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Is Mr Beast a good person?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
198 points (90.6% liked)
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It's an interesting dilemma. I don't disagree with anything you've said but, at the same time, Mr Beast is helping people, even if he's also personally benefitting. And the only reason he's in a position to help as many people as much as he does is because of his "clout" - without his platform and the sponsors he attracts, he wouldn't be able to have nearly as much of an impact as he does. And I'd rather influencers like Mr Beast exist than the Andrew Tate of the world, or the nasty "prank" influencers.
But, at the same time, you're right that it teaches people they'll be rewarded more if they wait until they're on camera before doing any acts of charity. If he can inspire people to do charitable things just for the the sake of helping make the world better then that's great, but if people are only doing charitable things for "clout" then it's definitely not ideal.
There's definitely not a black and white answer or solution. I think Mr Beast has a positive impact on the world overall, but there are definitely both good and bad things people could take away from watching his videos if they don't consider things correctly. It's something that touches on a number of philosophical subjects: capitalism, materialism, individualism versus collectivism, the influence of social media, external validation versus internal satisfaction, to name but a few.
The best thing OP can do is to teach their sons the nuances of it all.
I wish there were some way to know the net impact of this. Once helping the poor becomes entertainment, do people actually get up and go do it themselves anymore? Very often these days people don’t actually do things but rather watch others do them online. You can say sure that one person did get money and help, but what is the larger impact of this phenomenon? Are more people inspired to go give? Or do more people “get that itch scratched” and walk away from the video feeling all warm inside just from watching it? And what is the impact to the poor person of their publicity? This stuff is hard to know but I point it out to say there is more to it than “well one person did get help so it must be good.”
One thing it reminds me of is prosthetics viral videos. People love videos where a kid with one arm sees their new robotic prosthetic for the first time. We get all misty watching their excitement. But many people actually go on to have a crappy experience with their prosthetic. There’s one woman I heard on the radio who said she tried many of them and they were heavy, painful, and hard to make work right. She just prefers to use her stump now. And she wishes people would watch a video celebrating that, instead of everyone telling her she should get a cool robot arm. People are icked out by her stump and they all ask her why she doesn’t get a cool robot arm like in the video they saw.
Feelgood porn is problematic.