Little boys with big toys make very bad philanthropists.

Over my career as a journalist, I have gone to great lengths to get to the bottom of a story. I’ve read pages of rulings from patent trials, sifted through WTO jargon, and attended conferences about the Florida insurance market. Dry though these may be, at the end of each of these intellectual excursions I always found some nugget of truth that I could hold up to the light while muttering to myself, ‘Huh, that’s interesting’. My journalistic conviction to research this story gave out after five minutes of watching MrBeast’s YouTube videos. Reader, I did try.  

‘My main problem with MrBeast isn’t the obvious white-saviour trope or his middle-school boy maturity level. It’s his philanthropy model.’

For the fortunate ones who are unaware, MrBeast is the digital stage name of the 26-year-old American, Jimmy Donaldson – a name, no doubt, chosen to convey his wishful alpha-male-like status. From what I gathered through an additional ten minutes of google research on MrBeast’s biography, he came to fame by posting videos of himself giving away money while dropping the occasional homophobic slur – lest anyone confuse his generosity with effeminacy. (MrBeast removed all offensive slurs from his X account in 2018, shortly after receiving a right to respond from The Atlantic).