Comment by jodrellblank | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jodrellblank | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> "I really don't want to be that guy and wade into it with a "well, actually"."

Be that guy; what's your criticism about Mr Beast's generosity? He does a lot of content which could be fake; like giving his friends $20,000, but ones which look more serious and genuine and costly include:

- Opened a "free bank" where he loaned money into six figures to local people, then surprise! it's not a loan, they can keep it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORUX1lHbOa8

- Bought everything in a supermarket and donated it to a food bank: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha4tRQwKIUg

- Donated $100k to plant trees, and organised a fundraiser which raised $21M to plant 20M trees: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPJKxAhLw5I

- Ran a contest of TV show style challenges (endurance, falling into goop) with some of his viewers as contestents, with a million dollar prize at the end that one of them won: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ4m4zD7BBA

- Gave away three houses or free rent for a year in them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJH28ICkCdU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfv1QaRzJg8 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cCpZl8euLI

- Bought every car in a car dealership and gave them away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LLnjRLrvLU

- Gives his credit card to people, encouraging them to spend tens thousands of dollars on things they get to keep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYVjOfoU3uI

What's vapid or not generous enough about these for your liking?

I don't know how to explain it - if you make your living by being charitable, then the whole act of charity is somewhat lessened, no?

It's like when nestle announces they are going to plant 1 million trees - like yeah, it's very generous of you, no doubt - but you are doing it as a marketing exercise.

Mr Beast is making money this way. I am extremely far from saying that there's anything wrong with it - but it's not charity in my mind. It's just a business that happens to benefit random bystanders from time to time.

Mr Beast is making money this way for sure, but he’s also feeding that money back into being generous, so I think in this case it’s fine

I'm sure he is making a profit off it but whatever good is happening is still getting done. He could be a famous YouTuber by playing pranks or video games and make millions too - is that better?

I share an unsettled feeling about this. I think it is because things like this are a visceral reminder of differences between the rich and poor. A life altering struggle for a poor person is a solved by ten minutes of amusement from a rich person - "here, take my card and buy whatever you need."

>>I'm sure he is making a profit off it but whatever good is happening is still getting done.

I'm not saying it's not. I don't want him to stop. But I don't think I'd call it charity personally(and some people do, that's why I'm making this point).

Like, let me try again with an example - if you pull $10k out of your account and give it to a homeless person, that's charity, right?

Ok, but what if you get someone to invest $10k into you making a youtube video, because you promise them they will make this money back from monetization, and you then record a youtube video of giving the homeless person that exact $10k. The video then proceeds to make way more than that $10k in revenue. Is that charity too? After all the end result is the same - the homeless person was given money. Or is it just good business?

The second example is exactly what Mr Beast has done. I'm not saying he shouldn't have - just observing that what he does, the entire spectacle of it - it's just a business venture.

MrBeast is in the business of arbitrage.

Since you insist:

Any one of the aforementioned things could have been done at any time, anywhere, on an ongoing basis, that would have helped communities in a sustainable way.

When he gives the cars away, or makes loans to people, he often films people getting significantly different amounts (or items of significantly differing value) simultaneously. I would assume the reactions are more valuable when someone has gotten less than one of their friends in the same group - this in particular is cruelty, not kindness.

Even setting the above aside, the big issue I have with it is that it’s not charity or altruism but is masquerading as such for profit. This is his business. Every act is a carefully calculated profit/loss equation relative to how many views he thinks he can get.

Typically philanthropy would be considered willingly disposing of money you earned elsewhere when it’s not necessary for you to do so, in order to help a cause.

Beast isn’t doing this. He’s reinvesting his profits into growing his business.

You wouldn’t call a mechanic a philanthropist for fixing people’s cars for money, even though they’ve done something that people appreciated.

At best, Beast is redistributing the ad revenue from his viewers and skimming signifcantly from the top (given that it’s expected he’s approaching billionaire status).

For what it’s worth I do respect his business acumen. He’s found a good hustle and is working it very well.

This is important because Mr Beast doesn't actually spend a lot of time self aggrandising. He approaches philanthropy similarly to how many ultra wealthy people do; giving in public, only he makes more from it.

He makes money off of it. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that doesn’t make him a charity, imo.

You could make the same case for Walmart: look at all the people (employees) they hand money out to! With many of them likely having much tougher lives than I do and thus being absolutely deserving of the money. But Walmart does it for the sole reason that it improves their bottom line —- just like Mr Beast.

Do you think Mr Beast would insist on spending millions in a video if he could create the same income from just “Giving $1.5 to strangers!” videos?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com