There's the grift, in my opinion. His brand presents him doing this wacky stunts out "philanthropy" and even does cynical edits of tears of joy on kids' faces and the like for more clickbait.
He does have his own "ghost kitchen" brands and peddles sugary junk to children, too. He even asks his fans to do free labor to "face" his brand products in stores.
The ghost kitchen stuff is more nakedly exploitative than the content, imo. His videos are just reality tv, no better or worse (which, granted, isn’t saying much). Using the brand he built from making reality tv as leverage to extract profit from small restaurants is way worse.
There's the grift, in my opinion. His brand presents him doing this wacky stunts out "philanthropy" and even does cynical edits of tears of joy on kids' faces and the like for more clickbait.
For sure. We can debate the nuances of the word “grift”, but I don’t think there’s any doubt about what he’s doing or what his motives are.
He does have his own "ghost kitchen" brands and peddles sugary junk to children, too. He even asks his fans to do free labor to "face" his brand products in stores.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/mrbeast-countersued-for-100m-over-contract-spat-with-ghost-kitchen-company/ar-AA1eVcFr
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mrbeast-tweet-walmart-feastables-rcna73546
The ghost kitchen stuff is more nakedly exploitative than the content, imo. His videos are just reality tv, no better or worse (which, granted, isn’t saying much). Using the brand he built from making reality tv as leverage to extract profit from small restaurants is way worse.