Comment by andrewla
5 days ago
In general I'm in agreement that they present a life where being an "influencer" is a goal in and of itself, but I think it's mostly harmless, like kids wanting to be a rock star or a professional athlete. These are unobtainable for most people but learning some music or sports or video production isn't a bad idea for anyone because you don't know where it will lead.
The specific criticism of "flaunting their huge wealth" does not apply at least to MrBeast -- he specifically is not very wealthy (I mean, he may be, but he says that he is not and he does not flaunt any such wealth; on the few occasions where his personal life is highlighted it seems he lives rather humbly). He claims to put all of the money he earns back into his videos; so when he makes enough to buy a "lambo" or whatever he will buy one and give it away to whoever can swallow the most toothpicks or whatever.
MrBeast does not push a life of luxury as his lifestyle, he presents a life of being a celebrity influencer whose life is making more spectacles.
In my opinion, giving away large sums of money, loudly and publicly, is very much flaunting wealth. It’s good too, it’s great, but it’s also flaunting wealth.
I guess what I mean is for a typical "influencer", you want to be that person to both be famous and also be rich and have cool stuff like they have.
But if you want to grow up to be MrBeast, you want to just be famous. Maybe you want to be MrBeast-famous and also buy cool yachts and lambos and private islands for yourself, but that's not the "lifestyle" that he's selling. The lifestyle he's selling is "be famous but still hang out with your loser friends but get to give away and/or destroy awesome things".
This is maybe not the thing we should aspire to, but for kids I think it's fine to imagine that for yourself the way that you imagine being an NFL quarterback or something. Not every kid imagines growing up and being a moderately successful CPA.