This $10000000 in cash and 50 lambos and today I’m going to go find random homeless people or even better, sick children, to go film on camera for views while I give this to them, but before I do that make sure you support my multi billion dollar food business that may or may not be bypassing health code >_< .
We as a collective have an extremely flawed perception of philanthropy, and this is not a new phenomenon. I could just resurface the age old model of ‘charities’ paraded around by the ultra wealthy elites who harbour the not so charitable incentive of tax evasion through 501(c)(3) status. Instead, I’d rather talk about the internet’s panacea to global issues : Mr.Beast. From small beginnings of giving homeless people a calm 10k in exchange for using them for content, Mr.beast has become what can be described as the internet’s silver bullet and ultimately a smoke screen for a bigger issue. Giving strangers and his rich friends alike the opportunity to win millions of dollars in outlandish challenges has skyrocketed him to fame. Since most of his content is stringent on having a heart story, Jimmy’s business model relies on filming vulnerable groups’ issues and swooping in as their saviour. The content reinforces the fantasy of this messiah with bags of money to throw at the world’s problems. Giving people money and mcmansions on camera builds up your marketable persona of a good person, but is seldom conducive to reaching an actual solution. Billionares like Mr.beast are allowed to hand out what is to them pocket change all the while actively enforcing the systems of power that have marginalized these groups in the first place.
Mr.Beast didn’t invent this business model obviously, but he is the poster-child for it. The concept has been around for decades and it works for a reason. We digest such content so easily despite the glaring contradictions because it is simply easy for us to do so. We as an audience respond to outrage, to clear indications of violence, or victims on our screen. We focus only on the short term of fixing the problem in the moment, and push longevity to the side. Giving a homeless person 20 bucks makes us feel accomplished and is obviously much easier than trying to battle economic inequality and the rising cost of rent in urban areas. I’m not trying to say that small acts of giving are harmful, instead it’s that when we only focus on short-term solutions we forget that inequality is a top-down issue. If the structure doesn’t change nothing does. The other reason it works is the upholding of such ideals by people in power. I know it seems obvious, but it’s true that the upper class will always try to divert attention away from the atrocities they commit. By planting a couple of trees, it takes the heat off of them for the trillions of tons of waste they produce in manufacturing their products that make them rich.
Behind the exaggerated thumbnails lies a deeply evil character emblematic of the pitfalls of celebrity philanthropy and the stagnation of change by the ultra wealthy.
all in all,
fuck you mr.beast.
-A.A 9.30.24
very alpha-coded
ts fire