Good intent, or just good content? Assessing MrBeast's philanthropy

Abstract

MrBeast is the world's most successful individual YouTube content creator. Having made his name with videos of high-concept challenges and stunts, he has subsequently produced a series of viral videos centring on acts of philanthropy – drawing both praise and criticism in the process. This paper attempts to place MrBeast's approach in the context of wider historical and current debates about the nature and role of philanthropy, in order to ascertain what (if anything) is genuinely novel about it, and how we should understand it in relation to models of philanthropy that have gone before. The paper considers “Beast Philanthropy” through a range of lenses − aesthetic, ethical, economic and political − and what these can tell us about the key questions we should be asking and whether, on balance, we should view this phenomenon positively or not.