If viewers don’t really see him having fun, that’s by design. Donaldson has outright said he sees “personality” as a limitation for growth, once noting in a podcast that hinging your content on who you are as a person means risking not being liked. And if someone doesn’t like a creator as a person, they may not give the videos a chance.
McLoughlin’s comments hit at another bleak possibility: Viewers may hardly see MrBeast having fun in his videos because he’s not actually having a good time. In podcasts, Donaldson tells hosts that he goes so hard, he won’t stop working until he burns out and isn’t able to do anything at all. With a laugh, he admits that he has a mental breakdown “every other week.” If he ever stops for a breather, he says, he gets depressed. MrBeast is so laser-focused on generating content on YouTube that he describes his personality as “YouTube.” He acknowledges that this brutal approach to videos, which has cratered many creators over the years, is not healthy. “People shouldn’t be like me. I don’t have a life, I don’t have a personality”
While his free time seems minuscule, the rare times he does pull away from work are for dates with his girlfriend that center around activities that could enrich his videos, because he considers a single hour of a date to be worth $100K had it been dedicated to work instead.
Absolutely brutal indictment of algorithmic capitalism.
dates with his girlfriend that center around activities that could enrich his videos, because he considers a single hour of a date to be worth $100K had it been dedicated to work instead
Just save up that easy $10 mil and retire. It's ok to retire and piss off.But…but what if I encounter someone who’s worth eleven million dollars???
Idea: due to capital tending to concentrate anyway, we should just institute Highlander rules for anyone with a net worth over say $2M. There can be only one.
if I was president I would make an executive order legalizing the murder of anyone with a networth of over 1.5 million. If you kill them, you get half their net income, and the other half is taxed.
The implication here is that he is so hollowed out by the whole thing that if he tries to step away he will simply collapse inward on himself and then crumble into dust
While his free time seems minuscule, the rare times he does pull away from work are for dates with his girlfriend that center around activities that could enrich his videos, because he considers a single hour of a date to be worth $100K had it been dedicated to work instead.
Holy fuck dude chill out
Imagine dating a person this content-brained. Couldn’t be me.
Ngl i respect the hustle of the girl dating him, gotta be tough dealing with a manchild like that lmao.
And endless free time to have another boyfriend. How would he even notice? And if he got mad at her then that's showing emotion and bad for content, verging on having a personality. He should just be a piggy bank for her
Honestly the opposite. Imagine selling out for this? I have no respect for anyone who does that.
never gonna feel sympathy for a man who saw "Squid Game" and thought to himself "I can make this real"
Sorry hate to go against the flow here but this is always going to be a stupid comparison. People die in the Squid Game, people dont die in Mr Beast and the Netflix RTV show. By taking away the death you take away the thing that makes it actually ghoulish. Game shows are not inherently ghoulish and Squid Game isnt such a sacrosanct piece of art that you have to protect it from this sort of thing. Its just another reality competition. Its a game, with a prize. Thats it. Its no more ethically bankrupt than fucking Wheel of Fortune lol.
i dont like Mr Beast but even though I bought into this reason for awhile I actually thought about it, realize I've watched other reality competitions for money before, and realized "wow people whinging about the ethics of this are actually really silly!".
I bought the idea that recreating the Squid Game was Torment Nexus at one point but at some point seeing all the over the top navel gazing and pearl clutching over the Netflix version compared to what I was witnessing in the actual clips of it they were saying this about, where I saw... normal everyday gameshow shit and a bit of human drama added in, I realized the whole thing was overwrought and silly. that one hockey player voice Its only a game why you haf to be mad.
Squid Game's conceit of death was meant to throw the perverse incentives and implications of regular game shows into sharp relief by means of exaggeration.
i'm rather with you for the complaints acting like the show was more important than it was, but it's a correct read to find the 'reality' adaptions as anathema to the themes of the original
I agree that its counter to the original I just dont think the original is important enough that you have to respect it. I haven't seen it but my RTV friends have said the Squid Game RTV show turned out to be some pretty good human drama lol so shrug . If thats odious to you then I do get it. I just dont really vibe with that. Maybe being a competitive RTV fan makes me biased, but I really don't think theres deep ethical problems with Survivor and such.
It sorta reminds me of Undertale. It makes a big moral deal of something that to me isnt morally wrong? In Undertale's case it was completionism, and in Squid Game's its game shows.
There is something to be said for the idea that using people who are desperate for money as entertainment is somewhat perverse. But I can tell you, as someone who consumes that kind of media, that shit doesnt really come across that often in the actual product. It certainly doesn't in Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy and whatever, and it only does a little bit in social strategy RTV when you see people's emotions over losing or being betrayed. But I don't think thats as perverse as Squid Game made it out to be. I dont think game shows or competitive rtv should be banned or anything.
I would absolutely prefer Survivor post-capitalism where everyones playing just for the game itself and the adventure. At least ethically, admitedly there being no money on the line does take some of the human drama out of it lol. People would probably take things less personally so that aspect of the intrigue of the show would be lessened. But I can put ethics first and see that as largely a good thing. And actually thinking of it, I've played online games of Survivor with no money on the line and people still take it seriously and get hurt by betrayals and shit so.
Kinda thinking aloud here as I go sorry. As a Survivor (and other competiive RTV) fan where thats my special interest, its a subject that interests me. And like other art that critiques my special interests in ways I find exagerated or unfair (Undertale for JRPGs, The Boys for superhero stuff [noteably tho I do like Watchmen so its not ALWAYS bad]) Squid Game is something that gives me mixed feelings because I can appreciate it as a piece of media and what its tryign to do, but also be kind of annoyed at what I think isnt really the fairest of criticisms.
i think the structural financial incentives designed to attract people who wouldn't otherwise consent to have cameras stuffed up their gills overrides the fact some of the people that find their way onto RTV are the performer sort that'd like to do it without the financial incentive.
I think youre making big assumptions! The current casting pool of Survivor is 100% superfans who are passionate about the show and want to be there. Thats the 'new era,'s whole deal.
You so rarely see "this was a bad experiance for me" in interviews (and ive read a lot of interviews) let alone "i wouldnt have done this if not for the money". I think ur just taking your own mindset and applying it to others inappropriately. I can count the number of people who have negative things to say about their survivor experiance on like maybe two hands, possibly just one. And a lot of those are people who did morally reprenesible things on or off the show and got exposed for that and dont like that fact!
Survivor had to rely on financial incentives before it had superfans, no?
but this is kind of moving the goalposts on what Squid Game set out to do. the text is explicit that it's condemning financial incentives for desperate people. this does apply to a lot of RTV in the present and past, but i can't imagine they were trying to condemn similar show formats that lack the financial coercion. Taskmaster seems totally irrelevant to Squid Game's thesis, despite superficial similarities in format.
you're reading entirely too much into my pithy one-liner and probably a little too shallowly into what Squid Game was about. i don't even like the show and couldn't watch it past like two episodes because it was laying it on entirely too thick. if mr beast can't grasp the core message it was trying way too hard to ram down your throat enough to realize the folly of recreating it, with or without lethal consequences, then he's absolutely worthy of my scorn.
just to make it explicitly clear: using outsized monetary incentives to tempt people into doing demeaning and occasionally dangerous things they normally would refuse for the sake of profit and amusement under a system where basic needs and comfort are not guaranteed and in fact proportional to ones wealth and usually dependent on performing a lifetime of subservient labor for the same class offering those incentives is inherently exploitative and contemptible.
If society stopped pretending that they disliked violence, Mr beast would absolutely throw a rusty knife into a crowd of homeless people and tell them the survivor gets a million dollars.
Something something the worker reduced to a commodity something something becoming more worthless the more they produce
lmao he could walk away at any time.
eat shit and die
Since I was a literal child the argument of "oh being rich and famous isn't all its cracked up to be because even though you have the money to do literally whatever you want for the rest of your life people might take pictures of you when you're in public" didn't pass the sniff test
I agree with both of you I guess? I have millionaire relatives and they don’t seem much happier to me than people who basically have their needs met and don’t need to worry too much about destitution. Like once you have a house, a decent job, a family (assuming you want one), some hobbies, maybe the time and resources to travel occasionally, and relative stability, it’s difficult for life to get much better than that IMO. Some of these relatives also struggle with depression and can be unpleasant to be around. I haven’t seen any of them since the pandemic started.
None of the billionaire ghouls seem like happy or well adjusted people. Elon Musk strikes me as incredibly miserable. Exploiting people in order to run up an imaginary score has to be mentally corrosive no matter how much of a sociopath you are.
Idk a lot of people crack under the pressure of fame. You get doxers, swatted, people harassing your friends and family, constant scrutiny, and people you can never trust because everyone wants to take advantage.
I know that I couldn’t handle being a celebrity and would probably turn to hard drugs to cope from the pressure like so many of them do.
I have someone in my family who is considered something of a celebrity and I’ve had people show up to my home trying to break in or calling me late at night to get information on her. Have also had members of the press show up to my workplace and begin pestering me with questions. I’m only a relative so I can only imagine how much worse it is when you’re the actual target.
I grew up very wealthy in a small American town. When I was in elementary school I was bullied. My parents told me my bullies’ parents were jealous of our family and their kids were taking it out on me. As you can imagine, this rationale helped me greatly and didn’t at all contribute to me acting like a stuck up little rich kid ripe for bullying.
This might be the only case that its truth. Ive seen videos of his office and the dude is obviously obsessed with billionaire cultism, i remember him having portraits of Steve jobs and Musk lmao. So i think this is a guy that completely ate the billionaire narrative and completely shapes his life to be that ideal.
every billionaire loves to whine and cry about how miserable they are
Hot take: I suspect more often than not that's an Op. Well not a literal Op I guess, more like kayfabe. Billionaires actually fucking love their lives, they're drinking wine on yachts, doing drugs you haven't even heard of, going to orgies (consensual or otherwise). But they have to make it seem like they deserve this lifestyle so they tell everyone that actually they hustle 24/7 to manage these massive economic powerhouses that if collapsed would leave the world in shambles, so they act like it sucks, and really they'd probably be happier if they just lived the simple life of a tax accountant of whatever, all the cocaine orgies are just a salve for the misery of their responsibilities!
Honestly I think the left should drop this whole "oppressive systems hurt the oppressors too" line. Yeah it's true sometimes but I think the people on top are overall having a way better time than everyone else, acting like they're actually all super depressed just humanizes them and makes the poor think they don't have it so bad, making it less likely they'll get the guillotines out.
Either way their problems are fake rich people shit, mine are real
this human thumbnail could hit the off switch tomorrow, buy his own epstein island, and be left the fuck alone until climate change claims us all, but no, he has to whine about how hard it is to have massive piles of cash thrown at him in exchange for essentially being a game show host, truly he will be the zoomer generation's donald trump, "donaldson" indeed.
It reminds me of an addiction. He knows it's killing him and he outlines all the ways it is but he can't walk away,
EPIC $10,000,000 NEW ORLEANS HOUSE TOUR!!!!
RISING SUN CHALLENGE: WILL I BE RUINED??? (99%% FAIL!!!!)
MOM SEWS 150,000K NEW BLUE JEANS FOR CHARITY (GONE WRONG???)
💰🤑💰🤑💰🤑 ASKING GAMBLERS ABOUT THEIR BIGGE$T BET$ 💰🤑💰🤑💰🤑 (YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT MY DAD SAID!!!)
WHAT'S IN THE SUITCASE PRANK (UNBELIEVABLE REACTIONS!!!!)
THIS DRUG MADE SOMEONE WIN $400,000,000 AT THE CA$INO???? (IS IT LEGAL????) (COPS CALLED)
DO NOT TRY THIS!!!!! ADVICE FOR MOTHERS (SO SIMPLE A KID COULD DO IT!!!)
RISING SUN CHALLENGE PART 2: I AM MISERABLE!!!! (100%%% FAIL!!!!!)
$30,000,000 SURVIVE THE TRAIN CHALLENGE
SURVIVING IN A NEW ORLEANS PRISON???? (CRAZY!!!!)
EPIC $10,000,000 NEW ORLEANS HOUSE TOUR!!!! REDUX
RISING SUN CHALLENGE PART 3: I WAS RUINED!!!!!! (1000000%%%% FAIL!!!!)
ASKING GAMBLERS ABOUT THEIR BIGGE$T BET$
I put out three spots of $75 one time. I got 19, 20, 20, and the dealer got blackjack. No I'm not still salty about it, why do you ask?
Hey hey hey we have no idea what his asset-to-thai-mafia-gambling-debt ratio is
he considers a single hour of a date to be worth $100K had it been dedicated to work instead
Just think for a minute about how much actual human wellbeing you could buy with a single hour of this dweeb's time, and then tell me about how capitalism is the most efficient way to allocate resources.
We can't have healthcare but we can pay some weirdo to run a train into a big hole.
He even demonstrated this with the video where he paid for a bunch of cataracts surgeries for like a 1000 people
And I bet that video didn’t make as much money as most do, since he hasn’t done similar stuff after it afaik
Maybe I just have simple tastes, but if I had a 500 million dollar net worth, I'd retire to a self-sufficient climate resilient compound and train communist guerillas to engage in a protracted people's struggle against the United States.
no buddy here's a better idea what if instead we did squid game for real. or what if we locked two people in a room for months for money and filmed it
There was an article on here not too long ago about some dude basically doing that
https://www.thefp.com/p/hes-got-250-million-to-spend-on-communist
Cool and good
“I don’t want to pay taxes to Uncle Sam,” Fergie tells me. “Objectively, somebody like me should pay almost all of their money in taxes, but if I can legally evade giving that to the U.S. war machine, I will.”
Holy shit this guy rocks! He's in his mid 30s like me, but he became a communist at age 13. It took me until age 30. Then again, if my dad had been worth $4 billion, maybe I would have become disgusted by capitalism sooner.
No gulag for him after the revolution, that's for sure. Put his ass in charge of reeducation if anything.
Rich people's wealth is wasted on them. They don't know what to do with money other than use it to make even more money. The only rich person I know about who I consider normal is Tom Anderson, the Myspace guy. He made millions then retired and just wanders around the world without any worries. I can relate to that.
Mr Beast has easily 10x the money of Myspace Tom and yet still keeps going, for what? So he can have even more money he won't spend on anything?
Rich people's wealth is wasted on them.
Many such examples! Musk is another great example. Dude could have fucked off years ago but he had to buy twitter because he couldn't stop posting!
“People shouldn’t be like me. I don’t have a life, I don’t have a personality,”
Yes.
Imagine having this knowledge about yourself... And then not changing.
The dude was worth like 500 mill in 2022 and I can't imagine that number went down over the last few years
This clown hardwired himself into being a youtube boy™ and can't be bothered to fuck off and deprogram himself? Motherfucker you can get a therapist and wind yourself down
While his free time seems minuscule, the rare times he does pull away from work are for dates with his girlfriend that center around activities that could enrich his videos, because he considers a single hour of a date to be worth $100K had it been dedicated to work instead.
God fucking damn this guy has enough that he could literally just retire right now, live an upper middle class lifestyle paid for by his savings for the next eighty years and never worry about money ever again, but the capitalism prions are in his head and he just can't stop thinking about money.
Why does every rich famous person have to have a woe is me article now?
sounds like MONEY to me
