Comment by senko
5 days ago
This presumes that MrBeast intended to create "videos with meaning" in the first place.
In his defense (!?), most of what's churned out by the streaming platforms, hollywood, and the music industry, is also not very bothered by lack of meaning.
This seems an insufficient analysis. The meaning expressed by contemporary music, film media, or streaming television isn't very profound, but they at least still make a passing effort to "signify" something. The highest grossing movie of 2024 - Inside Out 2 - is not a deep text, but it does have a thesis.
The "Pixar apparatus" is definitely increasingly consumed by audience demand, but they're at a minimum in a transitional phase: something like Seeing Red would never get workshopped out of committees.
Youtube and other social media (emphasis on media) is ground zero for the decay of meaning into intensity; the ultimate incestuous product of auto-simulacra.
I heard a term for a specific version of this that I'm (mis)applying in all such cases: brainrot.
There's no such assumption being made. If anything, the linked article is about how MrBeast is intentionally making vapid slop.