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TikTok ran a deepfake ad of an AI MrBeast hawking iPhones for $2 — and it's the 'tip of the iceberg'
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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Bro I still don't know who MrBeast is.
Currently largest and most successful YouTuber on the platform (by a wide margin), started out by doing challenge videos about himself (24h in ice, that kinda stuff) that he'd invite friends to as the goody sidekicks causing mischief and making his challenges a little harder/more interesting.
These days, his stuff has transformed into a media powerhouse, all of it is still kinda falling into a challenge category. Now with far higher stakes and involving other people in competitions against each other - think "kids vs adults - group with most people still in the game after 5 days wins $500k" - where several days (sometimes months) of filming all gets cut down to one 10-20 minute long video.
There's also just "look at this thing" videos like "$1 to $10,000,00 car" where him and his friends check out increasingly expensive cars until they eventually get a whole bridge cordoned off to drive in the most expensive car in the world.
He does some philanthropy, like his "plant 10 million trees" campaign and makes money through sponsorship deals and advertising his own brands - they're currently running their own line of (fair trade?) chocolate bars that are available (in most places?) in the US, which kids will buy because of the brand recognition, leaving them with a ton of profits.
How is he simultaneously so famous and yet no one knows who he is? I feel more people would know who Linus is than him. Until about a year ago I'd never even heard the name.
I’ve never watched a Mr Beast video but it sounds like he makes a lot of content that would mainly appeal to zoomers which explain his apparent high popularity but low cultural impact
sampling bias?
Mr Beast and Skibidi toilet are two things that are viewed by millions upon millions, I've never watched them and neither have ever been recommended to me by youtube.
Felt like I was taking crazy pills for a while, but now I just consider myself lucky.
I believe he is a Youtuber. That's as far as I've gotten.
If memory serves (being knowledge I gleaned from a podcast). He's a YouTuber that has carved out a popular niche in philanthropy of sorts. All for views of course, but some philanthropy none the less. Very popular I think with, I want to say Gen Alpha aged kids. A lot of people have imitated the content style in the last few years. So I guess there is instant brand recognition and trust there for a lot of people.
I was confused because I thought they were talking about the LA Beast. Apparently this is not him.
Nobody fucking cares.
fwiw i read that comment and thought, 'hmm, i don't either' and then i went and watched a few of his videos. they're pretty awesome in a feel-good way. nice to see someone using tons of money to make other people happy and do good things for a change. now i'm subscribed to his channel :)