MrBeast’s charitable efforts have helped thousands of people. But is his approach to philanthropy problematic?

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With millions of subscribers, Jimmy Donaldson’s charity videos have made him very rich

Posted: 5 hours ago
Last updated: 15 minutes ago

Tiffany Ferguson often finds herself conflicted when it comes to her career.

“I wish my livelihood didn’t depend on clicks [and] get people’s attention, because it’s really hard to compete in the attention economy,” said the California-based vlogger and social media commentator Tapestry. “Sometimes it’s tempting to do more clickbait or go cover more controversial topics, or just find a gimmick that gets more people to click.”

Ferguson is a digital creator and her YouTube videos criticize and comment on Internet trends. One of the creators he has his eye on is also one of YouTube’s biggest celebrities: Jimmy Donaldson, also known as MrBeast, whose viral videos have attracted a wide range of reactions, from acclaim for their selflessness to controversy for the perceived exploitation.

Donaldson’s videos have garnered over 26 billion views on YouTube. While his success started with viral stunts, like counting to 100,000 on camera, most of his content is now centered around charity actions.

His philanthropic videos have included donating US$10,000 to a homeless person and funding cataract surgeries for 1,000 blind people. In her most viral video with over 424 million views, she recreated the hit Netflix series Squid game to give one winner the chance to win $456,000. Unlike in the fictional TV series, no one was hurt in Donaldson’s version.

All of these videos are revenue streams for Donaldson. He claims that the money he earns is used for more charitable causes.

Involve young people in philanthropy?

MrBeast’s video style has earned him huge popularity among the youth. “He IS such a maximalist in terms of optimizing content and retaining viewers,” said Ferguson. “His motives are all very strong and bright. And the way he builds his content to appeal to the second? He knows that he has to make quick changes to keep people engaged.”

And her charity videos are certainly designed to be entertaining.

Eddy Hogg, a senior lecturer in social policy at the University of Kent in the UK, said such charity shows are just a continuation of what came before him, except this time it’s through the prism of the model based about YouTube engagement.

“It’s part of a long tradition of the charity telethon, the idea that celebrities encourage people to donate to causes often in quite spectacular ways, whether it’s sitting in a bathtub full of baked beans or jumping from an airplane,” he said.

At the same time, Hogg sees Donaldson as something of a disruptor.

“The big, spectacular things he’s doing, he’s making good content on YouTube, and he can then use that content to make money using YouTube’s algorithms to do more spectacular philanthropy,” Hogg noted. “In that sense, it’s something really new.”

Additionally, Hogg said MrBeast’s approach to philanthropy is helping young people get involved with charity.

“Overall what he’s doing is taking philanthropy, taking charity and doing it in a way that’s, to be expected, spectacular,” Hogg said. “But [he] she’s also a role model and shows young people that charity can be fun and exciting and that you can help people in all different ways.”

Charity as ‘philanthropy-entertainment’

Others argue that Donaldson’s charitable actions fail to address the fundamental issues that create inequalities within society.

Criticism After Video In Which MrBeast Paid For Cataract Surgery On 1,000 People without addressing larger issues when it comes to access to healthcare in some countries.

Matthew Wade, a professor at the University of Canberra in Australia, says Donaldson is not the figure of a modest altruist who gives solely for the benefit of others.

“He’s not a coolly utilitarian, effective altruist who calculates exactly where giving might have the biggest impact in terms of lives saved, but he gives with an eye to what’s fun, what makes good pictures [and] what is an ideal type of recipient that will resonate well with an audience,” Wade said. “He likes the responses he gets from people.”

Wade acknowledged that MrBeast offers audiences happiness or pleasure in seeing people in unfortunate circumstances get help.

“Donaldson says just by watching these videos you’re contributing to charity… If you keep watching, we can continue these really generous acts. And so it’s that double entendre of that vicarious pleasure and feeling part of a movement,” Wade said.

Donaldson certainly engages in more conventional philanthropy. His organization Beast Philanthropy has supported causes such as humanitarian aid in Ukraine and alleviate food insecurity in Donaldson’s hometown of Greenville, NC

Despite his general admiration for the vlogger, Hogg said he understands how this model of philanthropy can be seen as harmful.

“I think the different videos that MrBeast has made are to some extent problematic and some less so,” Hogg said. “He’s made more of an effort to situate and contextualize what he’s doing within sort of broader discussions of poverty.”

Wade disagrees, citing the cataract video as a prime example of the grossness at the heart of MrBeast’s video output.

“We feel that charity should always be done in this really understated, self-effacing and dignified way,” she said. “[But] a MrBeast video is meant to entertain and reach as wide an audience as possible, and the video is intentionally entirely devoid of any reflection, social commentary, and they’re really stubbornly apolitical.”

In fact, Beast Philanthropy head Darren Margolias calls what they do “philanthropy-entertainment,” according to Wade.

WATCH: Why Planting More Trees Isn’t Enough (Even When MrBeast Does)

According to this model, there will never be a MrBeast video that explores more divisive territory, Wade said.

“I don’t think there will be a video of MrBeast establishing a methadone clinic for long term opioid addicted drug users. There will never be a video of MrBeast supporting the reproductive justice movement these are just lawsuits that’s not going to resonate with the huge audience it’s trying to amass,” he said.

CBC Radio reached out to Donaldson for comment but received no response.

Donaldson’s content sits in a double bind, as fellow YouTuber Tiffany Ferguson observes: Her videos are somewhere between pure giving and deft brand management.

“It’s weird this, to me, facade of ‘I’m just giving to be a good person, I’m just giving to help people,'” she said.

“Clearly he’s evaluating what’s going to perform best, what’s going to get the most views and likes, and then AdSense Revenue Brand is about growing his channel.”