this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2024
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X appears to be juicing MrBeast’s views to woo the YouTuber to the platform, pushing video upload into users’ feeds as an unlabeled ad::undefined

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[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 215 points 10 months ago (13 children)

Remember, when people made content just for the fun of it

[–] 4grams@awful.systems 98 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I do, and I miss it. What’s more I’ve never once seen a Mr beast video.

Avoid the cruft, roll your own content and find smaller, individual communities like these tubes used to be a decade (or more) ago.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 58 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

What’s more I’ve never once seen a Mr beast video.

And nothing of value was lost.

Mr. Beast only offers "charity porn" that makes him richer. He's not doing anything to change the systems in place that make the problems he "solves" any better. He's just putting band-aids on small groups of people while doing nothing to address larger issues. Hell, he himself is an example of a larger issue. We should not have to rely on the rich to fix societies problems, that's what fucking taxes are for, and Mr. Beast needs to be taxed until his fucking channel is gone.

I fully await for him to completely deep throat Elon to make more money. Mr. Beast doesn't care about pesky things like real morals or values, or he wouldn't be online friends with the likes of Musk to begin with. All he cares about is the dollar signs.

EDIT: I'm definitely expecting the day when some journalist does a "big reveal" on all the shady horrible shit that goes on with Mr. Beast and his companies.

EDIT II: You know Mr. Beast doesn't give a flying fuck about anything but money because he's still friends with Musk after the very public reveal of one of his staff being trans. The fact that he can be friends with such a fucking bigot while "supporting" their trans staff member reveals how little he actually gives a fuck about the issue. He's happy to be friends with people who would deny Kris the life she wishes to lead, so how much does he really care?

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah “Mr Beast Burger” is a great example of this. He hired a company known for shitty “virtual” restaurants (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Dining_Concepts) to slap his name on a ton of franchises to capitalize on his YouTube popularity and get kids to beg their parents to eat there

And now they’re both suing each other

https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/mrbeast-burger-lawsuit-inedible-response-1235685415/

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/7/23822859/mrbeast-burger-virtual-dining-concepts-counter-lawsuit-ghost-kitchen

They both deserve each other

[–] gramathy@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I don’t even mind the concept of a ghost kitchen, if you don’t want to manage a front of house, fuck it, do pickup and delivery only like so many pizza places do, or run a delivery only brand on top of your existing brick and mortar to avoid contaminating expectations between the two, that’s fine, but just like everything else it gets labor exploited to benefit the owner class by running a dozen “restaurants” out of the same kitchen

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are no "rate limiters" in these kinds of kitchens, either. You can literally have 100 people all order over the internet within 10 seconds of each other, and now all of them expect their orders to be ready in a timely manner. Not fucking happening, you know?

Internet ordering is fucking ruining restaurants and overworking everyone in them.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Online ordering needs a wait time system if the kitchen is too busy, just like waiting for a table. People can order elsewhere if the wait is too long, just like in-person.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 10 months ago

It really seems like it wouldnt be too hard to give an option for the restaurant to be able to put in the average prep time for each dish, and start building a queue based on those times. So even if they come within seconds of each other, a computer can catch which one came first, and put them in order, and then add a time-frame that takes previous orders into account before it shows the customer a time before their order is ready.

[–] kautau@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Oh yeah I don’t mind the concept, I mind this company specifically, it’s pretty clear their whole schpiel is to take some celebrity name and slap it on some shitty food to drive up clout based sales

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

People who quickly turn to lawsuits instead of trying to find a solution through respectful communication care about one thing only: money.

So yeah, they're perfect for each other.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

that's what fucking taxes are for, and Mr. Beast needs to be taxed until his fucking channel is gone.

Why until his channel is gone? If he's a business, we need to tax him and his business appropriately. More, sure. But taxing a business until it's gone is counterproductive, even if you don't like what the business stands for...

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

His "business" is a charity. Charity shouldn't have to exist in a world with enough wealth to support everyone.

If his channel became something else, sure. But the point is he would be taxed until all those problems he "fixes" are solved, and then he wouldn't have much to put on his channel, would he?

If you take away the "charity" what the fuck does Mr. Beast even bring to the table?

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago

Oh, I didn't know that. Thank you!

[–] Nima@leminal.space 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've had a much more enjoyable time on freetube because of this, actually. unlike youtube who feeds you content based on what makes them the most money, it tends to actually show you videos that are relevant to what you're watching. whether it has millions of views or 100.

it feels like the smaller communities are a little more warm and fun.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 47 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (8 children)

Fuck, remember webcomics?

Achewood, Diesel Sweeties, Cat and Girl, Penny Arcade, Cyanide & Happiness, Joe and Monkey, Questionable Content, Dresden Codak (always updated way too infrequently), Dinosaur Comics, Gone With the Blastwave, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, The Perry Bible Fellowship, When I Grow Up/WIGU/Overcompensating, Married to the Sea, hell, even CTRL+ALT+DEL left us with Loss. I could go on, there's definitely more.

...but I don't like to talk about what happened with SinFest.

A lot of these sites had advertising, but I don't remember any of it being so off-putting that I felt the need for an adblocker. Honestly, at this point, I don't even recall if adblockers were a thing yet in 2000-2005.

So much content in those early aughts. I'm still waiting on a Complete Achewood. Damn you, Chris Onstad!

I was always a little disappointed I never was able to get a "I'm the guy who sucks/plus I got depres-sion" shirts.

[–] pacmondo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

I remember having popup blockers, but not a whole cloth ad blocker.

[–] PlasmaDistortion@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I actually bought things from their ads because I wanted to support them. Those days are long gone.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago

They mostly advertised other comics and merchandise from other comics, if I recall correctly.

Also, Adblock originally released in 2002, and Adblock Plus came out in 2006.

I do recall one of the reasons I respected webcomics ads was they weren't ones that were animated, blaring music, or asking me to try to play a mini-game by clicking on something that specifically can't be caught by your mouse.

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I still read the order of the stick, even though it updates glacially: https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html

It's so good. Starts as a goofy DND joke strip, develops a ton of pathos.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

What early 2000's webcomics taught me is there were a lot of really great writers out there with some subpar art skills.

When the writing is so good, you don't give a shit that it's all stick figures.

EDIT: I almost forgot. With some of them, the best part was watching them go from stick figures to genuinely great art. Penny Arcade is a great example. The originals were so badly drawn, and it went from bad art to an artist literally having a style all their own.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Some of them were actually pretty good artists; occasionally you'd see them do other stuff and it'd be genuinely good on an artistic level.

The whole stick man, lumpy face, primitivist thing was just an "in" aesthetic (while also being conveniently really quick to produce).

[–] root_beer@midwest.social 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are a few webcomics out there that have some excellent artwork. Lackadaisy is the first to come to mind, though updates have always been verrrry sporadic—especially now that she’s working on an animated version—and there was one called The Abominable Charles Christopher that was fucking phenomenal, but it just sorta… stopped. I’m still subscribed to the RSS because I’m holding out hope, but I know it’s over.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 months ago

Oh Jeeze thanks for the reminder of Abominable Charles Christopher. I was always so disappointed when it just sort of stopped. I always assumed he got a professional gig through the work he was doing.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Some of them were actually pretty good artists; occasionally you’d see them do other stuff and it’d be genuinely good on an artistic level.

Right, but some of them also blossomed beautifully!

I remember Dresden Codak being good art from the get-go, and it only got better over the years. Same with Perry Bible Fellowship, that guys got some fucking artistic chops.

The whole stick man, lumpy face, primitivist thing was just an “in” aesthetic (while also being conveniently really quick to produce).

I'd say this went for things like Cyanide and Happiness, which if I recall correctly, had a series of artists, it wasn't all just one person.

Stuff like Sluggy Freelance? Yeah, the art and writing really never got that much better.

Then you have Dinosaur Comics, whose entire shtick was (and is) just re-using the exact same panels for every comic.

Once again... We don't talk about SinFest.

[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I'm happy to see that Something Positive is still going strong. Dude is a great person and it's fun to see his parenting come out through the comic as I catch up and now relate to some of that more than I did before.

[–] jak@sopuli.xyz 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Hell, I'm about to go and edit my original comment and make links to any that are still around. Looks like a lot of them are!

Here's the link for Anders loves Maria.

[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Freefall is still going strong, 3 panels a week. Since like 1998 or something. Never loses the humor either, unlike some comics that ditch humor once they develop dramatic plot.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

One of my absolute favorite webcomics is Peter and Company. I didn't realize this, but the website lists the first strip as being from 2005 and the latest being from last month.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

deleted by creator

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yes. In fact, it got me a lot of attention. I got into a bunch of newspapers, interviewed on NPR, etc. Then my audience started drifting away and on to the next thing... and then YouTube decided to monetize. My account was monetized for a while. I made a grand total of $100 before it was demonetized again.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

May I ask what kind of stuff you created?

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

My big hit was "The Skeletor Show." It's still on YouTube. But I did many other things on the account before deciding I didn't feel like making comedy videos anymore a few years ago. Occasionally people post asking me to please come back, but I don't know that I ever will.

I will say that it did get me some jobs when I needed work, which was the original goal of the show anyway.

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh I remember this! A buddy of mine was making a similar style show during roughly the same period using the classic Star Trek cartoon. Similarly Sealab 2021 influenced.

Very nice and thanks for the reminder.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

Wish I could share my friends work, but he always kept his videos private. He would occassionally open one up so I could check it out, but he would always make them private again. I should have been using yt-dl to download them all.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 1 points 10 months ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

https://www.piped.video/watch?v=v-DYY9mdme4

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[–] runjun@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There’s still plenty of people doing that. But their uploads will be inconsistent when they upload and quality. The views will also be low so YouTube’s algorithm won’t recommend it unless they pay to advertise.

[–] Guest_User@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

My YouTube recommendation page is full of channels with sub 100 subscribers. Because I actually watch them since I find those videos engaging for different reasons. If you actually watch small YouTube channels YouTube is more than happy to serve those channels to you.

[–] runjun@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I do get sub 1000 view recommendations from YouTube but I don’t know if I would assume those creators haven’t paid any money. You can pay to push your videos to a small, very targeted, audience for fairly cheap.

[–] Guest_User@lemmy.world 0 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That's a fair point, however with a good bit of the videos recommend to me I highly doubt they are paying for exposure. Many don't have the absolute basic skills when it comes to cinematography. Personally I enjoy watching random non professionals show their interests. But I don't think they are paying to show their videos to people like me.

[–] diviledabit@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Just don't get the guy musk hired.

[–] los_chill@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago

If someone is getting rich off of it though, it had better be the creator.

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