‘Poverty porn’: the moral dilemma behind MrBeast’s billion-dollar empire
- Written by The Conversation
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, runs the most subscribed-to YouTube channel in the world (with 484 million subscribers) and has an estimated net worth of US$2.6 billion.
He is also a prominent philanthropist. Beyond his involvement in fundraising initiatives such as #TeamTrees, which claims to have planted more than 24 million trees worldwide, Donaldson runs a dedicated Beast Philanthropy YouTube channel.
He claims 100% of profits from this channel’s ad revenue, merch sales and sponsorships go towards helping others. This has included paying for 1,000 cataract surgeries, constructing a medical clinic for children rescued from slavery, and building 100 wells to provide clean water in Africa.
These impressive philanthropic endeavours have dramatically improved the lives of their recipients. How could any of this be controversial?
The murky ethics of ‘stunt philanthropy’
Many of Donaldson’s videos involve subjecting people to what might be seen as degrading or exploitative situations, in exchange for money.
In Donaldson’s “Ages 1 – 100 Decide Who Wins $250,000” video, contestants (including young children) are put in an intense competitive structure and forced to eliminate one another. We see a grown man help to intentionally eliminate an 11-year-old girl, which leads to her sobbing on camera.
In another video, he tells a random group of shoppers they will win US$250,000 if they are the last to leave the store. Under pressure to stay, they are kept from their families and forced to endure poor living conditions, with some experiencing emotional breakdowns.
These videos have been labelled by various critics as “poverty porn”, as they could be seen as exploiting the desperation of vulnerable people to generate clicks and ad revenue.
The Beast Games reality series, which airs on Prime Video, is also built around challenges designed to provoke contestants into backstabbing one another, experiencing emotional distress, and revealing depressing stories about how badly they need the money.
Allegations against Donaldson also extend to behind the scenes, particularly in regards to the culture of work in his companies.
In 2024, several contestants who took part in Beast Games filed a lawsuit against Donaldson’s MrB2024 and other companies involved in the production. They allege they were subject to “chronic mistreatment”, including the infliction of emotional distress, inadequate food and rest breaks, delays in receiving medication, exposure to dangerous conditions, and a failure to prevent sexual harassment.
More recently, a former Beast Industries employee sued two of Donaldson’s production companies after suffering alleged sexual harassment and gender bias at work.
You can’t morally offset exploitation of people
When it comes to assessing the ethics of Donaldson’s work, one option is to take a simple “consequentialist” perspective. Act consequentialism is the view that the right action is the one which leads to the most amount of good.
If a few people suffer exploitative conditions so many more people can enjoy life-saving surgery, then the moral calculus is likely to come out in favour of this situation. Of course, there are longstanding philosophical worries with such a view.
The 18th century philosopher Immanuel Kant argued it is wrong to use others as tools to achieve our own ends, even if our ends are morally admirable. Treating some people as mere means right now can’t be morally justified by promising to help others later on.
According to Kant, one’s motives for helping others are also important, and the moral worth of an action is determined by these motives. So helping others out of a sense of duty has a moral worth that doing the same act out of self-interest does not.
Is Donaldson’s philanthropy motivated by duty and care for others, or by clicks, esteem and ad-revenue? Or perhaps both?
We can’t know the answer. Although, Kant himself did believe all humans are likely to be morally corrupt at the very root of their character.
Consent and power
Irrespective of Donaldson’s motives, a broader point remains: his philanthropic videos are an integral part of his overall brand. The philanthropy helps to make the other, more exploitative videos (and the significant revenues they generate) more “morally palatable”.
After all, Donaldson could simply give his money away. He doesn’t need to make people compete, scheme and suffer for it.
One might counter that the participants have consented to being involved. But when you offer people in economically vulnerable situations potentially life-changing amounts of money to endure degrading conditions, the “voluntariness” becomes contestable.
This is not what ethicists consider “informed consent”. The offer can be so large that it clouds judgement. And for people without genuine alternatives, saying “no” may not be a realistic option.
The fact that Donaldson sometimes subjects himself to similar treatment, such as when he buried himself alive for seven days, deepens rather than lessens the worry, given the power asymmetries at play. He owns the production company, controls the conditions, and profits from the content in ways other participants do not.
The underlying structural concerns
When political problems, such as poverty, or a lack of access to healthcare or clean water, are reduced to entertainment, they undergo a form of what scholars call “depoliticisation”. Political failures that demand collective action, institutional reform and democratic deliberation instead become fodder for entertainment.
If we think we can help solve these problems just by watching viral videos, then we can avoid facing the structural issues that underpin them.
