This guy has half a dozen people locked up for “content”. Is anyone else seeing how this is hugely problematic?
Yes, in fact there’s a whole genre of video essay where people explain how Mr Beast is problematic.
But to be fair, he’s just an extension of the last 30 years of reality tv. Lure some desperate people with a large sum of cash, make them suffer in front of the camera, edit liberally, air for the entertainment of millions.
Additionally, one of the most popular tv shows of the decade is a criticism of exactly this phenomenon. Mr Beast did a whole tv series that tried to be Squid Game unironically, completely missing the moral of the story and spawning another round of criticism. Something something Guy Debord, something Jean Baudrillard something.
Huh, a hyper-reality reference out in the wild.
I never know which is which. I’ve read both The Society of the Spectacle and Simulacra and Simulation but I don’t think I understood any of it, so a vague allusion is the best I can do. I understood a lot more of the 2016 documentary HyperNormalization, which is a synthesis of both? (I understood neither, so I’m just guessing there.)
If the people are doing it voluntarily, and the minor(s) have parental consent, I don’t see the issue. I doubt they have no way to leave early.
Now, it may be problematic from a societal standpoint, that people want to do such a thing because they don’t make enough money.
I call this the “no literal gun pointed at head” fallacy.
That’s precisely the point of the proplem: he exploits misery and dreams of wealth in a society that by design creates misery and glorifies money.
Imagine someone neeeding the money to save an ill relative. Would you still call it"voluntarily"?
And all those kids who dream of getting rich by suffering on video, what kind of value is that promoting?
All of these are just working people being toyed with by the rich for their entertainment and profit
Dude literally watched Squid Game and said that shit would be better if it were real then set out and did it.
I watched a video about it, and what’s interesting to me is that he had an enormous budget for this Squid Game remake. He spent it on setting up hundreds of cameras, building a whole set where the game would take place, hired all kinds of camera operators… but didn’t do even basic play-testing of the games he was going to have people play.
As a result, some challenges that were supposed to last for an hour or so ended up taking more than 12 hours. Some challenges that were supposed to eliminate half the contestants instead eliminated over 90%. Some challenges didn’t work because people refused to eliminate their friends.
A 2.5 million private jet is, uh, probably not new.
The smallest Very Light Jets, like the Cessna Mustang or HondaJet, start around $5 million new.
So you’re probably looking at a decades old plane, almost certainly not enough room to fully stand up, and possibly no lavatory.
I looked this up. It was a Hawker 400XP, worth about $2.4 million. Yes, it’s a tiny jet.
This link redirects to a youtube channel
Well that was an interesting source
Pilot who won private jet from MrBeast challenge briefly detained in Paraguay over drug case
The seized drugs were high in THC and were estimated at $3.6 million, according to Paraguayan officials.
If Mr Beast was twenty years older, he would’ve been the one paying bums to fight.
Completely out of the loop:
Who’s Mr Beast, what does he do, why should I know him?
What does it mean “I have”? What does he have? A new type of game show? A movie, book, play, game?
Is this real or satire?
Edit: Thanks everybody! Seems like I missed nothing.
Being serious:
- started as a YouTuber that did trend videos like “I did the latest trend, but did it BIGGER”
- figured out a (very exploitative) formula for maximising viewer retention whilst getting as many sponsorship deals into a video as possible
- Became the first YouTube Millionaire
- Started amping up this formula by making the challenges shocking and attention grabbing, such as “I PUT 10 PEOPLE IN AN UNLOCKED HOTEL ROOM, LAST TO LEAVE GETS $5 MILLION”
- realised he could wash his terrible reputation by occasionally releasing a charity video instead, kept it being exploitative though, his most famous example was “I CURED THE BLINDNESS OF 100 PEOPLE” (all blind because they had treatable, easily, diseases but American Healthcare is so exploitative they couldn’t afford to get the treatment)
- Managed to get a TV series called “Beast Games” that’s this but TV
He’s basically everything wrong with YouTube rolled into one person
You didn’t even mention his terrible chocolate and candy
nor the shitty ghost kitchen burgers!