guess.
I'm just a dude with an opinion, grain of salt and all that, not a clinician so don't take me too seriously, but this all comes together in a pretty specific way to me. Assuming what's been claimed is true, putting it together with the content itself and the effect it's having, it's commodified gambling addiction. Simple to say but complex to witness. The content is straight brainrot because it's basically "gambler tv" - just watching "reward" happen over and over and over, bigger and louder and more often. Moments of charity may well be examples of better intentions, extruded through the gambling pattern filter and processed into more of the product on offer. Examples not of a cynical person covering their ass but of the totalizing effect of being completely stuck in the patterns.
Well... I've been saying it for years. If your "charity" is all about making more money, is it charity then? Also, as an opposant to blatant consumerism/materialism, I don't like how in his videos...
Well... I've been saying it for years. If your "charity" is all about making more money, is it charity then? Also, as an opposant to blatant consumerism/materialism, I don't like how in his videos more money/materials always equal to more happiness.
CaptainSparklez, of old Minecraft fame, uploaded a video covering this about an hour ago, it's interesting to hear his thoughts from someone who's been a creator for a while:...
CaptainSparklez, of old Minecraft fame, uploaded a video covering this about an hour ago, it's interesting to hear his thoughts from someone who's been a creator for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgKgY2pe15U
As someone who watches a lot of YouTube, like a lot. I have never seen a Mr Beast video, can someone explain the premise of the majority of his videos? Is he just vlogging?
As someone who watches a lot of YouTube, like a lot. I have never seen a Mr Beast video, can someone explain the premise of the majority of his videos? Is he just vlogging?
If you watch the video you'll be able to get a pretty good idea of what he does. He's basically so big, I have heard a lot about his videos because of the videos that other youtube creators have...
If you watch the video you'll be able to get a pretty good idea of what he does. He's basically so big, I have heard a lot about his videos because of the videos that other youtube creators have made about him.
In short, he makes really high budget videos where he does various contests, giveaways, lotteries, etc, or does some kind of ridiculous expensive stunt.
While there is a little bit of extra exposure brought up in this video, most of what it claims - using gambling tactics on children - is no secret. For instance he recieved a bit of criticism when he ran a sweepstakes where in order to enter they had to go to walmart and clean up their product in the aisles, which wasn't terribly well received.
I watched this video when it was posted on r/videos. I watched it at speed 2×, because aint nobody got time for a 1 hour video. I was expecting to watch the first 10 minutes and move on.
I have to admit, it was a great watch. I was anticipating some YouTube drama, revengeful hit piece. If it was, it didn't feel that way. It is extremely well sourced, with original video clips, even live stream clips which have been deleted. Also it's using interviews of Mr Beast production team members on other podcasts. I salute the effort of this YouTuber.
I was not aware how exploitative of Kids gambling Mr Beast was. It is really sickening. I feel for the parents of these kids who are watching/following Mr Beast, and getting drowned into gambling addiction or FoMo or both...
The TL;DR is, according to this youtuber, (but they present evidence):
It's a long video, that's basically the main points I could pull out. I might have missed some.
Slightly off-topic, I watched this video when it was posted on Reddit the other day, the discussion there was pretty exhausting, mostly just people making statements without even pretending to have watched the video. Just tons of people talking past each other and being frustrating.
All that is to say I don't intend to his to be that kind of comment, but I wanted to hypothesize that Mr Beast genuinely doesn't see anything wrong with his behavior. I think he believes he's genuinely making the world a better place and that he's making kids' day when he manipulates them into doing things like overspending on his merch or products and commits misdemeanors on Livestream. The dude just seems completely out of touch with any moral or ethical code other than make lots of money and try to appear squeaky clean while doing so (A.k.a the Mark Rober approach.) but what's different is that Mark Rober is incredibly smart and knows not to push it too far and start doing things that will cause this kind of internet uproar.
Yup. I totally agree and share your fustration on the "Mr Beast doesn't seem to even see how much of a wart to society he is." This is especially true with these chocolate bar that he sells as health products. As somebody mostly buying Tony's Chocolonely after seeing John Oliver show about Chocolate, I was really revolted by him selling garbage chocolate as a "health" product. "Hershey's has 20 ingredients, my chocolate only has 5." Your average fair-trade chocolate already has mostly 5 ingredients, you didn't need to make another garbage chocolate. And while the amount of individual ingredients is definitely a sign of ultra-processed food, free sugars (which his chocolate contains as much as Hershey's) are the real main issue in Chocolate. Chocolate should never be advertised as healthy, it should always be promoted as a treat.
I personally don't like Mark Rober either. His videos are really clickbaity, and I'm convinced that half of his "catching thieves with glitter" are just fake while pretending to be real. (I have no proof of this)
I know people are usually really critical of how much of a hardcore Christian Destin from SmarterEveryDay is. But I respect the Destin Sandlin's integrity. His content, while not being a class, is educational and engaging, in my opinion. And many of his videos are cool :) . (Shooting a bullet with another bullet, in a safe way!? Count me in the audience :P )
My gripe with Mark Rober is that his content is flashy, but shallow. He does these really cool projects, but glosses over the actually interesting/hard parts of engineering or dumbs them down to the point that it's not all that educational anymore. And I get that the reasoning is that he's targeting a general and younger audience, and he's got a schedule to keep up with, etc. But all the same his videos always leave me wanting more. I genuinely wish he had a second channel where he took the time to go more in-depth so those of us who like the in-depth stuff can get it without disrupting those who just want the flashy pseudo-educational stuff.
For example, his most recent video was making a robot that could solve jigsaw puzzles autonomously. And the robot does it, but there are a few major issues. It takes forever for it it scan each puzzle piece (I want to say like 20 minutes for the # of pieces they had) and it only works on a single-color puzzles (ie an all-white puzzle), so no image puzzles.
My programmer brain immediately wants to know what can be done to solve those issues. Better cameras for the scanning phase? A different approach to scanning entirely? And then the video was framed as a human vs machine competition where the human was forced to put together an all-white puzzle because of the robot's limitations. And the woman (who had broken records for putting together puzzles quickly), admitted to struggling with single-color puzzles because it didn't fit her color/pattern based strategy. But that's just kind of glossed over rather than addressed. Would've been nice to see them let her do an image puzzle while the robot does the all-white one. That way they're both playing their own strengths and it's a closer competition.
StuffMadeHere did a couple videos in 2022 on building a puzzle solving robot, which go into a lot of detail on all the difficulties he faced with both the hardware and software that you might enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu_1S77XkiM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsPHBD5NsS0
I was thinking the same thing while reading the parent comment. If you like Rober's projects but want more in depth engineering content, StuffMadeHere is probably what you're looking for.
The jigsaw puzzle robot in particular has a technical writeup included. Is that not detailed enough?
ooh, very nice. I didn't realize that document existed, thank you!
All fair criticisms, but he's an entertainment content creator first and an engineer second. There's no audience for the latter, or at least not large enough to get the necessary views.
It's YouTube after all.
Regarding the glitter bomb, before it happened, I was already following Sean Hodgins. It looks like he’s the one to have actually created the glitter bomb, on what I’m assuming was a development contract with Mark Rober.
I personally really enjoyed the linked development video. I haven’t watched it in quite a while, though.
Destin is definitely my favourite of these people as well.. he feels so much more authentic. I'm willing to take a dose of religion if it helps tone down the click bait.
All he does is mention God once in a while. I’m all for people believing in a God when it promotes good behavior.
Edit: Well in the most recent video (#300) he does go a bit harder. Lots of discussion on the possibility of intelligent design and the need for people to open their minds to the possibilities. To be honest I am comfortable considering there may be some deep unknown forces at play in the creation and maintenance of the universe. It could be intelligent. But I think going from an old religion to a specific explanation of a new scientific discovery makes no sense.
It was a few minutes at the end of a quite long video.
26:11 "Scientists are trying to figure it out, and I encourage you to read their papers"
Out of 29:30 video. Folks put off by Destiny's faith can feel free to stop after the above quote to skip any suggestion of ID or mentions of his own religion
I don't agree with that. His religion is heavily intertwined with the video, and conscious decision or not, feels like him trying to convert the viewer. The video starts with him already heavily implying creationism. Then during the interview, he tries to compare the mechanism to human inventions, which normally would be benign. However, coupled with the start of the video, it seems like his main intention was to affirm his creationism assertion, especially with him having seemingly an epiphany at that moment. In the end, he tries to push a book on his audience that tries to argue against naturalism.
For a science educator, he spends astonishingly little time asking himself (and the audience) questions on how this could have been created through evolution, and instead immediately jumps to creationism as the answer. Honestly, he makes me a bit sad, as it feels like he is going through something in his life, and needs this to be true.
Will agree to disagree. There's no need to feel sad for him, he seems pretty stoked about learning something new and keeping an open mind.
I wouldn't go that far. While most chocolate palatable to modern consumers probably contains a significant amount of sweetners, there's nothing inherently unhealthy about cacao or its ground up form, and it does contain some somewhat rare nutrients. If you consume it the way the aztecs did - that is, as a drink, spiced, but not sweetened - I don't see any particular health concerns.
And there's no reason you couldn't make a chocolate bar that is healthy, but it'd be somewhat of an acquired taste.
Yes. You're absolutely right. 100% cocoa bar, or even milk with 100% cocoa powder is nutritionally good, and can also be used as a hunger suppressant, which is healthy if you're trying to lose weight.
I didn't know that Chocolate and Cacao are basically the same word in English. In my native language, it's defined as "a food item more or less sweetened produced from cocoa beans" (un aliment plus ou moins sucré produit à partir de la fève de cacao), this is what led to my mistake.
100% cocoa powder, or 100% chocolate bar would be call "cacao pur" (pure cocoa) in my language, not chocolate.
I think legally speaking you'd need to meet a definition similar to yours to sell something as chocolate, and if someone asked for chocolate and you gave them cacao nibs or something else without sugar, they would be annoyed. So I think as far as how the words are used, it's not very different from what you describe. "Cacao" is used for the plant and its direct products, whereas "chocolate" prototypically refers to the sweet with added sugar (and optionally milk).
It’s the reverse for the legal definitions in the US. The FDA sets a limit on how little of your chocolate contains cocoa mass - 10% for milk and 35% for dark chocolate.
I assume there is a similar minimum value in whatever country @malademental is from that just wasn't mentioned in their initial comment. My point was more that the definition of "chocolate" inherently assumes the presence of sweeteners, which is also the case with the FDA definitions: both dark chocolate (which isn't defined directly but would refer to semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate) and milk chocolate are defined as mixtures of "chocolate liquor" (unsweetened chocolate that can optionally contain spices/flavorings and butter or milk fat but not any other dairy products or sweeteners) with one or more of the approved sweeteners and, in the case of milk chocolate, one or more of the approved dairy products.
My point wasn't so much about how chocolate is regulated, but rather that the terms are defined as including sweeteners -- though I suppose the "chocolate liquor" section does say it can be sold as "baking chocolate" or "unsweetened chocolate" so it is a little more flexible.
It's the same in the EU, except that there is distinction between "Cocoa" and "Chocolate", kind of:
Yeah, the definitions are generally similar in their structure and descriptions of different cocoa products (though I'm sure there are sufficient differences in the actual numbers that matter to the people who produce these products).
"Only 5 ingredients" is laughable. The best chocolate has 1 or 2 ingredients, cacao and (optionally) sugar. We have a really exceptional chocolate brand in my city, Dandelion Chocolate. They show you how good chocolate can be if you take good care of your supply chain. The fact that you can eat their 100% cacao chocolate and enjoy it - in small bits - proves that. That pure stuff could be considered a health food.
In the US, milk chocolate is dramatically more popular than dark (the stuff that can be made with just cacao and sugar). The milk in milk chocolate goes bad a lot faster than the cacao and sugar, so more preservatives are necessary for retailers who want to keep them on the shelves longer without spoilage.
Regardless, the big name chocolate producers mix different beans together to make for a more stable flavor profile, so even their dark chocolates are kind of “meh”. You’ve got to search out those single-source bars or small batch manufacturers for the best stuff. Chocolate actually has a lot in common with wine in terms of how flavors are developed.
Yes, it's very much like wine. Each bar has a year and an origin. I'll go back and get specific bars and vintages that I really enjoyed.
Flashback to the chocolate tasting episode on Leverage
I know Dandelion Chocolate. A friend of mine brought me some back from San Francisco. It's really good.
I don't know what is the regulation in the US. In Europe "Cocoa" (dried cocoa powder) and "Cocoa butter" (cocoa beans fat) are two different ingredients, even though they come from the same raw fruit. This is why you always end up with at least two ingredients on the chocolate bar. Add milk powder, sugar and whole hazelnuts, and you end up with 5 ingredients for my favourite type of chocolate :)
You still need good sourcing of cacao, because without additional flavouring and soy lecithin to bind the whole thing, you're going to end up with a trash taste.
It can be done without separating the fats and solids but even bean-to-bar producers often add extra cocoa butter for a silkier texture or salt or vanilla for flavor.
There's one I'm aware of, Taza, that does stone-ground chocolate and their "Cacao Puro" is just cacao beans and sugar. Unusual texture for people accustomed to very smooth chocolate bars but tasty for sure.
I don't get why people think this? Like...he gives me the exact same vibes as every other scummy scheming snakeoil scammer? I've been baffled forever that people think he's anything but that, it seems so obvious?
I think it's from all of his curing blindness or giving people cars videos. Which I cannot deny is putting some good into the world. If it outdoes the harm of his other actions, I doubt. While I would commend him for giving some back, the way he uses it to drive attention to promote his other stuff does kinda put me off.
In a similar vein, Bill Gates has does a lot of work on curing malaria, which has done extreme harm in Africa. But is it out of pure goodness, or a desire to wipe his record clean and cement his name in history as the guy who wiped out a disease? I know which side I suspect.
I feel like this is a such a black and white way to view things. Like with all things, it's a little of column A, a little of column B, a little of column C, a little of column D. Human behaviors are complex, and being overly cynical helps no one. You can do good and enjoy make yourself look good at the same time - that is why the former causes the latter to begin with.
Oh absolutely it is more complex than just those two sides, but I also don't have the time to research and type up a paper that adequately goes into detail.
I would also point out, however, that a lot of people doing real good in this world through food banks, refugee help, or fighting disease don't have the skeletons in their closets that Bill Gates has in his. I don't believe that he's doing it just out of genuine concern for humanity, but that's my opinion, and everyone is free to have their own.
Personally, I'm alright with rich people doing good things for vanity and recognition rather than pure goodness. The sad fact is that a lot of meaningful change and good requires a LOT of money to finance. The average person can only do so much, but billionaires can easily fund major research and conservation efforts. I'd much rather they do that, even for selfish reasons like having their names remembered positively, than just hoard their wealth. They'd have that money either way, so at least it can be used for something good.
I only wish that they were mandated to use their money to do good, perhaps from an annual fee they would pay to a large nationwide organization that exists to keep a country running smoothly.
Agreed. Humans really don't need that much money, they're likely never going to spend it all anyway. I don't see anything changing anytime soon though, so for now, I'm open to any motivation for them to use that money to actually help others.
But, but that would be theft, or something! I have it on the authority of some very prestigious authors of middling science fiction that this is the case.
To me, if the results are good then I don’t really care about pure intentions. If intentions interfere with good results then they become an issue, but if Gates wants to do good for humanity in the service of his own ego then I’m happy about it. It’s better than a world where he just quietly passes endless wealth down to his generations of descendants even if the intentions are completely selfish.
Pardon, you mean that malaria has done extreme harm to Africa, right? My apologies, the sentence was grammatically ambiguous even if I'm fairly sure you meant malaria is harmful, but I just wanted to make sure in case I missed important info about how the malaria work was somehow inadvertently terrible on a wider social level.
But that's the thing, not only are some of these suspicious as fuck (giving people cars), I don't see how it's that much different from anyone else profiting from misery? These are essentially "hey watch me help this person so I can make more money". That's not good, it's mercenary?
Like clearly people need to get paid to do things, I get that. Doctors can't eat off of good vibes, but like...this guy is clearly manipulating children by "doing something good". Things don't have to be black and white, but to me he's absolutely just doing this for himself, and would just as quickly blind these people if that's what got the views? And certainly doesn't much care about the people he's "helping" (as again I think all random giveaways are suspicious as fuck).
Typing this out it hit me that the reason this all seems so skeevy to me is this is exactly what politicians, at least at the higher levels, do. They attach themselves to some cause that they essentially could not care less about, but then say "i'm for/against this so GIVE ME MONEY!!!!".
Now i'll be the first to say there are some upsides to this kind of system, in that the kind of people who are power hungry and selfish still can achieve net benefit things because it's in their best interest to do so, but 1. 10 year olds aren't voting, so they're not a target for this and 2. most people are welllll the fuck aware that the average politicians morals are essentially for hire.
I don't see how Mr. Beast is any different in a positive way, and would argue he's actively much worse because he's straight up targeting kids for gambling.
I feel like i'm extra sensitive to this because I live in Vegas and have been in and around the gaming industry most of my life, and am well aware of the NIGHTMARE of shit any casino company, even MGM, would be in for implying they might do something like this. It's just....fucking baffling to me that what would be a huge scandal and possibly cost billions of dollars in Vegas is just....totally ok because it's on youtube?
The most successful shady businessmen–I hesitate to say "scammers"–have always done this: find a market that's new and poorly regulated, find the toe-holds that allow an unscrupulous person to profit, often in a way that would be highly illegal in other more established settings. That's how you get oil and railroad barons and the merchants who made fortunes price gouging prospectors, whether '49er gold panners or cryptominers and everything in between.
Mind you, that's not to absolve them; it's pretty obvious to anyone with a modicum of moral sense that charging $50 for a shovel in 1855 or $2500 for an RTX 2080 in 2020 are scummy tactics. But emerging markets and industries are always going to attract snake oil salesmen and price chiselers because those are the places with the highest rewards for the least risk.
Is it really that different from any other content creator? The goal is making money at the end of the day, after all. Main difference is he's more successful than 99.99% of others trying to do so.
(I haven't watched the video yet, at work).
I mean there are other creators who don't manipulate kids to make their money. lol That seems a decently less scummy starting position to work from. shrug
I was legitimately asking. I don't think someone advertising their own merch is inherently a bad thing (if anything, it's more kurt than being sponsored by some random and potentially much scummier products). But I don't exactly know what they sell.
The main issue was Mr Beast "encouraging" merch sales during live streams by implying that kids would be likely to receive big prizes in their orders, ranging from 100 dollar bills to iPhones, and all the way up to flying them out to be in a Mr. Beast video.
Doing such is promoting an illegal lottery, he was basically giving kids a chance at getting a very desirable prize for each T-shirt they bought during his stream. He would often change the rules last minute during these streams and many people reported being chosen to win but never receiving their prizes. On top of that, there are complaints from children and parents that Mr Beast drastically oversold the likelihood of winning a prize, often stating that everyone who bought a shirt would win a prize.
That's just one facet of the video though. It goes on to talking about Mr Beast often "giving" prizes to his employees and their friends/family. It's unclear if these prizes were actually even given out in the first place, but regardless it misconstrued the content because viewers were intended to believe that these were just random people getting lucky.
It might be worth to watch the video then because the selling of merch is not the problem.
I will. I just think the comment above didn't construe the issue to well and I was confused. Obliviater's reply helped clarify a lot of the gray areas going on.
What weirds me out most about Mr. Beast is that merch signing live stream shown in the video. I don't watch him, I find him quite obnoxious and I've always sort of suspected skeletons in the closet for no concrete reason, but... This livestream, that's weird, right?
Like, okay, imagine this. You're a YouTuber. You are about to reach a truly obscene milestone, maybe 40 million subscribers or something, and you decide to go to your second channel and watch the number go up live, while people are in chat, you can hang out with them, maybe a Q&A, and your fans can buy merch that you sign for them. Great format, right? You get to celebrate in a low-key way, you make more money, and your audience gets to sort of have an informal heart to heart with you through the live Q&A.
Now, imagine you have no content except for being known as the guy who has money. What's there to ask? What's there to talk about? Nothing, and people quickly lose interest if you have nothing to give away. So what do you do? You pretend to add extravagant gifts to people's orders so the engagement is high and the people are buying as much as they can.
That's... meaningless to me. All the people I watch online I watch because I'm interested in their content, in what they have to say. None of them I just watch because they could make me money. From what I've seen, nothing Mr. Beast has ever made is interesting. It's only about the obscenity of the stunts. It's not about him and his friends, he's not having any fun, the facade crumbles the second the camera is off, and the only thing that carries his work to relevance is the brands Tesla, Lamborghini and other things the common person - especially the children - can only dream about.
I guess I'm asking the question of who Mr. Beast is. What drives him, except for money? I saw an interview here on Tildes with him that was the only time he seemed genuine, and in it, he talks about how his work is killing him. How he's constantly at the edge of depression. How the only reason he's not burnt out is that he constantly works so even burn out doesn't have a chance to set in. How his entire life is maximised around making content, and how that's not only to make him money and fame, but how that's designed to keep his brain from distilling a drop of self-reflection, because that will gum up the gears of the beast and lead to catastrophic failure.
It's easy to say that he's bad for children, or that he's a fraud, or that he breaks gambling regulations - that's true, but it's not surprising. Not for you, not for me, maybe for some of his audience, but even then, who really cares? It's just the rules of the game.
No, what really creeps me out about him not that he's bad for kids, bad for the attention economy, bad for parenting, bad for the culture - it's that it's bad for him.
And yet.
I've had my own issues with gambling and Mr Beasts videos would set off alarm bells. Never believed he was ever loosing money on his projects but i always assumed they were compliant with regulations. It is a considerable operation associated with most mainstream US YouTubers and poster boy for the platform itself.
And when kids come over, I'm bombarded with the countless clones and knock-offs where it's very obvious that everything is staged and the acting is horrendous. With the views they're drawing, its clear that the the target audience is hooked on a formula I find just as infuriating as the CTAs and candy-sino.
When I think of other channels that do crazy or spectacular videos, the bulk of the video is the work and experience of doing it. The algorithm would demand: thesis, montage, payoff in a sub minute short. But creatives and makers have pride in the process and they take us on journey to share that payoff.
Beast-like videos are just a series of escalating payoffs leading to the big finale. Seriously, watch any of their project style video (like project the prize ones) and the work starts, contestants get Jimmies infinite credit card and its magically done. What does that say to you, because I see that the only way to make life changing amounts of money is to be lucy enough to have that money already. It puts me right back in the mindset that got me to start gambling.
I could go on about the virus of uncanny thumbnails and that horrible subtitle font and the charity porn he's infected the platform with but I'm sure everyone will be putting out video essays like Drake diss tracks.
Took me a minute and some head scratching to understand that word. In retrospect, the suffix is obvious from context (gambling → casino), but due to Wikipedia-related reasons, my immediate mental associations were less than helpful.
Well put. It's fiction for the purpose of for-profit entertainment, but the implied message (intentional or not) is… not the worst thing a piece of media can communicate, but it's up there. It's a very seductive fiction because it offers a payoff without effort, plus it's a partial truth: a good chunk of success in life does come down to chance! (But if that's the only thing you rely on, your prospects are dim.)
I am convinced the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction is a crucial life skill—perhaps one that should be taught.
Watched the video, Mr Beast is obviously shady and it was fun to hear someone talk about it.
Just wait like 10 years and Mr Beast will try to also become the US president, I think he even mentioned it on some twitter or something. Nightmarish.
Seems like the filming of his game show is going horribly.
I remember the interview with him that got posted a while back, and putting that together with this I'm fairly confident just saying the guy himself is a gambling addict, who's projecting his addictive tendency as a result of exploiting network effects/YouTube success.
He said in that interview that he reinvests everything straight back in, and makes that claim elsewhere too. So it's a pattern of escalating risk, assuming that's actually true. The rules around what he's doing don't matter (he doesn't follow them), the effects don't matter (he continuously teaches children how to gamble), the authenticity of the projects doesn't matter (they're fraudulent/staffed with buddies). He doesn't do anything else (he says so himself). Doing it fraudulently raises the stakes, which is the sort of thing a gambler likes to do.
If he's not a gambling addict he very much looks like one, I guess is what I'm driving at. Doing some charity isn't outside the realm of what a gambling addict can do, either. Plenty will give out money to folks who need it and the intent can be as pure and good as from anyone else. Those moments might have even been him thinking he could take the problem and do some good with it, who knows. Addiction does not make someone comprehensively terrible, and the thought process there isn't going to always make a lot of sense. Pretty simple dynamic too, to avoid awareness by filling the time.
Whether he began that way or intends otherwise doesn't really matter, because if what he says is true he's in the pattern and that will go until it all goes under. Keep betting, keep raising the stakes, until it blows up and he's forced into a position of having to stop. What happens from there is anyone's guess.
I'm just a dude with an opinion, grain of salt and all that, not a clinician so don't take me too seriously, but this all comes together in a pretty specific way to me. Assuming what's been claimed is true, putting it together with the content itself and the effect it's having, it's commodified gambling addiction. Simple to say but complex to witness. The content is straight brainrot because it's basically "gambler tv" - just watching "reward" happen over and over and over, bigger and louder and more often. Moments of charity may well be examples of better intentions, extruded through the gambling pattern filter and processed into more of the product on offer. Examples not of a cynical person covering their ass but of the totalizing effect of being completely stuck in the patterns.
Well... I've been saying it for years. If your "charity" is all about making more money, is it charity then? Also, as an opposant to blatant consumerism/materialism, I don't like how in his videos more money/materials always equal to more happiness.
CaptainSparklez, of old Minecraft fame, uploaded a video covering this about an hour ago, it's interesting to hear his thoughts from someone who's been a creator for a while:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgKgY2pe15U
As someone who watches a lot of YouTube, like a lot. I have never seen a Mr Beast video, can someone explain the premise of the majority of his videos? Is he just vlogging?
If you watch the video you'll be able to get a pretty good idea of what he does. He's basically so big, I have heard a lot about his videos because of the videos that other youtube creators have made about him.
In short, he makes really high budget videos where he does various contests, giveaways, lotteries, etc, or does some kind of ridiculous expensive stunt.
While there is a little bit of extra exposure brought up in this video, most of what it claims - using gambling tactics on children - is no secret. For instance he recieved a bit of criticism when he ran a sweepstakes where in order to enter they had to go to walmart and clean up their product in the aisles, which wasn't terribly well received.