It took a lot of thinking to realize why I never liked Mr. Beast. He does a lot of philanthropy, which is ostensibly good, but I realized that I mainly dislike him as an artist/creative, ignoring whatever controversies implicate him.
As an artist creating video entertainment, Mr. Beast’s primary message and aesthetic is the worship of money.
“Survive 30 Days Chained To Your Ex, Win $250,000”
“Would You Risk Drowning for $500,000?”
“2,000 People Fight For $5,000,000”
Is it worth it to participate? Yes, it might be. People risk humiliation or their health or their lives for money all the time. But the magnification, glorification, deification of money as the Supreme Object that determines the value of anything is what I don’t like about his “art”.
I don’t like “philanthropy” that positions benevolent billionaires as a solution to people’s problems. It’s Gospel of Wealth shit and it just gives cover to the most evil people in society. People supporting each other with what they can give is good, but billionaires like Beast never give what they can. For him especially it was just a business expense, not a charitable donation.
I don’t love that kind of philanthropy either. But it’s not the billionaires’ fault that that’s the system we live in. So when they do do charitable giving, I’m happy to give them the credit for it.
I see Mr Beast’s problem (in this respect) as twofold.
First, as you said, it was often a business expense. In fact on many occasions, it felt really gross and exploitative in the moment, like a sort of poverty porn.
And second, is the fact that even his more legitimate “charitable” raising feels very…Effective Altruism–coded. The idea that we can Technology our way into Saving Humanity. Like the Project Seas (or whatever it was called) where he organised a bunch of YouTubers into helping him raise a significant amount of money for a project that would supposedly use some fancy gadgets to clean up huge amounts of plastic waste in the ocean. Except that the company behind this had no interest in consulting with actual experts, and it turns out that their product simply does not work. It reminds me a little of that time Elon “pedo guy” Musk tried to insert himself into a cave rescue operation with a fancy submarine, and got butthurt when he was told “actually that won’t help us.” It also does nothing about reducing waste in the first place, which is by far the more important work.
But it’s not the billionaires’ fault that that’s the system we live in. So when they do do charitable giving, I’m happy to give them the credit for it.
Billionaires donate in order to buy positive publicity, so giving them credit is literally helping them uphold this shitty system. Every time you claim that they’re doing a good thing, you are spreading the belief that they are not a net negative to society. Not only are social programs far larger and more efficient than their donations, working class people donate a larger percentage of their disposable income than they do. If all their spare wealth was instead in the hands of workers, more of it would go towards charity. It’s not simply the perfect being the enemy of the good; giving credit helps them prevent reform and take more from us.
Also, it is absolutely billionaires’ fault that we live in the system we do. Literally no specific individuals or class of people are more responsible for the society’s problems than them. Why the fuck would I give a pat on the back to the people who create these problems in the first place? Even outside of the propaganda that spreads, the only ultra wealthy people who are ever deserving of praise are those who donate enough to stop being ultra wealthy. The only good billionaire is a dead one, and I will never give a single one credit.
It took a lot of thinking to realize why I never liked Mr. Beast. He does a lot of philanthropy, which is ostensibly good, but I realized that I mainly dislike him as an artist/creative, ignoring whatever controversies implicate him.
As an artist creating video entertainment, Mr. Beast’s primary message and aesthetic is the worship of money.
“Survive 30 Days Chained To Your Ex, Win $250,000”
“Would You Risk Drowning for $500,000?”
“2,000 People Fight For $5,000,000”
Is it worth it to participate? Yes, it might be. People risk humiliation or their health or their lives for money all the time. But the magnification, glorification, deification of money as the Supreme Object that determines the value of anything is what I don’t like about his “art”.
I don’t like “philanthropy” that positions benevolent billionaires as a solution to people’s problems. It’s Gospel of Wealth shit and it just gives cover to the most evil people in society. People supporting each other with what they can give is good, but billionaires like Beast never give what they can. For him especially it was just a business expense, not a charitable donation.
I don’t love that kind of philanthropy either. But it’s not the billionaires’ fault that that’s the system we live in. So when they do do charitable giving, I’m happy to give them the credit for it.
I see Mr Beast’s problem (in this respect) as twofold.
First, as you said, it was often a business expense. In fact on many occasions, it felt really gross and exploitative in the moment, like a sort of poverty porn.
And second, is the fact that even his more legitimate “charitable” raising feels very…Effective Altruism–coded. The idea that we can Technology our way into Saving Humanity. Like the Project Seas (or whatever it was called) where he organised a bunch of YouTubers into helping him raise a significant amount of money for a project that would supposedly use some fancy gadgets to clean up huge amounts of plastic waste in the ocean. Except that the company behind this had no interest in consulting with actual experts, and it turns out that their product simply does not work. It reminds me a little of that time Elon “pedo guy” Musk tried to insert himself into a cave rescue operation with a fancy submarine, and got butthurt when he was told “actually that won’t help us.” It also does nothing about reducing waste in the first place, which is by far the more important work.
Billionaires donate in order to buy positive publicity, so giving them credit is literally helping them uphold this shitty system. Every time you claim that they’re doing a good thing, you are spreading the belief that they are not a net negative to society. Not only are social programs far larger and more efficient than their donations, working class people donate a larger percentage of their disposable income than they do. If all their spare wealth was instead in the hands of workers, more of it would go towards charity. It’s not simply the perfect being the enemy of the good; giving credit helps them prevent reform and take more from us.
Also, it is absolutely billionaires’ fault that we live in the system we do. Literally no specific individuals or class of people are more responsible for the society’s problems than them. Why the fuck would I give a pat on the back to the people who create these problems in the first place? Even outside of the propaganda that spreads, the only ultra wealthy people who are ever deserving of praise are those who donate enough to stop being ultra wealthy. The only good billionaire is a dead one, and I will never give a single one credit.
I never watched or read enough to form this deep of an opinion, there was just something about his face, voice and those dead little eyes.
Yeah, it’s kinda like hunger games lite.