No Stupid Questions

I only know him from the TeamTrees and TeamSeas projects. Using his huge viewer base to promote projects like this is one of the best possible things an influencer can do IMO.

I would ask a different question - is Mr. Beast a good role model for the kids or not? Whether he's a "good person" or not is largely irrelevant, the fact is he is doing good.

Personally I'm a big fan of his philathropy, but I don't think he makes for a good role model. He's found a way to influence and doing good for the world, but I don't think it's easily replicable nor should kids try to emulate him - because to be Mr. Beast, you need to be in the influencer / clout-chasing game, which can have roads that lead to success but at the end of the day, it's an endless game of trying to get eyeballs and capture attention.

I would encourage the kids to forge their own path and not necessarily emulate Beast, but try to make the types of impact he makes in the world.

kinda cringy, but seems like a nice guy.

sure, he does his philanthropy "for views" but that's what allows him to continue doing it.

not a fan of his, but he's alright.

He is one of the kindest people you can find on social media. He has helped lots of people through financial and other means. Some say he's evil for recording and posting these acts of kindness but the views from his channels are what enable him to do these things. He also has a philanthropy channel named Beast Philanthropy.

General takeaway is: letting your kids be enamored by mr beast is teaching them to get clout. Teaches them that to do nice things, they must be recording themselves doing it. Its different if youre an adult that can think for themself

“If i cant record myself helping this person out then ill wait till i can find a camera.” Theres a good chance thats the type of thing your kids are gonna unconsciously think about.

Ask yourself this: Does he offer the same "generosity" off camera ?

If not, then he's an actor who's only doing what he does to continue his acting career.

If your kids watch him because he's entertaining, then I wouldnt worry too much.

But if they are trying to emulate him (I.e. trying to garner internet clout by doing "good deeds", but only on camera), then that would worry me as a parent.

My personal take is that content creators and celebrities in general should never be judged as “people” in the sense that you might deem a teacher or a neighborhood kid as a “good” or “bad” influence. Rather, you should treat them as “media personalities”. Content creators are characters. They’re personas meant to drive engagement and clicks. Some achieve this by engaging in risky behavior or drama. Some just do wacky challenges. The motivation is the same in that the persona presented on the screen is a combo of the creator and the engagement from their community meant to drive up click rates and brand-building.

Mr Beast has kind of a “wacky semi-wholesome” image. Odd challenges and charities that hand out cash to random people for views. That’s a cynical take, but at the end of the day he’s a content creator, that’s it. If handing out free surgeries to correct childhood blindness didn’t drive engagement, he wouldn’t do it. If anything, the fact that his community is interested in seeing that project reflects more on them as people than on him.

So in my opinion the better questions for assessing his influence on your children are things like “why does his content appeal to you?” “What about his character do you find likable?” “What aspects would you want to emulate in your own life if you could?”

Again, just my personal view.

I think deep down he is, although he has the moral compass of a 4 year old.

Edit - oh I thought you said Mr Bean

Tek Syndicate has a philosophical breakdown of Mr. Beast's content that's really interesting, but as far as being an example to your kids goes, it's a tough one. I think his charitable acts are fundamentally good, but the fact that he does them all on camera is fundamentally icky. He's a complicated figure. He's not using hate speech or indoctrinating kids into cults or anything, so he's clear of at least the bare minimum of alarming behavior. lol

I find him annoying, doesn’t mean I think he is a bad person.

We can go into big depths on how he's actually a corporate slave making his business on sponsorships instead of promoting big systemic changes, but that misses the case you make on how it affects kids.

On the kid side, he can be a somewhat good role model, a generous philanthropist sharing what he has to make people's lives better. I'd say the effect his may have on kids is mostly positive.

There is at least one video (maybe an interview, not necessarily on his main channel) where he talks out of character about how he runs the channel etc.

His on screen persona is just that, a persona. This is something your kids should understand (and they can, if you find one of those out of character videos).

That said, I believe Jimmy Donaldson (the person behind the on-screen persona) does genuinely seem like a good guy, who is also smart and knows how to run a successful business while entertaining people. He also talks a bit about clickbait and how he tries to not make it too extreme but has to play the game.

Depending on how old your kids are, it may also be worth talking about the business aspect (sponsors, merch, the various brands he creates, how Beast Burgers actually works with ghost kitchens etc., Feastables) - no need to criticize or put it in a negative light, just explain that it's also a business.

Wikipedia has some notes about controversies and criticism.

He seems pretty genuine, but I can't watch his content because I personally find the cult of money... repelling?

I mean, obviously under capitalism money will have cult following, duh. But this stereotypical handing over tons of cash to someone and someone loosing all their shit makes me feel very uneasy.

The main problem is that his videos are like "I saved 1000 kids from the orphan grinding machine!", and I'm just like, why is the orphan grinding machine even a thing.

Like when he restored sight to 1000 blind people. It's a good thing, but also, it's a drop in the bucket and why isn't public healthcare doing that for all blind people?

Even if he is not the same person off camera, he's still helping a lot of people in his videos. Sure it might be to "make money" but he turns around and uses a large portion of that money to do more good things on camera in other videos. He does far more for others than the vast majority of people in this world.

This comes down to the old debate over which philosophical framework is the basis for ethics and morality.

If you're a deontologist, you might say that Mr. Beast is not a good person because he intentionally exploits people when he provides medical care for someone, by uploading their reactions for engagement.

However, a consequentialist would say that the outcome is more important; the means by which people receive medical care is irrelevant, and in this case, their treatment essentially necessitates compensation via engagement.

I watched some really interesting video essays on him and his style and I think the general sense that his philanthropy is good holds true. I think there are two consequences of his videos and content that are negative and have had negative consequences for the rest of YouTube as channels copy his style. The first being the glorification of money and materialism as many videos feature expensive products and piles of money. While they are used in a positive way, they are promoted in a light which I think is negative especially for kids and which has created a genre of YouTube videos focusing on giving and spending huge amounts of cash. The second is the loud jumpy editing style which has spread similarly to copycats. That seems less existentially negative and more just annoying. But ultimately, I think he contributes good to the world, perhaps more in the way that Oprah does than a charity.

Since it's not a financially good idea to be seen as a douche, I think it's in his best interest to put videos on the internet that look good- but is he really? Nobody knows that but him.

I've never watched any of his content but I've been loosely following the discussion (so I'm clearly more than qualified to comment and have my opinion be taken entirely serious).

What he does is obviously fantastic for the individual people receiving help, whether he does it out of genuine concern or for the attention. There are however concerns that he's (involuntarily) distracting from efforts to actually fundamentally change stuff about how our society works. Nothing he does goes to the root of any issues, it's just treating symptoms.

And he literally recreated Squid Game. I don't know wtf to think about that.

Colin and Samir did and excellent behind the scenes hour long interview on Jimmy's life. He seems to be a genuine guy who just wants to do nothing but entertain. Check it out on YouTube.

I don't think that it boils down to him being a good or bad person. Is Jimmy the person who hit upon the idea of giving g money away to his mom a good person? Probably as much as anyone generally is. Is Mr. Beast the self promotion based, overexagerated youtube personality a good person? Is he even meant to be?

I think the best analogy is that the shows he produces are a lot like reality television. In that way they are based off the appeal of watchung people display "real" and "authentic" emotional reaction that you just can't get out of actors. But behind the scenes, those are produced and somewhat manipulated to provoke these reactions, and that is the dishonest aspect of it. And while what he is doing is honestly not as bad as most reality television, I do think it is powered by that same kind of dishonesty.

I don't think it is bad for children to watch this stuff, but I think you do have to explain how many subscribers he has and how many people watch his videos, and that the people he involves in his videos is such an astronomically small percentage of people. Kids seem really susceptible to "sweepstakes" stuff - I know I was as a kid. But my parents did a good job of explaining to me how I probable it was for me to win that stuff without judging me for wanting to.

I still think the best way to engage with children's interest is to try to understand it, and then helping them understand more about the world.

I would say he is good enough. He does a lot of philanthropic work and most of his videos are at least "neutral". He doesn't promote hate, discrimination, or spout other nonsense. Yes, he is earning money with his videos but there is nothing wrong with that. Just because his main form of entertainment is about giving away money, doesn't make it bad or evil. There are tons of game shows out there that give away money that aren't criticized. How is it any different from something like "Deal or No Deal"? It's still about making giving money entertaining.

He is still a businessman and not all of his decision can be considered "ethical". For example, his Beast Burger is a rather big money grab and promoted a bit misleading. It's a Ghost Kitchen Franchise managed by one of the biggest Ghost Kitchen company out there. But it was promoted as him actually "opening" 300 restaurants. While in reality, existing restaurants just started serving Beast Burgers under the Beast Burger franchise. In Interviews, he is more honest about this but I would say a lot of customers have the wrong impression of what's really going on.

He uses private jets, which are bad for the environment. That's a legitimate point to criticize him but I wouldn't say that makes him a bad person. I wouldn't call him a saint but as far as influencers/entertainers go, he is definitely not near the bottom of the barrel either. And even compared to most regular people he is somewhere around average.

he seems mostly well-intentioned, and probably won't be a terribly bad influence on your kids, moreso than any other algorithm slurry youtube videos, so on that scale he's probably fine for your kids to watch

if we were trying to assess his overall morality it would get into "is clickbait millionaire philanthropy an ethical way to spend your wealth" territory, which is a huge can of worms that's difficult to find a solid answer for

From his own personal content I haven't seen a single thing that would indicate otherwise though I'm not entirely up to date with what he's made. I think the majority of people who no longer directly work with Mr. Beast had nothing negative to say about him when they parted ways.

I think he does good things for the wrong reasons but I don't think that takes away from all the kind things he's done. So maybe?

My son watches him so I made a point of checking in. Making a business by doing good things for people sounds like a dream come true has a lot of positive. For one, there's not a lot of good roll models out there for my kid. I don't know if he's genuine but he's way better than some of the alternatives kids are getting sucked into.

Definitely better than Andrew Tate from what I've seen. While he's clearly a very savvy clout chaser, and he's overtaken Pewdie Pie as the most popular YouTuber, he has made a serious effort towards philanthropic acts. The fact that he's using these acts as a marketing tool to further increase his influence is clearly intentional, but he's doing real good with his clout. He's also shown considerable evolution throughout his career, including:

In an April 2022 interview with The Daily Beast, Donaldson announced that he was no longer an evangelical Christian and identified himself as an agnostic. He also stated that he had long disagreed with his church's position on homosexuality. He states that during the time he grew up in "the heart of the Bible Belt", he had religion "beat into [his] head every day", and was taught that "gay people are the reason God's going to come and burn this Earth". Although he considered anti-LGBT rhetoric to be normal growing up, he has disavowed it since then, stating: "I realized, 'Oh, this isn't normal. This is just a weird place I grew up in.' So, that type of thing, I [wish I could] go back in time and be like, 'Hey, stop'."

Donaldson considers himself strictly apolitical, saying that "I don't want to alienate Republicans and Democrats. ... I like having it where everyone can support [my] charity. My goal is to feed hundreds of millions of people ... it would be very silly of me to alienate basically half of America."

...and...

In April 2023, Chris Tyson came out publicly as gender non-conforming and revealed their struggles with gender dysphoria. In response to claims that they would become a "nightmare" and distraction for the channel, Donaldson defended Tyson and said, "Chris isn't my 'nightmare' he's my fucken [sic] friend and things are fine. All this transphobia is starting to piss me off."

This isn't to say he's perfect, but he's a helluva lot better than some other personalities your kids could be listening too.

Ah yes, the king of poverty porn.

Wrapping it up in warm fuzzies doesn't make it any less exploitative. Don't be confused - he is in it to make money, the people he helps are nothing but props to him, and people like him do nothing to solve the problems they claim to care so much about, they've just found a sympathetic way to profit from them while deepening the problem (because if we can't even treat fellow poor people as humans, not props, what hope do we have of uniting against those who exploit us?).

He is not a good roll model. Teach your kids real compassion (which includes among other things understanding that people who are less fortunate still deserve privacy and respect), teach them that kindness doesn't need to be broadcast or be produced (because that's what those videos are - productions), it is something we should all be engaging in all of the time, even, or actually especially, when no one is watching, not because we want more likes and followers. Teach them that if they're that impressed with his efforts, just imagine what they could do if they actually went out and volunteered or otherwise contributed themselves. That'd be significantly better not just for them, but for your whole community.