X appears to be juicing MrBeast’s views to woo the YouTuber to the platform, pushing video upload into users’ feeds as an unlabeled ad

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 659 points –
X appears to be juicing MrBeast's views as Elon Musk tries to woo the YouTuber to the platform
mashable.com

X appears to be juicing MrBeast’s views to woo the YouTuber to the platform, pushing video upload into users’ feeds as an unlabeled ad::undefined

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I recently told a Tesla recruiter I won’t work for musk

I'm ok with it. Im just not going to give up remote work and don't want to live in Austin or Silicon Valley.

No matter what, the amount of money, contests, and just absolute overindulgence capable by Mr Beast is insane in any functioning society. The disparity is so bad these influencers and people with money swoop in, gift people egregious and lavish gifts are rewards for contests, and use that to further enrich themselves through monetized channels. Its sickening to watch. This shouldn't be reality.

The comments replying seem to ignore one of the key aspects of your opinion. It's about Mr Beast getting his name and face on every interaction. If the networks shoved "WERE GONNA BLOW UP THIS LABORGHINI BECAUSE CBS!" "WERE GONNA FEED THIS HOMELESS DUDE! CBS! CBS!" ad nauseam it would be a different animal, but somehow ostentatious displays of consumption and self-promotion are acceptable for some.

My main point is, you motherfuckers want to help? Money = free speech right now. Money is law. Use that fucken shit to sway laws. Start locally. They don't want to help. They want to play saint lottery for instant good boy points while solving nothing. Its disgusting. May they all feast on each other at the table in hell.

The old system where the networks got all the money was way better.

Suddenly it's 1960.

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google have replaced ABC, NBC, PBS and CBS.

Your "personal computer internet appliance" is a black-box running rented software, just like in the 'dumb-terminal time-sharing' era.

For sure but Mr. Beast doesn't actually keep any of the money for himself.

He does though. You can't build fancy sets and put on huge productions without having money. Like yeah, Jimmy might not have millions of dollars in his personal bank account, but his business sure does.

He frequently talks about it. Often his videos costs about as much as they make.

He just likes doing the videos and helping people

My point is its batshit insane we have half the population unable to afford a fly farting on their car while a noticeable portion is able to gift people life transformations. You can't mitigate all failures on an individual level, people will lose and get hurt, but this is beyond individual responsibility. Its self-gratification and exuberant indulgence on a scale that would make Slaanesh cum. If any of these people truly wanted to help people and not just play Saint Lottery, they would use their power to lobby for better regulations and worker conditions. Since money is free speech you know.

I know what you're saying, I'm just confused why this anger is being directed at Mr. Beast of all people. I'm saying he's doing more for people than most ever will. Maybe he should use his platform for political activism and lobbying, I don't know. I mean, If he did how far could he go with that when what he's doing is working well and he is able to help real people without redtape and bureaucracy. Yes he's playing the capitalist system to help people, but it's working and he is able to do it because he makes a good show of it. Would he be able to do the same if he dedicated himself to politics? I don't know.

Its not hard to run fake restaurants out of other franchisee's properties. Its also not hard to sell energy drinks from gas station shelves when you already have a brand name. None of these people have it hard, or would not be able to post videos of them depriving 40+ people of necessities as they each sit in separated circles to compete for money. Jimmy doesn't fight the laws with all the free speech he has acquired through his life because they are what directed the fiscal winds of change into his pocket. It would damage his finances, and his many business, if the average person had it better. The anger is directed at the machine, of which he happens to be a substantial cog.

I mean it's easier to stack him since he's in the public culture. I just disagree he's a substantial cog. There are far larger and critical institutions that reinforce the system and do far for damage to society. Talking as if Mr. Beast has any actual influence or powerful is laughable.

They can have him, I'm sick of seeing him show up in thumbnails on youtube.

Can he please hire someone to teach him how to smile? He's got the money for it.

That smile is like how I look when I try to smile for a picture. I guess I don't have the muscle controll. It looks weird as fuck just like that guy.

He just needs to squeeze one eye a little bit and it would be a perfect "filling my diaper" face

Imagine running scam on video views like, 5 years after Facebook’s infamously bs « pivot to video » bombed. What a visionary man.

I've seen his memes, five years behind everyone else is p much his M.O.

Why is it people who hoard wealth and use that wealth to hoard more wealth by fucking as many people as possible always get this dismissive "eh of course they do shrug," - but as soon as somebody finds wealth and is like "how can I do something useful with this" then uses that wealth to start a food bank and fund water/energy projects for needy communities we gotta spend our day breaking down how they're evil and sus?

Because people who get this rich do it by exploiting the poor. They aren't going to turn around and be nice. People who get this rich start as absolute shit bags. They remain the same after.

... that doesn't answer the question they asked.

Did you literally not even manage to read a whole one paragraph comment before responding?

My brother in Christ he's a fucking YouTuber. If you don't want to be in a video, say no. 🤷

Of course for all this screeching about exploitation I'd happily put down $50 that says you wouldn't turn down a free car because you "don't want to be exploited."

Go tell the people in the 21 counties of NC his food pantry travels to that they're being exploited and see what they think of your hot take. Or are you one of those "feeding people robs them of their bootstraps" types?

You can feed people and do good things while exploiting them to further your notoriety and wealth. These are not mutually exclusive. It is perfect acceptable to be turned off or even disgusted by someone shoving a camera into every situation to extract some kind of profit from it along with self-aggrandizement, even if some of those profits are returned to the community that helped generate those profits as a "good deed".

Don't let ideals get in the way of good. While what you say is true, he could literally help no one if he hadn't followed this business model. He wouldn't have the cash. His videos bring in more cash which can help more people. Yes he makes money too but its more distasteful to me to be someone like you who prefers less people get help if someone else profits from it than it is to be someone like him who helps more people than you are and also makes money from it.

A bit rich for you to be saying his way is wrong when you probably haven't ponyed up your own cash to help even a fraction of the people. The world you want to exist does not. Everything has a cost. Id rather people do some good in exchange for that cost than wish everyone did everything for free which incentivizes no one to do anything.

I don't watch him. His videos don't really appeal for me but I recognize the good that can be done in such a format.

That’s a fat lie for you to say that I prefer people not be helped.

Where’s your cash dump to the poor?

You read what you wanted and made the rest up. It is also possible be disgusted with someone’s approach and still understand it helps people.

rounds back to original point of how somebody who does literally anything with their wealth gets this huge tirade about how they're evil but the richer YouTubers and actual billionaires face no real critique.

It really is weird how a millionaire who runs a food bank and funds various infrastructure projects is more villainous to people than billionaires who play every corporate greed trick in the book, and I'm tired of people acting like it's not.

You’re not wrong. But that doesn’t mean we have to accept relentless self-promotion either. You also forget he’s still gonna be rich, barring financial disaster. Gonna point your finger at him when he’s done with YouTube, sitting in a 10k sq ft mansion with a garage full of exotics? If we want to point fingers I’d be willing to be lt a bunch of those “actual billionaires” engage in a lot of philanthropy without sticking their identity in front of a camera telling you about it at every turn?

This stuff smacks of evangelical prosperity gospel. Just give me money so I can do the lord’s work and drive to the church in my Lambo, except there’s nobody controlling a gateway to Heaven, just a mention and a shout out to top donors in a video.

You didn't answer my question.

Why do billionaires who do a fraction of a fraction of what he does get a free pass to actively steal economic activity from their workers and customers because their product isn't content - but somebody whose business is creating something of value (content) who pays his people reasonably and also does good for people needs to be be taken down at every turn and shat on at every opportunity?

Corporate apologism at its finest, right here. The only true evil is making money via creating a popular product instead of stealing the economic value of those who create a product for you because you already had all the capital to start with. Infinite corporate greed is good because it's private, using your money and platform to help people is evil because they do it in the open.

GTFO

Nobody is giving them a free pass. You're the only one suggesting that. We're discussing the weather and you keep jumping in and yelling the sky is blue. No shit, sherlock, but we're discussing the weather. Don't you get it? You're the only person saying that. We're talking about Mr Beast, and all you keep saying is What about all those other people? I don't give a shit about them because we're talking about Mr Beast. You're the guy that keeps jumping into the conversation and trying to change the subject to make it about something else. You're nuts or completely live under a rock if you think lemmy/reddit/fediverse doesn't shit on billionaires regularly, doesn't discuss wealth inequality, doesn't point out ostentatious displays of wealth. Do other billionaires get a pass? NO. Now let us continue our discussion without having to be reminded about something we already know.

"Bad" rich people are dismissed because Lemmy users expect this behavior of them. What they don't expect or believe in is someone genuinely using their wealth for good.

"If God is all powerful, he cannot be all good. And if he is all good, then he cannot be all powerful"

deleted by creator

You've never heard a positive word about Mr. Beast / Jimmy? I have, quite a lot actually. Maybe you don't watch the people who interact with him more, idk. He seems like a nice guy who uses his videos to generate revenue that he immediately puts back into making more videos. Like, almost all of it if I understand correctly. All while helping tons of people in the process.

Also, Musk is desperate for Jimmy's attention lol. He asked Mr. Beast in a tweet recently why he doesn't upload his videos on X and basically got the answer "It's not worth it" lol

He was on Lex Friedman's podcast a while back. Honestly he seemed like a smart guy but I came away feeling like he was pretty cynical about the whole thing. It really did just feel like a neurotically trained intuition about boosting view metrics.

He did seem like a decent dude I guess. Its hard to tell from those kind of things.

Yeah, fair enough. Who knows, maybe I'll be eating my words sometime in the future.

Meh, I've never watched a video of his, but seems like it's just a modern day game show/home makeover/dystopian feel-good story sort of thing. Neither good or bad. It's good that he helps some people, bad that the people and many, many more need help.

I agree that it sucks that we need people to help pick up the slack in our social nets and whatnot, but I think it's unfair that people attack Mr beast for using that YouTube money to help people to make more YouTube money to help more people. Loads of these youtubers rake in more and do jack with it but never face any individual flak, but he does something different and he becomes the poster boy of evil youtuber to people.

FWIW Beast Philanthropy is a registered 501c3, feeds like over half of NC, and has done alot of disaster relief work in a bunch of states and a handful of countries. I don't think it's evil that they shoot some footage in the process and a quick ad read to feed 100% of the revenue from the philanthropy channel back into the 501c3.

Disclaimer: I don't really watch Mr. Beast all that much.

Mr. Beast's origin story (apparently) is that he went all in on Bitcoin really early, like so early that when it blew up he became a multi-millionaire (we don't actually know exactly how much money he got, it could be a lot, it seems like a fuck ton).

By some grace of God he had a really good influence and decided to use that money for charity, creating a YouTube channel to film that charity and make some money back on his endeavors. He talks a lot now about how he makes so much off of YouTube videos that he can often just break even on the crazy prizes he gives out based on the views he gets.

Now based on this it seems pretty chill. Mr. Beast made a fuckload of money and is working within the system of capitalism to give it back to some of the most needy (I mean he's done stuff like traveled to Africa to help install water wells in tiny remote villages, say whatever you want but that's good charity.)

The problem is, as other people in this thread pointed out Mr. Beast has done a ton of podcasts talking about his work and it's pretty clear that he actually thinks that this is how the system is supposed to work, that the only issue is that more rich people aren't giving away their money like he is and if that happened the system would be working perfectly. That's a stupid take, and as I mentioned before, I think he only became this charitable as a fluke, he's an exception to the rule.

Now I'll defend him: I think that Mr. Beast gets a lot more hate than he deserves. He's one of the very few rich people who is truly giving away most of his money to other people (sure, lots of his videos are him giving away money to middle-american white people but that doesn't even matter that much) he gets hate because he places himself in the spotlight the "controversy around every video" that you point to is a product of this. It's part of the production and only makes him more famous. Mr. Beast is only a symptom of a disease and directing hate towards him is only done because it's easy.

Like I said earlier, he's an exception to the rule, and the rule is that people this rich don't engage in any charity nearly this much. It's bizarre that people focus on the one rich person doing that. Oh wait, it's not, it's just a bunch of lugheads falling for the American celebrity worship/attention culture but in reverse.

Rich people engaging in charity are just washing their own image. Under the current system, there's no way to be rich without exploiting the poor. That's just how the system works. No amount of charity will change that.

He literally just explained a way that MrBeast got extremely rich without exploiting the poor. He got into Bitcoin super early, and cashed out at a peak, becoming a multimillionaire overnight. No poor exploitation at all there.

Except for the faceless idiots that bought in during one of those peaks and left with big debts. Otherwise, no exploitation anywhere!

As the OP, I'd like to mention here that I never said or thought that Bitcoin involves no poor exploitation.

My issue with the hate he gets is he seems to get raked over the coals more than people giving away nothing because he's "exploiting" people to fund it. Im just so sick of people jumping on even slight improvement over the status quo because they expect perfection from anybody trying to do any good. Theres a reason everything is being enshittified. Theres no reason people benefitting from the system have to even slightly improve it because every idealist who probably hasn't done shit to improve the world will be there waggling their finger.

Look, I hate youtubers more than anybody I know, but if someone was impersonating this guy to prank some kid he's never met I don't see how we can expect him to apologize for something he didn't know about and wasn't involved in.

And now Elon Musk wants him on X. Keep in mind that Elon Musk is openly repelled by those he cannot manipulate, including anyone with working conscience who is disgusted by the kind of propagandistic hatred X serves up on the regular, and Musk tirades against that kind of ethical “wokeness” regularly. Yet he loves Mr. Beast enough to run Beast content (for free? as an ad?) to get Mr. Beast onto his platform. That’s not the kind of recommendation decent people get from Musk.

Excellent write-up. This paragraph especially speaks volumes. Honestly, it's an angle I hadn't even considered, but when faced with it, yeah, exactly! How the hell does Mr. Beast not get the same "wokeness" critique as other people when it comes to Musk??

Musk is just a suck-up. Also, Mr. Beast doesn't really do anything he could clown on, and he's well connected. It would make Musk's reputation worse than it already is.

But, he's trying to manipulate him by inflating view counts? Also, pretty sure musk wants him because he's a huge creator and it would be good for twitter, not because he can sense he's bad or whatever. I don't really care about Mr Beast, never watched his videos, but I've heard much more good about him than bad.

OMG, thank you! I've been saying for years that something is not right about him but I can't pinpoint why. We will see with time, I guess!

Mr. Beast is never off. I've never seen a candid picture of him. He's probably clean, but something's very fake about him.

The first project I heard of his was "#TeamSeas". Which collects donations to dredge trash out of the ocean. Except realistically, that trash is constantly getting replenished. The efforts should have been to reduce plastic waste, either by promoting less consumption or switching all drink bottles to recyclable aluminum. Neither of those look as good on camera as a specialized ship pulling trash out of the ocean and promoting anti consumption probably wouldn't sit well either his audience or sponsors.

His viewers mainly consist of people who want to feel charitable vicariously or people fantasizing about about being on the reviving end of his charity. It's not much different from the people who watch Life Styles of the Rich and Famous.

I don't think that's the right perspective to have on this, a good action isn't bad just because It wasn't the best action possible.

And the solution you brought upon, would still leave the first problem afloat, "great, we reduced plastic consumption, but who's going to remove the plastic that is already in there?", It's a paradox you see? If he chooses option A, people will burn him at the stake because he didn't choose option B.

I was skeptical at first when I first got aware of him, then I did some research and there's a ton of philanthropy there, lots of people got some help they needed.

EVEN if it's done with ulterior motives, the non changing fact is that people indeed were helped.

Whichever motives he has behind his persona, he has helped more people than most could or would've helped in their entire lifetimes.

I would follow on from you by saying removing plastic is the better of the options anyway. Good old free will means you can't force people to choose to use less plastic and alternatives, but you can force yourself to go and do something about it - we can't even make them use a bloody rubbish bin.

I mean, how would you even go about it? Lobby governments against organizations with much bigger pockets, advertising campaigns to tell us what we already know, start a political party?? Cleaning beaches already showed what we as people are doing and what we can do.

Dredging the ocean can come after we stop putting trash in it. There's a finite amount of resources for these activities and they should be first directed to the most effective solutions first. He apparently thinks he has enough influence on his audience to direct them to clean up his chocolate bar displays.

Dredging the ocean can come after we stop putting trash in it.

It must be both simultaneously. You don't ignore a patient with a gunshot wound by telling everyone, "Ignore the dieing man until we ban guns!"

Except realistically, that trash is constantly getting replenished

I don't watch Mr Beast but he's trying to help unlike everyone else. Yes we should stop dumping plastic in the ocean. But removing what is already there is useful just like cleaning trash on the beach is useful. You don't walk past litter and say, "No point in picking it up, someone else will just throw more."

There are many non profit ocean cleanup organizations.

Except, at least where I am, there's social stigma against littering, so the first problem has been solved. Picking up a bit of litter every now and then is sustainable.

Same here. I always found the fandom and the whole concept suspect AF.

I don't think Mr.Beast needs the platform.

To put into perspective just how unimportant Twitter is in the grand scheme of things, Mr Beast's most popular YouTube video has 40 million more views than Twitter has total monthly active users (500m or so), and 100 million views is frankly a pretty underperforming video for him

Isn't one of Mr. Beast's friends or employees trans? He's shown open support for them too. He has a vested interest in not associating with Elon.

He's got vested interest in gargling Musk's balls.

“I’m about to finish this book and I want you to know that I respect the hell out of you,” he wrote on February 11, 2020. “Ever since I started learning about your work ethic and passion I’ve been more motivated than ever to make a difference. I look up to you.”

To note, 2020 was a couple years after Musk called the cave diver that saved kids a pedo.

That was the moment that all rational people figured out he was a complete asshat. Mr. Beast didn't.

In my view, it means Mr. Beast doesn't actually respect Kris very much, to keep being this buddy-buddy with Musk.

I mean Musk wasn't as loud about his bigotry at that point, not in the way he is now at least, and Mr Beast has been openly supportive of trans people. Being a bit of an idiot and being a raging bigot aren't the same thing, and that incident mostly convinced people that Elon was an idiot. It's entirely possible he's changed his mind about Musk in 3 years. I'm not a Mr Beast fan by any means, I don't watch his content or anything and tbh I found his reaction to the Jacksepticeye thing to be annoying which hasn't endeared him to me, so I don't have any skin in the game on his end of things, but there were a lot of people who didn't hate Elon after the cave diving thing who do hate him now so I wouldn't really treat that post as gospel personally. A lot of people don't want to admit it but Elon used to have way better PR than he does now, and a lot of people have changed their minds about him over time. So atm I don't see any reason to believe that Mr. Beast would revoke his support for trans people for Musk. His support of trans people is more recent as well. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd rather be optimistic about it until he gives me reason not to be.

He probably just didn't know about how shit of a person he was. In 2020 everyone loved musk, me included, mostly just because most people didn't dig deep into what type of person he was. I want to give Mr beast the benefit of the doubt here because I don't think he's an innately bad person like Elon is.

In 2020 I had nothing but contempt for Musk, and I had a long list of reasons for it at the time. I'm sorry you were late to the party, but he showed his true colors long before 2020.

To note, 2020 was a couple years after Musk called the cave diver that saved kids a pedo.

That was the moment that all rational people figured out he was a complete asshat. Mr. Beast didn’t.

Just quoting myself here for good measure. *shrugs

Like I said, most people didn't know that.

Yeah and I'm of the opinion that it was pretty widely covered at the time, and a lot of people figured it out, so I don't buy that "most" didn't know it.

That was the time he was the most popular. Everyone's was in love with him and though he was the real life tony stark at that point. I hadn't even heard of the fact he called the rescuer a pedo until s couple months ago (way after I realised he was a dick). To be fair, this is all anecdotal, but many people didn't know and I want to give Mr beast the benefit of the doubt. Not to add this was three years ago before all of the other bad stuff he said.

I don't know much about him but from what I know he seems like the kind of guy who would put money above all. I'm guessing as long as he thinks he can benefit from Musk it doesn't matter if his friend or employee is trans.

I feel like MrBeast is smarter than this.

Smart enough to show support for his trans staff member while also being friends with someone who would deny every trans person their human rights?

He's a fucking piece of shit speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

You can't support Kris and be friends with the likes of Elon Musk.

He's not smarter than this, he's fucking greedy just like Musk.

Where in the article does it say anything about their being friends?

It doesn't say it in the article, but Mr. Beast's friendship with Musk is well documented.

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-and-mrbeasts-complicated-friendship-timeline-2024-1


Over the following months and years, Donaldson and Musk exchanged messages on X (Twitter back then). Donaldson said several times that he admired Musk.

In one tweet, he said he had been reading "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future" by Ashlee Vance.

**"I'm about to finish this book and I want you to know that I respect the hell out of you," he wrote on February 11, 2020. "Ever since I started learning about your work ethic and passion I've been more motivated than ever to make a difference. I look up to you."**

Donaldson also tweeted messages of support about Musk's developments at Tesla, and said he would be tuning in when Musk hosted "Saturday Night Live" on May 8, 2021.

On February 27, 2022, Musk tweeted asking why the "traditional" media was "such a relentless hatestream."

**"Bro I could literally feed a million people and they wouldn't care in the slightest," Donaldson replied. "But the second I slip up and do something wrong they'll pounce all over it lmao."**


Musk then cryptically tweeted out: "If I die under mysterious circumstances, it's been nice knowin ya."

Donaldson replied: "If that happens can I have Twitter."

Musk responded with a simple, "Ok."

"Jokes aside, be safe!" Donaldson said. "I wuv u."


Yeah Mr. Beast doesn't actually respect Kris, if this is how he talks to Musk. You don't call him "bro" and not mean it.

i want to throat punch him

It's a shame that your first thought is for physical violence. You must be quite emotionally immature.

Edit: I guess this is just a joke that went over my head

Why waste any more calories when violence and murder is so effective? I'm getting paid slave wages out here, brother on a budget

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If MrBeast leaves YouTube I will consider that a win. I am so tired of see his gaping jaw open on my front page for his stupid stunts and his stupid candybars.

HE'LL BE BACK, THEY ALWAYS COME BACK

You know you can set channels to "not interested" and "don't recommend channel", right?

It's not permanent, even if you click on "don't recommend channel". After a while, YouTube will ignore your choice and show it to you again if it feels like it.

We're clearly doing something different because I never get Mr Beats recommend.

It's based on your viewing history.

You can run a little experiment to verify this if you want. Take some subject you usually watch and take some channel your have interest in (and you will keep watching similar videos). Set that channel as "don't recommend channel". After a while (never calculated how long), you'll get recommendations of that channel again.

I also don't get Mr Beast recommendation as I don't watch similar content, but there are channels I need to keep blocking since I like the subject but not those channels in particular.

I was mostly just saying that the "don't recommend channel" approach is not a solution for everyone.

He has done more for charity and general philanthropy than you ever will.

Self-promotion is not charity. And neither is putty porn. It's just the cost of doing business when you're your own brand. And philanthropy is a scam promoted by the rich to help justify their wealth hoarding.

All of it ultimately ends up personally furthering the rich person's personal goals. It's all just a way of saying that the rich deserve to determine what society goals should be, and how society should use its limited resources.

It's taking control away from the masses, and keeping it in the hands of those with money.

id love to punch them both in the face really really hard

Mr Beast is the AntiChrist gog and magog. I hate him with the passion of a thousand Hiroshimas. His corpse face splattered all over youtube triggers an uncanny valley effect on me. A repulsive simulacra, a predator animal disguised as a human.

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Tweet may have been deleted.

And this is why articles should be using screenshots and not links to tweets.

You didn't answer my question.

Why do billionaires who do a fraction of a fraction of what he does get a free pass to actively steal economic activity from their workers and customers because their product isn't content - but somebody whose business is creating something of value (content) who pays his people reasonably and also does good for people needs to be be taken down at every turn and shat on at every opportunity?

Corporate apologism at its finest, right here. The only true evil is making money via creating a popular product instead of stealing the economic value of those who create a product for you because you already had all the capital to start with. Infinite corporate greed is good because it's private, using your money and platform to help people is evil because they do it in the open.

GTFO