[fiat_fandango]

Thanks for writing about your experience! I think too many educated / computer science focused creators get demotivated when they see the kind of low brow "viral" content that's plaguing youtube currently (yes, I mean Mr. Beast). Mr. Beast type content is to me more mind numbing than TikTok - it makes creators like Logan Paul and low brow comedy podcasts look like academics in comparison.

I recently started dipping my toes in AI again, even building some tooling for GPU deployments for stable diffusion etc after a friend (less technical) ended up with a GPU mining farm that was burning a $60k hole in his pocket every month when ETH mining dried up.

As a result, I found a curious niche and started making admittedly not very good videos of me attempting to create more approachable AI text to image content for a slightly less technical audience.

I've been pleasantly surprised by how warm, interested and excited my small audience has been.

If anyone would like to check out the channel here's a link - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCttqpACIkQqh83L2cHrY9Gg

I'm working on some internal projects as a part of my channel, a big part are some active developments with the Stable Hoard project.

Edit - goes without saying, many of my early videos are really bad, my speech is hard to follow etc. Ironically since I'm full remote, this has actually helped rehab my speech a bit and give me something technical outside of work to do sort of creative things with. I'd be lying if I didn't intend to turn this into a revenue stream at some point, probably starting with a mailing list.

[obmelvin]

I don't necessarily take issue with your point overall, but I have to take issue with your calling out of Mr. Beast. Have you seen how much money Mr. Beast gives out to people? There are people just buying cars with their YT money, but he puts most of it back into his channel & directly in the hands of everyday people. I really don't understand how you could say he makes Logan Paul look like an academic.

Also, he's pretty savy with growing his audience. I'm not aware of very many people who translate their videos into (some) other languages, particularly using somewhat-well-known voice actors.

[fiat_fandango]

Yes, but the reason he's giving away money is for views . It's why charity for views is in my opinion kind of degenerate - arguably using poor people to make money but saving face because giving away money.

[waltbosz]

I think a more positive way to think about MrBeast's behavior of giving away money isn't that he's doing it for views, but that he's doing it for fun.

There is a documentary about how actor Bill Murray will occasionally spend a bunch of money on a random stranger that he meets in public.

I see this trend of rich YTers giving away free money as evidence that the creator economy has lowered the barrier to entry to philanthropy, in the same way that the assembly line lowered the barrier to entry to car ownership.

No longer do you have to be a cutthroat oil baron to have enough disposable to make it rain on a stranger every now and then. You can just get YT rich and famous.

Now, I say this having only viewed one of his free money videos. But from what I saw the participants were well treated and appeared to be having fun.

[truculent]

Mr Beast, like Willy Wonka, may well be doing things for the pure childlike whimsy. Was Willy Wonka the good guy?

[munificent]

I would argue that he is strictly the better guy than a chocolate factory owner who is otherwise indistinguishable from Willy Wonka but who just pockets all the cash instead.

[waltbosz]

> Was Willy Wonka the good guy?

That's an interesting question. Here is my amateur psychoanalyst take on Wonka. This is based on the Gene Wilder version of Wonka. It is the one with which I am most familiar.

Wonka was a shut in with sociopath tendencies. He hates other people because they're infinitely less intelligent than him. They see him as magical because of the things he creates, but to him the inventions are obvious. Other fictional characters with this trait: Rick Sanchez, Elwood Ralson.

He is a creative who wants to quit his job (maybe he got bored, or just got more interested in his Great Glass Elevator). But he doesn't want to close his business, because if he does that then the chocolate world will be taken over by the uncreative people that he hates. He doesn't care about his customers, he just cares about the creative process of chocolate-craft. Also, he loves his employees because they share his love of hard work, and he probably feels like a parent to them since he saved them from the horrors of their homeland.

He wants to find someone to take over his business. Someone who he knows will be capable of the creativity that he is. He hates children a little bit less than adults, so he concocts an elaborate factory tour/job interview because it was the only possible way for him to interview children.

So my answer the question, is Wonka the good guy, is yes. Because he worked hard to ensure that his creative process for chocolate-craft would continue to exist in the world after he was gone. He is an inventor that loved his invention.

Plus any harm that could have possibly be done to his factory guests, could easily be undone by his "magic". Just like Rick Sanchez.

This was fun. Thanks for asking.

[obmelvin]

I've watched and judged for myself - I disagree.

How is he using "poor people"? Everyday people are "poor people"? I think that says more about you than him.

Yes, the views fund what he gives away. But until you or I start dedicating our lives to making money to give away, I don't think either of us has a leg to stand on and criticize him [for this specifically].

[fiat_fandango]

https://youtu.be/YhRRny_sHYw?t=45

[obmelvin]

If you watch the larger section of the video, you can see there's a whole section labeled as his 'Evil Mr. Beast' persona. Literally at the end of the teaser section he says "I could keep going, but they might believe it" https://youtu.be/YhRRny_sHYw?t=92.

They also hit on subjects such as people claiming Mr Beast ruins people's lives by giving them gifts for which they can't afford to pay the associated taxes. And he makes it clear how he will buy back items so the person just ends up with cash, to pay the taxes and keep. Or they can keep it or sell it themselves.

You can certainly argue his satire was in bad taste. I'm not trying to gas up Mr Beast or claim that he doesn't engage in attention-seeking behavior. Such as this, look at how we're over here talking about him, spreading his brand.

But, as long as he's using that brand to drive views, to have fun making videos and engage in some sort of neo-grassroots philanthropy I don't see how he's the plague of video content.

[bartread]

I think this is meant to be humour. Awkward and not particularly successful humour - distasteful humour - but humour nonetheless.

[Pent]

It worked for Oprah I guess

[fiat_fandango]

To be honest, Oprah's content in my opinion was miles better than Mr. Beast's. She was at least conducting interviews, having conversations etc.

At least her videos weren't, "look at minecraft funny game - my friend made a poop sound hehe" or "omg look at kiddy pool filled with ORBEEZ FUN TIME"

Candidly, with a hilariously not successful youtube but a solid career - I find it funny to imagine Mr. Beast "spending hours" coming up with "next level content" which in reality you'd be better off just paying a 7 year old with jolly ranchers to do.

[alexb_]

>I find it funny to imagine Mr. Beast "spending hours" coming up with "next level content"

As silly as it is for me to be the guy "defending Mr. Beast" of all people, I don't think you have any idea what he does.

[EricE]

Even if he was only giving away money for views (something I disagree with along the same lines as others) - why is that a bad thing exactly? How is it malicious to actually help people?

[filoleg]

Not the person you are replying to, but here is my view of this.

From all I've seen and know about MrBeast, he is an upstanding guy doing great things that help others. I absolutely respect that and believe it is worth of praise.

However, I find the content itself to be absolutely not my cup of tea. Not in a sense that i find it bad or distasteful. There are tons of other "YT philanthropy" influencers that make content that feels either distasteful or exploitative (even if it might not actually be), but his content isn't that. I just struggle to find it interesting enough to watch. I tried a few times, but it simply cannot hold my attention at all.

This isn't MrBeast's fault, as he clearly has a massive audience that enjoys watching his content. It just simply isn't the content for me.

[bergenty]

He’s giving away a lot of money and being helpful and doesn’t seem like a bad/malicious person. Still the content is so low tier (not production values) and just doesn’t appeal to me.

[alphabetting]

>I think too many educated / computer science focused creators get demotivated when they see the kind of low brow "viral" content that's plaguing youtube currently

new content creators should try to not be discourage by this. at youtube's scale there will always be viral lowbrow content because that's what the majority of general public wants to consume. if your content is good and consistent the relevant people who follows your area will eventually find it from their algo.

[fiat_fandango]

I certainly agree - I still think most creators underestimate the necessity of putting in some leg-work to understand your audience and attaching your channel to a niche that has an existing audience at all.

Something that I ended up doing by accident was identifying a niche that a) was low risk (nothing political etc), b) had decent reach, and c) ended up with most of my traffic coming from "browse" and not "search".

Initially, I had no idea traffic coming from "browse" was indicative of content that would likely drive more long-term value outside of "news" videos.

Ironically, videos that feature community drama unfortunately still are my best performing videos.

[kragen]

> many educated / computer science focused creators get demotivated when they see the kind of low brow "viral" content that's plaguing youtube currently (yes, I mean Mr. Beast).

We're talking about a platform whose first big success was "Charlie bit my finger". There's some useful information there but it's never been Wikipedia.

[devfig]

Nice I have subscribed. I think any content about AI would probably do well with all the hype around GPT-3 at the moment. Yes speaking in front of a camera is really difficult. There is literally hours of recordings of me trying to say the same thing over and over again that gets cut.

[fiat_fandango]

Thanks for the subscribe!