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.
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.
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.
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.
every billionaire loves to whine and cry about how miserable they are like ok my capitalist in christ you are the only class with power and agency put your money and effort into building a less atomizing sociopolitical method of organizing society and no starting a cult doesn't count.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.”
shit that's bleak. now imagine working under him. jesus christ the desire for infinite growth is hollowing out people, collapsing societies and destroying our environment. we should stop that.
He tells viewers that while he employs a sizable percentage of his hometown, he still lives modestly, unlike other rich YouTubers.
Okay this is something I’ve never been quite clear on: how many people/employees does it take to make Mr. Beast happen? I get that it’s a bigger operation than someone just doing “let’s talk about the patch notes for a video game update” kind of videos, but “employs an entire town” seems way bigger than warranted, unless we’re talking about a rather small town.
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.
I know this isn't really the point but I think he's straight-up wrong on this. Personality is integral if you want people to get attached to your brand or emotionally invested in you as a public figure. A lot of multi-millionaire streamers get by just by watching other people's videos ( <3) without blowing up a walmart every week because they know that viewers what them for them, something which MrBeast is purposely denying himself, it seems. "Parasocial relationship" is the online buzzword of the week for a reason, and you can't have that without displaying your personality.
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.
Is this guy stupid? He’s a multi millionaire and he can’t take acting classes to put on a fake persona? Lmao.
I've watched a lot of youtube, but the algorithm has never served me one of his videos in my feed. I really don't know what he does or what type of content he creates. The only thing I know is things my kids tell, and it's all about how much money he has/earns/gives.
I honestly can't process the mindset of people like this, the lack ambition and imagination is genuinely inhuman
If I had 500 million dollars I'd become the Master of Mankind within 10 years, I'd literally make communist space marines motherfucker, do these people not understand the breadth and depth of resources they have access to, Jesus Christ get a grip
You see this with Twitch too, and the recent mockery people have taken to by using twitch lingo outside of twitch "what's up chat" when referring to a group.
I don't even know how you would go about solving this. If you have gameified content in any way at all people are going to work out how that game works and optimise around it, even more so when it's for money and not just clout.
...But the production of commodities, like every other form of production, has it peculiar, inherent laws inseparable from it; and these laws work, despite anarchy, in and through anarchy. They reveal themselves in the only persistent form of social inter-relations — i.e., in exchange — and here they affect the individual producers as compulsory laws of competition. They are, at first, unknown to these producers themselves, and have to be discovered by them gradually and as the result of experience. They work themselves out, therefore, independently of the producers, and in antagonism to them, as inexorable natural laws of their particular form of production. The product governs the producers.
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22’
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
The way he makes his videos, with regards to how he treats his film crew and editors, is also completely unsustainable and should not be allowed. Big "we're all friends and family" vibes.
I wonder how long we've got until one of these Offputting YouTuber that emerged from the aether fully formed with an army of child-to-tween fans type guys kicks off a regional-scale nuclear war
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,
i hate to say it but i empathize a bit with this, like i had a real bad mental situation some years ago and i felt this just a constant urge to keep doing stuff because if my brain wasn't fully ocuppied i could not escape my thoughts, but on the other hand YOU ARE SO RICH, LIKE JUST UNTHINKABLY SO, JUST FUCKING DEAL WITH THIS SHIT, GET DRUGS I DON'T KNOW BUD, like there is a bit of atragic side to the fact that he sold his soul to the machine and now everything feels like shit but it kinda balances out by the fact that you did get what you wanted