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How do you feel about game shows with massive cash prizes? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 4 months ago by ericbomb to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Is the idea of having people compete for life changing/saving amounts of money, then have it crash down on their head for our amusement, something that should end for you?

Mr. Beast of course does things like "Stay in this room for 100 days to win a million dollars" but he is mostly just turning an old format into internet. Biggest Loser of course made dozens of people drastically change their bodies in irreversible ways, just to give one of them money. Survivor once again has people compete for months in brutal fashion with only one walking away with a prize. Mr. Beast is more or less just stealing Big Brother whole sale for most of his contest videos, but making them click bait.

Then of course we have things like Deal or No deal, which is mostly just offering people a hope of a life changing amount of money, then the chance for a better life vanish before them case by case. It still seems a lot less brutal than the other three, but still rather dark when you realize we are watching someone be given the hope to get out of debt and buy a house have it taken from them case by case.

Try not to focus on Mr. Beast too much since everyone is talking about him, he's just the latest example of giant game show so felt like I need to mention him. I'm mostly curious how you all feel about large cash prize game shows in general!

(I do love game shows with bs prizes. Bring on Task Master! Win that golden head so you can put it in your garage to be stolen by another contestant! Also Game Changer, go watch game changer. They all get paid regardless of if they win or not and every episode is super creative.)

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[–] fjordbasa 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The mainstream shows like Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune I don’t mind, they’re generally pretty lighthearted. I figure if someone gets a score up to tens of thousands of dollars but ends up leaving with $1,000 or similar, they’re still leaving with more than they came with, there was no real risk for them, just as there was no guarantee. The further games go from skill and knowledge, the less interesting I find them.

When it comes to folks like MrBeast, he just seems icky to me. I’m glad he does philanthropy, but his challenges just seem like a rich person convincing poorer people to do uncomfortable things for his amusement, all under the thin veneer of YouTube entertainment

[–] ericbomb 1 points 4 months ago

Yeah I guess for me the mr beast stuff are almost always just exact clones of other game shows so that's why I'm like... I wonder if Mr beast is just bringing out the fact that a lot of people hate the more insane game shows.