[ineedasername]

Something about MrBeast has always bothered me, I’m not quite sure I can put my finger.

It has to do with things like his random money drops. It seems like he established himself in an #OMG look at this great thing I’m doing for someone# sort of way. But doing something good always felt like the incidental byproduct of producing a bit of content that got lots of eyeballs on it.

I’ve never seen something that would demonstrate that MrBeast is doing any of it because he actually cares, and instead it seems like it’s done because it drives viral consumption of the content. I’d like to be wrong if anyone has come across something that shows otherwise.

Maybe this shouldn’t bother me? By which I mean, if everything MrBeast has done wasn’t through YouTube but instead was presented as, say, a Netflix production “reality” tv series then I’d think to myself- oh of course it’s for audience entertainment and any good that comes of it is a happy accident, not the actual goal.

Maybe my issue is how I was initially introduced to MrBeast content, which was through my young kids. And my kids thought he was actually giving the money away specifically and primarily to do something good and nice for someone. Instead it feels like there’s an element of exploitation to it.

I don’t know, I’m probably overthinking the whole thing and I should (maybe? Thoughts or suggestions?) just recalibrate my outlook to view his content as just another sort of game show or something.

Though even then, it annoys me that some people seem to view him as a good person for what he does, akin to viewing CBS as altruistic for giving Jeopardy winners $$.

I’m overthinking this. Stopping now.

[mdrzn]

He has never hidden the fact that he only cares about doing the BEST video ever for YouTube. He doesn't really care about becoming a billionare or giving away $10m a month, he cares that the video will be the BEST ever so if giving away money is a way to make a video more interesting, so be it. There's hours of interviews with him, if you want to understand him deeper just watch a few. He's transparent in what he does.

[ineedasername]

Thanks, I’ll take your word for it at face value. It’s good to know that. That he’s no representing his actions as philanthropic. My distaste for him is therefore rooted in his content coming through an untraditional vector and my initial experience through my kids thinking he was trying to help people.

I’ve explained things to my kids, they get it now too. And if he’s honest about what he’s trying to do then I thinks it’s mostly okay and I can just recalibrate my thinking, nudge things towards putting his category of content in the same box as something like the Survivor reality TV show, which is mostly fine. MrBeast has simply distributed his content in a different way.

Good thread! part of why I come to HN. One of the few places for public discourse online where there’s opportunity for an actual exchange of ideas and changing opinions. (I mean it’s possible, plenty of people still dug in and are resistant to discussion of something in a way that could change their mind. Which is still even okay, we all have harder held opinions, and because disagreement here is often still productive to read through and rarely descends to toxic levels.)

Today, I am thankful that HN is not a toxic waste dump of flame wars and troll bait and provides an outlet to discuss interesting things with random stranger who are often way smarter than me. Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Americans reading this! As you sit down to meals with family and friends or even if you’re alone, I wish you all well and hope you all have ample things to be thankful for.

For parts of the world that don’t celebrate a thanksgiving of sorts on this day, f&ck you. kidding! I’m thankful for all of you too and wish you well just as much. We’re all entirely too interconnected these days to ignore the fact that what’s good for $X group of people in the world, to the extent that it doesn’t harm others in any significant way, adds an incremental amount to the collective uplift provided by civilization.

From one American to the global HN community, I’m thankful for you all. Except #@dang. Dang is too good. I’m convinced ycombinator either has like a GPT-5 model bot trained to do things here or there’s an army of not-dangs working behind the scenes to keep this community roughly on the rails. ;) Happy Thanksgiving Dang(s)!

[throwaway22032]

His definition of "best" seems to be "highest views", which is a bit like saying McDonalds is the "best" restaurant.

I mean, I love Macs, but...

[polishdude20]

I agree. He is literally investing that money into his business. That's just called a "write-off" or cost of doing business. It's not altruism if the act literally makes him more money than he gives away.