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Comment by mattbrewsbytes | Hacker News Reader

The premise is mostly the same as a lot of game shows. You don't see rich people showing up to get on game shows. From glimpses I've seen of Japanese game shows, Mr Beast's takes a lot from them with the ridiculousness and over the top entertainment factor, the money involved is much more.

Another counterpoint is that they do good as well - 30+ million pounds of trash cleaned out the ocean with TeamSeas. Go see the one where they take over a bank in his hometown, no game show antics just handing out money in an entertaining way.

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The problematic part is that Mr Beast offers little if any critical reflection about the systems that create wealth inequality, pollution, etc. and even less regarding his own role as a perceived philanthropist within that context.

It's not that it's inherently morally wrong to clean up the ocean, open a free bank or handing someone 500k for staying 100 days in a 100ft circle. It's the manifest obliviousness of not challenging the system and the premises that allow him to make his videos that's - industries generating single-use plastics, people not able to take out a mortgage,... - which is the issue.

His videos aren't in any way a social commentary. They are nothing more then entertainment, and they don't pretend to be anything else. That's what makes all of this morally questionable.

> Mr Beast offers little if any critical reflection about the systems that create wealth inequality

Why should he?

Exactly - we all don't have to be doing that all the time. And MrBeast does not choose random people or even poor people for these challenges, he chooses only his own subscribers - people who are already interested in this content and presumably watch it regularly and are delighted to be in one of the videos.

For the exact same reason why we teach little kids to throw their litter in the garbage bin instead of the ground, and hope that it will stick into adulthood: a range of values and ideas that display a due sense of caring and compassion.

People don't want a world utterly suffused with politics. You are doing your movement harm by expecting it.

I didn't know parenting was suffused by politics, but apparently here we are.

> and hope that it will stick into adulthood

Littering is often a criminal offense in many places and/or you have to pay a fine so you are comparing apples and oranges here.

Everyone should, but he seems to be particularly in a position to do so.

> Everyone should,

Why though?

> You don't see rich people showing up to get on game shows.

You do, but on different ones. On shows that make them look good.

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