UPDATE on MR BEAST 8/6/2024, 3:48 PM EST: Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, made a huge leap to Amazon Prime this month with his Beast Games, a YouTube-ified version of The Squid Games. But with great budgets – and liabilities – comes greater scrutiny, and the word from Beast Games participants is that conditions were unsafe. According to these reports, poor food and medication were controlled by the crew, and elements of the production allegedly felt unfair.

Donaldson’s team blamed the CrowdStrike failures and a number of other issues, and future productions show no signs of slowing down. Follow here for updates as the story develops.

While we learn more about the allegations, I can’t say that I stand by the below opinions, but these were my feelings at the time.

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I thought I was watching a cool commentary by YouTuber Jack Saint on why Willy Wonka no longer works without reinventing the character. Imagine my surprise to hear Saint proclaim MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) as the modern Wonka. The more I let that idea sink into my understanding of MrBeast and his influence on audiences, the more Clickbait Wonka makes sense. It goes beyond the fact that Donaldson built a chocolate factory that people competed to own or that he has a MrBeast-branded line of chocolate bars.

Wonka Again

Most of what I have to say about Wonka and his creator, Roald Dahl, is in our latest episode of the podcast OutThink the Classics. This episode includes an interesting conversation with writer/educator Madeleine Mager Deliee regarding how and when to separate the art from the artist, and when maybe you shouldn’t.

MrBeast is the Wonka of Today

I cannot lay claim to this theory, though I fully support it. Video essayist Jack Saint not only dives beautifully into the capitalistic and sensationalist nature of the Wonka character but creates one of *the* most incredible transitions I’ve seen in a YouTube essay, from roughly the timestamps 20:00-22:00 in the video below. Don’t skip to that part; you need the first twenty minutes to fully appreciate the reveal.

Beast Philanthropy: It’s Not His Fault the World Is F*cked

People have other fair criticisms of the MrBeast channels and how it’s changed YouTube. Theres one aspect of his empire that gets a bad rap, though. I initally gave him a second look because one of our favorite YouTubers Mark Rober partnered with him for his Team Trees and Team Seas cleanup initiatives. That’s when I discovered he made well-edited, moderately entertaining videos, and most of my issues with his primary content have more to do with his copycats than Jimmy Donaldson himself.

As someone who spent years working to spread the good work of nonprofits, who saw firsthand how the white savior complex for “underprivileged” communities rears its ugly face, this is my opinion on Beast Philanthropy:

It’s not his fault the world is so f*cked that it needs a 24-year-old billionaire influencer to help people.

Finding the Right Director

His channel, Beast Philanthropy, got off to a shaky start.

It took a few tries before the Beast Philanthropy team learned those videos could not be directed, shot, or edited like his other channels. Dan Mace was on his way to building a career as a feature filmmaker before taking the Beast Philanthropy job, and he told Colin & Samir that initial criticism of the channels hit Donaldson hard. So he hired someone with the tact, taste, and filmmaking sensibilities to craft the real story behind Beast Philanthropy, which shows in the later videos (from “Giving 20,000 Shoes to Kids In Africa” onward).

The decisions leading up to that change in direction were smart, but unfortunately, his rough start attracted much criticism and tainted some of the good intentions. The conversations around philanthropy, poverty, and white saviorism are all great to have, but pinning the problems of the poor onto Donaldson is not fair.

Much like Wonka’s, Donaldson’s outrageous sensationalism does deserve criticism or at least a critical eye. He gives away lots of money on his main channel for views and profits from those videos in what often feels like a reality show speedthrough. Beast Philanthropy, however, is another animal– pun intended.

It’s easy to take anything Jimmy Donaldson does and turn him into the villain. Still, it’s much more meaningful to discuss why the most popular YouTuber can accomplish good deeds that we normally believe governments, nonprofits, and NGOs should do.

Donaldson pairs with these organizations and other wealthy influencers for these philanthropic acts. Sure, he could donate the money directly and let the organizations do their good work. The piece that most people are missing around Beast Philanthropy is that attention is the point (the second point, to be fair). But not in the way people accuse Donaldson; he is bringing these issues of poverty and unfair distribution of wealth to his younger audience.

Clickbait Philanthropy

I spent years working with nonprofits and social entrepreneurs to make content and stories “go viral”; Donaldson has that power. Kids and young adults like him; they listen to him, they care about what he cares about. Until recently, he only seemed to care about his views, “being the best YouTuber ever,” and his friends.

But I believe in Beast Philanthropy because he is bringing the injustice and unfairness of the world, in the US and worldwide, to his audience. Most of his younger viewers are not otherwise exposed to these needs in a way that helps them care.

Learning Opportunities

Regular readers know I am the first person to take an aspect of MrBeast– like the recent allegations that he edits his challenges to change who wins— as learning opportunities, such as:

• Why do teachers need the local college dropout to buy their school supplies?
• Why can so many people not afford a $100 surgery so they can see better?
• Why are we dependent on influencer millionaires to plant trees, dig wells, and more?

“The idea that the deeply impoverished will end up relying on the charity of these extremely successful people for things like clean water and housing and vision, and that to facilitate this they’ll even be turned into content and how when you really think about it, that’s kind of a depressing reality.”

Jack Saint, “Modern Wonka Doesn’t Work.”

That’s the conversation for all nonprofits and world leaders to have, and it’s not new. It took another YouTuber and novelist John Green to encourage his audience to– respectfully —demand that Johnson & Johnson offer life-saving tuberculosis treatment to countries that simply can’t afford them. If you have the reach, the money, the desire to do good in the world, and the audience to see it, it can only help those in need if more people tune in to see.

If I’ve learned one thing from studying YouTube, you don’t have to like every channel a creator has. In fact, Beast Philanthropy is a great chance to review and think critically about kids’ media to show our kids the power of nuance, and how to use your influence for good.

Read this conversation if you need help to explain poverty or homelessness.

Read more: Is MrBeast Good for Kids?

Listen to: OutThink the Classics: Roald Dahl in Context and Willy Wonka (Exploring Evil Series 1, EP 5)

Photo/Image Credit: Cindy Marie Jenkins, Canva, & Shutterstock

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Sources:

• Peeples, Ella, “John Green is Taking Down Tuberculosis,” The College Reporter, 16 October 2023, https://www.the-college-reporter.com/john-green-is-taking-down-tuberculosis/2023/10/ .
• “The Wild Story of Dan Mace: From Casey Neistadt to MrBeast,” Colin & Samir, 11 December 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OYzFaK4unU .
• “Giving 20,000 Shoes to Kids in Africa,” uploaded to Beast Philanthropy, 8 May 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fKTFq-0_IY.
• Jack Saint, “Modern Wonka Doesn’t Work,” uploaded by Jack Saint, 22 August 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogMM2zdGzIs.