The end of the MrBeast era
www.polygon.com
Jimmy Donaldson warped YouTube in his image — but YouTube is warping him back

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.

  • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    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.

    • glingorfel [he/him]
      ·
      8 months ago

      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

    • Great_Leader_Is_Dead
      ·
      8 months ago

      There was an article on here not too long ago about some dude basically doing that

            • TankieTanuki [he/him]
              ·
              8 months ago

              “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.

              • MemesAreTheory [he/him, any]
                ·
                8 months ago

                No gulag for him after the revolution, that's for sure. Put his ass in charge of reeducation if anything.