Chappell Roan and celebrity hazing; plus, MrBeast's entertainment charity

After Chappell Roan posted about how some fans have been making her feel unsafe, there's been speculation around whether the singer is really 'cut out to be a pop star.' But are the critiques fair? Brittany sits down with Kelsey McKinney, who wrote about the controversy for Defector, and Dr. Mel Stanfill, author of Fandom is Ugly. They discuss modern fandom, how Chappell Roan framed it as a conversation about gender and what people misunderstand about celebrity.

Then, Brittany looks at the how charity is changing. Traditional charitable giving is down in the US and some non-profits have declared that we're in the middle of a "generosity crisis." At the same time, a new genre of online viral videos has emerged: feel-good 'charity' content. And nobody does it bigger than MrBeast. Brittany is joined by journalist Max Read to understand the MrBeast phenomenon and break down the generational divides these videos reveal.

Want to be featured on IBAM? Record a voice memo responding to Brittany's question at the end of the episode and send it to [email protected].

Transcript

BRITTANY LUSE, HOST:

Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luse, and you're listening to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: This week, we're connecting the dots between Queen Victoria, the paparazzi and Lollapalooza. I know, I know, how are all these things connected? Well, we're going to find out with Kelsey McKinney, Defector staff writer and host of the "Normal Gossip" podcast, and Dr. Mel Stanfill, associate professor of English at University of Central Florida and author of the new book "Fandom Is Ugly." Kelsey, Mel, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.

KELSEY MCKINNEY: Excited to be here.

MEL STANFILL: Thanks for having us.

LUSE: Oh, my gosh. My pleasure, my pleasure. All right. So what do you do when you see celebs in the wild?

MCKINNEY: Ignore. I ignore them. Do I look a little bit out of the side of my eye? Yes. But I'm not making any moves.

STANFILL: I think that there is often some staring, but it's not because they're famous, it's because I'm trying to figure out, do I know you and where do I know you from? Right? 'Cause sometimes it's also like, was this person my...

LUSE: Yes.

STANFILL: ...Student two years ago? I don't know. Right?

MCKINNEY: Literally.

LUSE: Every time I see a Black celebrity, the first thought I have, I'm like, did we go to Howard together? Like, is that where I know you from? I would say generally, in New York City, where I live, it's bad form, I think, to call attention to someone in that kind of way. But today, we're going to be talking about the kind of fans that do more than just gawk a little. The kinds of fans that yell at celebrities in public or follow them around or find out where their parents live. These are all things that pop singer Chappell Roan has implied some of her fans are doing. Scary.

In case you don't know Chappell, she has recently sky-rocketed into fame. She's got seven hits on the Hot 100, including "HOT TO GO!" and "Good Luck, Babe!" And her fan base is huge. She played to what may have been the largest crowd in Lollapalooza history earlier this month, but she says some of her fans are also making her feel unsafe. In a pair of TikToks from last week, she said this.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHAPPELL ROAN: I don't care that abuse and harassment, stalking - whatever - is a normal thing to do to people who are famous or a little famous - whatever. I don't care that it's normal. That does not make it OK.

LUSE: And then people got kind of in a snit about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I think what Chappell Roan said is an absolute disgrace, to be honest with you. Like, can we all just agree that she's cancelled?

LUSE: I saw posts with tens of thousands of likes that said because of this, she is, quote, "not cut out to be a pop star." And then in response to that, Chappell made another post on Instagram doubling down. She said she loves her fans, but she's specifically calling out predatory stan behavior and asked people to stop touching her, stop being weird to her friends and family and to stop calling her by her legal name. So, this has really launched a conversation about fandom and the boundaries that fans will or won't respect. But to start, what were your initial reactions to Chappell putting her foot down or even the blowback to it?

STANFILL: I feel like my first thought was good for her, but also, wow, this is not going to fly with a lot of people because this is now the expectation of what celebrities are supposed to do. They're supposed to have a certain amount of intimacy. You know, there's such an expectation of that.

LUSE: Kelsey, you wrote an article for a Defector called "Chappell Roan Confronts The Sickness Of Modern Fandom." What did you think?

MCKINNEY: I was kind of stunned by these videos in that I think they're very honest. You can tell that she's having a really hard time making them. There is a lot of pressure on celebrities, both from their fan bases and from, like, the executives that control their careers, to foster this kind of intimacy with people and to convince them that they're their friends because there's a lot of money to be made off of people thinking that they are extremely close to you. And so I thought it was very brave to, in a moment where your star is sky-rocketing into the sky, say, wait a second. I have some standards for how I would like for this to go.

LUSE: I mean, intense and even boundary-crossing fans have existed as long as celebrity has. Queen Victoria even had a stalker who snuck into Buckingham Palace to steal her undergarments and sit on her throne. But is there something about this era of fandom that feels different than in years past?

STANFILL: I think so. Social media has changed things in a lot of ways. Practices that people used to do in their bedroom by themselves or just with their one friend that they know are now happening on platforms where everyone else can see it, and sort of having these really speculations about people's personal lives and whatever that are kind of harmless when they're just a conversation, can spiral. And then the - you know, the thing that Kelsey was just talking about in terms of there's an expectation of access to celebrity that has only intensified with practices of social media giving insight into one's life as a way to cultivate fame and a way to sort of get fans to be more attached to you.

LUSE: One of the things that came up for me as we were preparing for this conversation is that I, you know, would Google her, and I would see this person who kind of looked like a glammed-up Kate Bush. And I was like, oh, OK, that's Chappell Roan, I guess. And then I would see this, like, you know, sprightly, redheaded young woman on TikTok, like, who had, like, I just assumed she was, like, an influencer. I didn't know who she was, who was just, like, maybe putting on makeup or moisturizer, like, in her bedroom, in her apartment, and she was just talking about, like, running to prepare for her shows. And I was like, girl, Is this Tate McRae? Who is this? I don't know who it is.

MCKINNEY: (Laughter).

LUSE: But I really didn't process this fresh-faced young person on TikTok as being, like, the same pop star that was on the stage. You know, I think that that was probably part of what has driven some of her fan base is that there are people who feel like they got to know her as a person through her social media, maybe even before they got to know her music or while they were getting into her music at the same time.

MCKINNEY: Yeah. It feels so close to the way that you would Facetime a friend, right? Like, there is so little difference in watching your friend on FaceTime do her makeup and tell you about her day and watching Chappell Roan on TikTok on your phone do her makeup and talk about her day, right? It's like, very hard for your brain to parse that as two different things - right? - one of these people being a stranger.

LUSE: Those things show up side by side.

MCKINNEY: Yeah, you look through your Instagram stories - right? - I look through mine, and it's, like, my sister went out to dinner. My best friend is posting, like, memes. Oh, there's Chappell Roan, right? Like, it's, like, fake...

LUSE: (Laughter) Right.

MCKINNEY: You click through them in the same way that you would click through people that you actually know in your real life. So I think even the most self-aware fans who know, like, I don't know this person, there's something happening on a subconscious level that makes it really hard for you to keep these people separate in your brain as strangers.

LUSE: And also, too, I mean, obviously other nations have their own culture and ideas about celebrities and how fans relate to them. But what's specific about American celebrity culture and how we're seeing that show up in the Chappell Roan story?

MCKINNEY: I think, you know, every culture has celebrities - right? - we know that - around the world. And I think America has done a really good job of making celebrity and industry - right? - of building up, like, a whole structure around these people. If you think about, like, the early studios in Hollywood - right? - they were projecting these people forward as a way to sell movies, right? There's this kind of infrastructure around them that is, like, very based in profit. There are people making money off of this at the top. And so it's like even though every culture obviously has their own celebrities, every culture has begun doing this, I do think it kind of started here with the Hollywood system - this, like, industrialization.

STANFILL: I totally agree that, you know, the Hollywood star system - like, these kinds of practices of learn about what this person's life is like at home goes back all the way to the fan magazines that were run by the studios about the actors that were sort of, like, indentured servants to that particular studio and under that old system - right? - where people didn't get to choose who they worked for. So it's very old. But I think the other piece of this is there's - the sort of founding conceit or belief system of American culture is democracy, inequality, right? And so...

LUSE: Yeah.

STANFILL: ...That anyone can be famous. And we don't have a sort of class hierarchy in a way that say, you know, the UK...

LUSE: Yeah, the UK - like, aristocracy, nobility...

MCKINNEY: Yeah.

LUSE: ...Like, monarchy - we don't have that same system here.

STANFILL: Yeah. I mean, obviously there are - there is class and there are hierarchies, but they're not sort of - it's seen as just like, oh, it's luck that this person is wealthy or it's luck that this person is famous and anyone could is part of why it feels like there is not a divide between someone who is famous and someone who is not that other cultures might, you know, have that because of the way that they structure the general culture.

MCKINNEY: That's so interesting because we're also seeing a ton of comparisons right now between Chappell Roan and Britney Spears - right? - like, the early leave-Britney-alone narratives. And...

LUSE: Yeah.

MCKINNEY: They both are girls who come from families without money. So there is a, like, American dream aspect here that, like, these are people we have elevated, right? It feels like we did it.

LUSE: Sure.

STANFILL: One of the things I talked about in my previous book, "Exploiting Fandom," is the ways that fans are often expected to do particular kinds of labor. And fans choose to that labor in many cases to, like, promote and share how much they love the thing. And so it builds a particular kind of relationship that then can turn sour.

LUSE: So interesting. That reminds me - you know, Chappell Roan also wrote about feeling like this violation of her privacy is related to her experience of gender. She said, quote, "this situation is similar to the idea that if a woman wears a short skirt and gets harassed or catcalled, she shouldn't have worn the short skirt in the first place. It is not the woman's duty to suck it up and take it." Throughout these posts, she refutes the idea that she's asking for this kind of treatment because she wanted to be a musician. What did y'all make of this?

MCKINNEY: I find this so interesting because obviously men who are famous also face a lot of harassment, right? Like, there are tons of videos of Harry Styles being stopped on the street by people and him being like...

LUSE: Sure.

MCKINNEY: ...Please, no, not now. And so it's interesting because she's right in that, like, there's a comparison to be made here. But this happens to everyone who's famous. And so I think kind of what I find interesting is that she's trying to talk directly to her fans who, for the most part, seem to be young women. So I kind of see this as a way of saying, like, I'm trying to show you how this feels for me and, like, what this boundary crossing feels like.

STANFILL: I would totally agree that the experience of being public property as a famous person is not exclusive to women, but I think the blowback for refusing it is deeply gendered - right? - that there is this idea that women are expected to be sort of pleasant and giving and that when a male celebrity tries to draw a boundary, there is more respect for that in some ways or less resistance to that. There's less of a sense that they're breaking a social contract. There's academic work on this in the context of, like, customer service or flight attendants and the ways that their job is to produce pleasant feelings in everyone else, right? And so I think in many ways being a woman and a celebrity often comes with those same assumptions that it is your job to manage other people's feelings, regardless of what your own feelings are.

LUSE: Well, and also, too, I mean, there are men who have, you know, attacked paparazzi before - like, male celebrities who have attacked paparazzi before. Like, Hugh Grant, for example, is somebody, you know, who attacked a paparazzo, and that hasn't defined his celebrity. He's still in the "Paddington" movies, doing this thing.

(LAUGHTER)

LUSE: Whereas Britney Spears obviously has a different experience. She attacked the paparazzi, and that really became one of the defining images of her career. You know, I can't say at all that I agree. But I can understand, to a certain degree, why some people reacted negatively to her statements. Like, people generally don't like the rich and famous complaining about being rich and famous, even if some of their complaints are totally valid. And often, celebrities have a lot of money and power to throw at problems that many people would kill to have. You know, like, everyday people are worried about paying rent. And I think that it's very easy to think loss of privacy would be worth having endless amounts of money or power or whatever. But I think a lot of people are seeing all the attention Chappell Roan has and equating that with money.

And you know, as we've been discussing, she wasn't that famous, like, even four or five months ago. She might not yet have the infrastructure to deal with a lot of the threats that come with being famous. Private security costs a boatload of money. One security professional estimated that 24/7 security could cost millions of dollars a year. In your opinion, what are people missing about the power dynamics between stans and celebrities?

STANFILL: Fans often misunderstand what power dynamic they're operating in because every individual fan is just a regular person, right? And so compared to a celebrity, that person doesn't have that much power. And so because they feel like they are weaker, things that they do don't matter and can't hurt anybody, and what's the big deal, right? But once you get hundreds, thousands, millions of people who all are just like, well, I'm just a regular person - you know, if I - I'm mean to somebody on the internet about this, what difference does it make? - it's exponential. It's not just linear, the sort of level of difficulty of dealing with that. And so because each of them think of themselves as weak and don't recognize that as a group they're strong, then the harm that people can do, they don't have a sense of that.

MCKINNEY: I agree with all of that. I think that something I think a lot about with power dynamics here also is that celebrities are not the top of the entertainment food chain, right? Like, if you think about Sydney Sweeney who got a ton of backlash last year for coming out to say basically, like, I can't afford to take six months off if I wanted to have a baby - right? - and there was a ton of backlash to that because people were like, well, you have millions of dollars, right? And tons of Americans can't afford to take time off to have a baby because the system is stacked against them. And the point she was trying to make is that she's a laborer, right? She's making the movies. And then people at the top are making millions of dollars more than she's making. And then they are not helping with these things that would help make her life more manageable, right?

So, like, why is it if you become famous, suddenly you need to hire a manager - you need to hire personal security - you need to hire a whole team of people? So I can see where that frustration comes from for them because what they're pushing back against, I think, isn't even really the fans that are getting to them. It's the fact that the fans can get there. And, like, that sucks. I do feel bad for them for that.

LUSE: I wonder, how does this reflect this whole situation? How does this reflect how we relate not to celebrities but just regular people and each other?

STANFILL: When so many of our interactions with people that we know and that we don't know are all happening through the same, you know, box in our hand, the sort of - the same interface, it's easy to sort of treat people as texts. You're thinking about, this is fun for me to do to you, not what is it like to experience that? And so people are thinking about, it is fun for me to interact with this celebrity, and not thinking about what the - it is like for the celebrity to have to do that and to have to do that all day long, every day.

MCKINNEY: I've been thinking a lot about how, you know, the famous, like, 15 minutes of fame saying has never been truer here. Like, anyone can become famous at any moment. I mean, look at demure, right? Like, that's the most recent new celebrity we have, and that's from one viral video.

(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK VIDEO)

JOOLS LEBRON: You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful.

MCKINNEY: And, like, this kind of surveillance and privacy invasion is happening to everyone, that, like, you could be recorded having a conversation at a bar and it be uploaded. And suddenly, you're the main character of the internet. And so I think thinking about, like, how we interact with strangers, which is what celebrities are to us, is an important piece of this. Like, what do we owe each other within a community? And I think privacy in public is one of those things.

LUSE: Well, my, my, my. I hope that we can have a deeper conversation about, like, what we're kind of doing to ourselves and each other with that. We'll see. But Mel, Kelsey, I have learned so much here. Thank you both so much.

STANFILL: Thanks.

MCKINNEY: Yeah, thank you.

LUSE: And as a thank you...

MCKINNEY: (Laughter).

LUSE: ...I'd like to teach you something by playing a game with you all. Can you stick around for a tiny bit longer?

MCKINNEY: Yes.

STANFILL: Sure.

LUSE: We'll be right back with a little game I like to call But Did You Know?

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: Stick around.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: All right, all right. We're going to play a little game I like to call But Did You Know? Here's how it works. I'm going to share a story that's been making headlines this week. And as I give you some background on the story, I'll also ask you trivia related to it. But don't worry, it's all multiple-choice. The right answer is in there somewhere. And the first one to blurt out the right answer gets a point. Person with the most points wins, and their prize is bragging rights. Are you all ready?

STANFILL: Sure.

MCKINNEY: I'm terrified.

LUSE: Guys, don't be scared. Don't be scared.

MCKINNEY: (Laughter).

LUSE: So I'll start off on somewhat of a serious note. You may have heard about a couple of astronauts in the news - Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Well, these two are stuck in space after their spacecraft had some problems. This story, every time I think about it, it just activates all my claustrophobia. But recently, we learned that their mission, which started in June and was supposed to last eight days, is going to end in February 2025, about eight months later. Horrifying. So today, we've got some space trivia for you all. Are you ready?

STANFILL: Sure. Let's go.

MCKINNEY: Yes.

LUSE: All right, all right. So to start. Planets actually don't all orbit around various stars. Some are just floating loose around space. How many rogue planets have scientists estimated are in just our galaxy? A, millions; B, billions; or C, trillions.

MCKINNEY: B, billions.

STANFILL: I'll say millions.

LUSE: Neither one of you is getting a point because the answer is C, trillions.

(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZER)

LUSE: It seems kind of unbelievable, but it's true.

MCKINNEY: We've got to cut back on some. It's too many (laughter).

LUSE: You're telling me.

STANFILL: In this economy, trillions of planets?

(LAUGHTER)

LUSE: It's hard to be exact. But yeah, trillions is the ballpark estimate. There are actually - how about this? - 10 to 10,000 times more planets just out there wandering around than there are planets that orbit stars. Scientists think many of these planets did once orbit stars and then just peaced out and ejected from orbit. OK? So I have a question. Would either of you ever want to visit a rogue planet?

STANFILL: No.

MCKINNEY: No. I am not trying to go to space.

LUSE: OK, thank you. I agree. I'm not trying to go to space, either. If I get tired of space, and I want to, like, go back to whatever I was doing before, it's too far.

STANFILL: You could be up there for eight months.

MCKINNEY: Eight months (laughter).

LUSE: And that's the thing. You could go up there for eight days, and you could be not coming back for eight months or eight years. I've seen all those movies - "Interstellar." Leave me out. All right. Question 2 - what is the moon most similar to in shape? Is it A, a lemon; B, a watermelon; C, an apple?

MCKINNEY: C, apple, I think.

STANFILL: I'm going to say a watermelon.

LUSE: Well, again, neither one of you got it right.

(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZER)

LUSE: I'm glad y'all are not going to space because I don't know if y'all have the info we need (laughter). But the answer is A, a lemon. OK? Wild, right?

MCKINNEY: What?

LUSE: Trust me. I was agog when I found this out.

STANFILL: I mean, I have looked at this thing, yeah. You know? Seems pretty round.

LUSE: I know. We think it looks rounder than it is. But there's a bulge facing us. And then another puckered end on the opposite side. Scientists think the Earth's gravity caused the moon to be more oblong like that.

MCKINNEY: I do not like learning this. This has upset me.

LUSE: Look, I learned it, and so you have, too. It's distressing, but this is the truth. Oh, my gosh. When the moon hits your eye like a big lemon slice, that's amore.

(LAUGHTER)

LUSE: To recap the score (laughter). Mel...

STANFILL: (Laughter).

LUSE: You are at zero points. And Kelsey, you are also at zero points.

MCKINNEY: The game is called But Did You Know? And the answer is, no, we did not.

(LAUGHTER)

LUSE: Yes. Well, without further ado, our final question. What does the center of the Milky Way smell and taste like? A, a tin can; B, raspberries and rum; or C, a seared steak.

STANFILL: Seared steak. C.

MCKINNEY: A, tin.

LUSE: The answer is B.

(SOUNDBITE OF BUZZER)

LUSE: Raspberries and rum. I'm so sorry. This is a first on the show, actually, I have to say. A first on the show. I was also very shocked to find out that the center of the Milky Way likely smells like raspberries and rum. Fifteen years ago, astronomers were able to see that there's a chemical called ethyl formate in a big dust cloud in the middle of the Milky Way. Ethyl formate apparently smells like rum and is what makes raspberries taste like raspberries. All right, that's it for But Did You Know? for this week. I cannot, unfortunately, congratulate either of you on a win. However, you both get participation trophies from me just for playing.

STANFILL: Wow.

LUSE: So Mel, Kelsey, thank you so much for joining us.

MCKINNEY: Thank you, Brittany.

STANFILL: Thanks for having us.

LUSE: That was Kelsey McKinney, Defector staff writer and host of the "Normal Gossip" podcast. And her new book, "You Didn't Hear This From Me," is out in February. You also heard Dr. Mel Stanfill, associate professor of English at University of Central Florida and author of the new book, "Fandom Is Ugly." Available now. I'm going to take a quick break, and when I get back, we get into the YouTube phenomenon of MrBeast and what his philanthropy philosophy says about how giving back is changing.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: Stick around.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: My question this week - what does the popularity of MrBeast say about the state of charity?

(SOUNDBITE OF NOTIFICATION RINGING)

LUSE: If you are as online as I am or have a young child in your life, you've probably seen or heard the name MrBeast. And if you haven't, allow me to catch you up. MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson, is a 26-year-old from Greenville, N.C., and the most subscribed-to creator on YouTube. And that crowning achievement is thanks to his viral game challenge videos where contestants win big cash for taking big risks - think "Fear Factor" for the internet generation.

MRBEAST: I recreated every single set from "Squid Game" in real life, and whichever one of these 456 people survives the longest wins...

(SOUNDBITE OF CASH REGISTER DINGING)

MRBEAST: ...Four hundred and fifty-six grand.

(CHEERING)

LUSE: Most of his videos have over 100 million views and even landed him a reality TV show on Amazon MGM Studios called "Beast Games." But he's not only an internet game master. He's a philanthropist in the most sensational way someone named MrBeast could be.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "I BUILT 100 HOUSES AND GAVE THEM AWAY!")

MRBEAST: In this video, we are building and giving away 100 houses.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "1,000 DEAF PEOPLE HEAR FOR THE FIRST TIME")

MRBEAST: This is the first out of a thousand deaf people that we're going to help hear again.

LUSE: And listen, we love generosity, but this feels very different from the kinds of charity I'm used to seeing. And I'm not alone in that feeling. That brings me to my guest, writer Max Read.

MAX READ: I think there was a strong sense among people my age and older the charitable impulse was nonexistent, and this was simply a stunt to get people to look at him.

LUSE: Max noticed that the online response to these videos were split across generations and decided to do more digging into what makes Donaldson so polarizing.

READ: My article writing process was to talk to college and high school-aged kids who are MrBeast fans. And - I mean, I'm paraphrasing here - he does it for the views, but that's what everybody does everything for. And therefore, like, if he can also do good while also getting the views, then he is doing net good out there in the world.

LUSE: A note before we start - this conversation and Max's reporting on Donaldson took place before numerous allegations surfaced about Donaldson's labor practices and past use of homophobic and racial slurs and also before allegations emerged that one of his team members assaulted a minor. In response to the allegations, Donaldson has asked for a full assessment of the internal culture of his YouTube, as well as an investigation into, quote, "allegations of inappropriate behavior by people in the company." But despite everything, Donaldson and his extreme brand of giving remain as popular as ever.

Today on the show, Max helps me uncover how MrBeast took over our timelines and what his popularity signals about our desire to do good.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: Max, welcome to IT'S BEEN A MINUTE.

READ: Thanks for having me.

LUSE: Oh, our pleasure, our pleasure. OK, so just to lay some of the groundwork here, as you gathered research and background for your article, what were some of MrBeast's more extreme charity videos that you came across?

READ: I mean, one that always sticks in my mind is one that was called "Tipping Waitresses With Real Gold Bars," where he just got a suitcase filled with gold bars (laughter)...

LUSE: What?

READ: ...He would go into restaurants. He would get a meal, and then he would leave a gold bar on the table.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "TIPPING WAITRESSES WITH REAL GOLD BARS")

AVA KRIS TYSON: How is your water?

MRBEAST: It tastes like seven grand. What does that say, Kris?

TYSON: Seven K in gold.

MRBEAST: And we put the gold.

TYSON: All right. It was good water.

MRBEAST: (Laughter) Let's go.

LUSE: It sounds like a joke from "30 Rock."

READ: Yeah. I mean, it's, like, what Jack Donaghy would do, yeah. I think probably the one that - the sort of charity video that maybe is most famous, you know, outside of YouTube and outside of his channel is one where he paid for cataract surgery for 1,000 people, which he titled with the - kind of - the grabby title "1,000 Blind People See For The First Time." And he found 1,000 people who were legally blind, who weren't seeing well, who needed cataract surgery to see properly, and paid for all their surgeries.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "1,000 BLIND PEOPLE SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME")

MRBEAST: In this video, we're curing 1,000 people's blindness.

(CHEERING)

MRBEAST: It's going to be crazy.

READ: And it's a video basically of him interviewing people and giving them a surgery and shaking a doctor's hand, and then looking immensely happy afterwards.

LUSE: So by many accounts, MrBeast has kind of figured out the algorithm on YouTube and is making some of the most viral videos out there. But in your opinion, what do you think are the most important elements of a MrBeast video?

READ: We sort of know explicitly what the most important elements are. You don't even need to necessarily have watched a bunch because MrBeast is on YouTube all the time telling people how to make videos. So some of the things he really emphasizes, for example, are immediately state the premise of your video.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MRBEAST: Today, I'm going to be giving my 40 millionth subscriber all 40 of these cars.

I just built this bunker, and these two people who have never met each other are going to attempt to live down here for the next 100 days.

READ: You just dive in, and you say what you're going to do. Put in a lot of effort. Like, you know, we talk about, as I was saying before, you know, he sort of spends a lot of money.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MRBEAST: These five tanks are literally about to rain missiles upon this $500,000.

READ: The titles of his videos always have a lot of zeros in them. It's always a thousand blind people see for the first time. You know, you want to have those titles that really draw people in, those interests that really draw people in. The pace has to be pretty high, frenetic, let's say, that you have to move through things quickly to keep people's attention, to keep them watching. And then he's also a real proponent of really high production values, which sounds sort of unexpected on YouTube but makes him stand out. This is the kind of thing that makes you feel like you're watching something that maybe really was worth $500,000 or more.

LUSE: Let's talk about the reactions to these videos because something you've seen, which I find very interesting, is the generational divides in response. Can you talk to me about that?

READ: Yeah. I mean, the reactions among Zoomers, let's say, especially younger Zoomers and adolescents, are generally quite positive. He's really widely beloved on YouTube among people who watch a lot of YouTube. I mean, me, personally, I'm 38 years old, and I find them grating. I mean, I say that, you know, not wanting any MrBeast fans to come after me. I've watched a bunch of them.

LUSE: (Laughter).

READ: It's just not for me. And I brought up the blind person video before, and I mentioned that maybe it was one that listeners had seen because this was the first video, I think, that sort of exited the YouTube world of adolescents and young adults and entered, let's say, the Twitter world of Millennial professionals. And the reaction there was extremely negative. I mean, people called him demonic.

LUSE: (Laughter).

READ: The whole thing felt...

LUSE: Oh.

READ: ...So, I think, cynical. If you watch the video, there's like a timer at the bottom that counts up every time somebody gets the surgery. It feels like a video game or something.

LUSE: Yeah.

READ: I think there was a strong sense among people my age and older, the charitable impulse was nonexistent, and this was simply a stunt to get people to look at him. And I - you know, I understand that reaction 'cause again, like, these videos are very gimmicky - right? - and I think that it can be hard in your mind to marry the noble impulse of charity with the kind of Barnum-like presentation, say, the sort of circus presentation. And it was a very funny week on Twitter of people in their 30s saying, this is disgusting. I hate this. I never want to see this again. And people in their 20s saying - or younger saying, but he's helping people. Isn't he? Like, what is the problem here? He's doing some good.

LUSE: I guess when I first hear that Gen Z and even younger, like, maybe Gen Alpha viewers are optimistic and feel warmly, at least, about MrBeast's style of giving, I can't help but feel like that they see the view counts on his videos and the spectacle and scale of his videos as kind of a means to an end for charity, that viewing these acts of charity is helping, and that these acts of charity are a form of currency, which is very different than I think the idea of charity or philanthropy that I grew up with, you know, with people writing checks or volunteering at soup kitchens. But also, like, being in the world more or doing these good works without needing to have millions of eyeballs on them. But also, I wonder if maybe I'm short-sighted or if I'm missing something. What do you think?

READ: So I wrote a whole article about this for The Times Magazine. Part of my article writing process was to talk to college and high-school-aged kids who were MrBeast fans. And so one kid I talked to who was a kid who got surgery from MrBeast.

LUSE: Wow.

READ: He's a really smart, interesting guy who he figured out he couldn't really see when he realized he couldn't throw a ball when he was about 5 years old. And he spent most of his life trying to navigate a bunch of bureaucracies to get the care he needed. And he had people around him who were trying to help, whether it was through school or through the state or through the federal government. He couldn't find a way to get the surgery paid for. And then, one day, one of the employees of MrBeast contacts him on Snapchat and says, hey, why don't you come down? We'll pay for this for you. And then MrBeast also gave him a $50,000 check so he could go to college.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "1,000 BLIND PEOPLE SEE FOR THE FIRST TIME" )

MRBEAST: To make this day even more special, since you're about to graduate high school and go to college, we wanted to give you $50,000 to put towards college.

LUSE: Whoa.

READ: It's not that there are no criticisms to be made, but I do think it's important to keep in mind that, like, in the context of what YouTube is and can be, people are being genuinely helped by what MrBeast is doing.

LUSE: There's another generational divide that an article in Vox pointed out. There's a so-called, quote, unquote, "generosity crisis" going on right now where registered charities are seeing far less donations. According to Vox, fewer than half of Americans now give cash to charity. Like, there was this huge drop between 2016 and 2020 where 20 million fewer households donated. And now donations are coming from a small number of the uber-rich. Young people, especially, are less likely to donate to registered charities than older folks, but I will note that it seems like young people are still donating, just giving to crowdfunding and mutual aid instead. Do you think MrBeast's popularity is an outgrowth of that change?

READ: That's an interesting question. I think definitely there's a part of that kind of institutional skepticism that motivates MrBeast and MrBeast fans. You know? I mean, even the story I just told, like, we're talking about a kid who was ultimately not helped by nonprofits, not helped by the government health care systems that maybe should have been helping him and wasn't indeed helped by a very strange version of what you might call mutual aid, I suppose.

And I think, you know, in some ways, this is not just younger kids but a general sort of downturn in trust. A deterioration of belief in big institutions - governmental, private, nonprofit and so on - is probably going to lead people to alternative sources of charity and alternative ideas of charity and funding. On the other hand, I'm not sure that the sort of dynamic I'm describing is new. It feels to me quite American, the kind of distrust of top-down, means tested, say, charity versus the kind of small D democratic, we're going to figure out what's best for us and give it to people.

LUSE: You say that MrBeast videos are part of, like, a longer tradition in American entertainment. Talk to me about that.

READ: Yeah. I mean, as I said, for this article, I watched a bunch of these videos. And at some point it started feeling like I was watching television, basically. And, you know, if you've ever watched, like, a heartwarming local news segment or a home makeover show on HGTV...

LUSE: Yeah.

READ: Or to go even further back, something - a show like "Queen For The Day."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "QUEEN FOR A DAY")

JACK BAILEY: Welcome once again to "Queen For A Day." You know, the crown is ready, so is the throne, so are we. And all we have to do is sort of have the ladies get up here, tell us what they want. If they're queen...

READ: One thing Americans really love, apparently - history shows us - is watching people who - downtrodden people, people who haven't been able to get a break, get a really big break on camera. The first video that MrBeast ever did like this is he just gave 10 grand to a guy who was panhandling on a median near his hometown.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO, "GIVING A RANDOM HOMELESS MAN $10,000" )

MRBEAST: This is a series where I just, you know, be nice and just give people some help. So if you want to take it, it's about $10,000. I'm not joking.

READ: This is, like, a quick media hit, the dopamine hit of watching somebody's life change in the moment. And I think the most interesting thing about the way MrBeast positions his particular kind of charitable giving to me is by really explicitly positioning his audience as a commodity, by which I mean he tells them - especially on the charity videos, he says, your eyeballs are paying for this video.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MRBEAST: This philanthropy is literally funded by your eyeballs, not even joking.

READ: I don't know many other filmmakers, philanthropists, people who sort of have been this kind of cynical for good in that way, to really just sort of turn the engine of YouTube, which we all know exists, but we maybe pretend doesn't, and be really blatant about it. And I think this is one thing that actually makes people like me kind of uncomfortable, is the sort full recognition of how the profit motivation of YouTube or the mechanisms of how YouTube works. But in this way, I think it's not just the institutions of charity that he is upending or that he is separating himself from, but it's the whole institution of YouTube. He's operating within it, but also - it's too much to say he's criticizing it here. But the sort of openness about how it works, I think, is really interesting.

LUSE: The thing I can't help but think about in all this is, like, as MrBeast has been making these videos, he has gotten increasingly wealthier. Like, the stunts have grown, and the views have grown, and these videos have made a ton of money. And he seems like he's living well. What do you make of all that?

READ: So he's still in Greenville. But the money that he makes - from what I understand, he's basically set up a sort of company town, a MrBeast company town. He's got a portion of a development where all of his...

LUSE: So he's like Ford? (Laughter).

READ: Yeah. I mean, basically. Honestly, he's like Walt Disney. Like, he has this real - like, he's got this kind of crew of people around him who make the videos with him. They work incredibly hard. They all live basically in the same place. I mean, I think one reason the MrBeast pitch works really well is because he insists that he puts most of the money that he makes back into the channel.

LUSE: Right. CNBC even reported that his YouTube channel and food brand altogether bring in something above $600 million a year.

READ: You know, net or gross, that's a lot of money.

LUSE: It is.

READ: And if he's putting a lot of it back in - I think his videos these days cost a couple of million dollars each one 'cause he's doing things like moving an entire house to the middle of a field to have somebody live in it for as long as they possibly can.

LUSE: Geez. Or paying for surgery for 1,000 people.

READ: Right, exactly. Gold bars do eventually add up....

LUSE: They add up, yeah.

READ: To me, there's two aspects of this that are interesting. One is that, you know, as I say, this is part of what makes the MrBeast pitch to viewers work, is you don't think you're enriching MrBeast. What you're doing when you watch MrBeast is you are enriching the MrBeast corporation, which itself is functionally, ultimately, as far as a lot of viewers are concerned, if not legally, practically a charity endeavor.

The other part of it is, I think to me, this is one of the ways that MrBeast is a really interesting person - that Jimmy Donaldson, you know, not just the MrBeast persona but Jimmy Donaldson the human being is. He's really good at picking up the algorithm, right? Like, he knows how to watch YouTube, how to figure out what YouTube's algorithm is looking for and how to make his videos work within those constraints. And this is something he's been doing for more than 10 years. And again, I think this also feeds back to the sort of, you know, what people like about him, is they don't see a guy who is just in it for the money necessarily. They see a guy who is in it, I suppose, for the views.

LUSE: I hear you saying that he doesn't seem to be in this for the money, but he might be doing it for the attention, which, you know, can actually be really valuable from a power perspective. And that makes me think about something that he's kind of toyed with publicly recently, which is running for president.

(LAUGHTER)

LUSE: In early July, he tweeted, if we lower the age to run for president, I'll jump in the race. He kind of put forth a "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" idea of how he'd be president. Like, I wouldn't take any money from anybody and I would take experts from the right and the left and listen to them and then make the best decision. I don't know. That seems to indicate that there is perhaps some other kind of motivation for building the kind of brand that he's building.

READ: Yeah. I don't think YouTube is the limit of his world here. Like, I mean, it is in the sense that that's where all of his power accrues. But I think that he's interested in taking his particular set of talents elsewhere. And when he talks about being president, these are sort of the terms in which he's talking. You know, when he's like, oh, I'm going to take the best from the right and the best from the left. It's like it's - he's going to watch all the presidents and he's going to pick out what they would do with the thumbnails they were using and the lighting they were using for their videos or whatever. And he's going to be the best president out of everybody.

LUSE: He's going to just, like, hack it. He's just going to, like, break the algorithm short.

READ: There's this kind of cut-through red tape solutionism at the heart of what he's saying. Why not just give money to people instead of all these complicated charities and whatever else? Why not just pay for the - like, I'll just take the best advice from everybody, and I'll just do whatever I can. It's, like, not that different from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. You have a young billionaire, a young millionaire who suddenly has all this money perhaps to spend on interesting things, and they become interested in politics, interested in nonprofits. I don't know if there'll be a MrBeast Initiative someday, a MrBeast super PAC, but all that stuff seems not out of the realm of possibility at all.

LUSE: Oh, my gosh. Yeah. As soon as you said MrBeast super PAC, my brain is like, (vocalizing).

READ: I guarantee you somebody in the MrBeast off has pitched it as a video before.

LUSE: (Laughter) I mean, that is a whole other conversation. You know, some people may question if that's actually the type of person that folks want in power. You know, someone who can figure out a YouTube algorithm is maybe not the same as a person who is going to be deciding health care policy.

READ: Yeah. I mean, for whatever reason, I suddenly feel compelled to defend MrBeast.

LUSE: (Laughter).

READ: He's not an anti-institutionalist, like, explicitly. Like, I don't think he's somebody who's like, oh, you know, screw the NIH and screw the WHO. I think what you're getting at, which is totally correct, is that even if he's not condemning major global charities or whatever, the structure of his video is these people couldn't get help from anybody else. MrBeast is here to give them what they need. If you are an extremely powerful person listening to this and you're wondering how to restore trust in institutions, it's not as simple as make MrBeast disappear. It's also, you know, make the institutions work. Like, don't give MrBeast an opportunity to show how much better at helping people he can be than a given charity or a given public body.

And there's a way in which saying, look, come watch these videos. This money - I'm just printing money every time you watch these videos, and I'm going to give it away, has that kind of Robin Hood aspect to it, which is something I - again, I have a lot of sympathy for, even if I find the videos a little icky.

LUSE: (Laughter) Well, oh, my gosh. I have to say I've been curious about MrBeast for some time. I really appreciate talking with you today and having you really put MrBeast in context. Thank you so much, Max.

READ: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

LUSE: That was writer Max Read. His article, "How MrBeast Became The Willy Wonka Of YouTube," is available at nytimes.com.

Last week, I asked you all about your favorite thing about the transition from summer to fall, and this is what you had to say.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Hey, Brittany.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Hey, Brittany.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: Hey, Brittany.

HANAYA: Hey, Brittany. My name is Hanaya (ph), and my favorite thing about the transition from summer into fall is the weather because it cools down a little bit. And the colors because I love a good nude orangey moment (laughter).

MEGAN: Hey, Brittany. This is Megan (ph). My favorite thing about the transition from summer to fall is the availability of candy corn because it is the very best fall treat.

DANIELLE: Hey, Brittany. My name is Danielle (ph), and my favorite thing about going from summer to fall is going back to school and seeing my friends that I haven't seen for a long time.

ELIAS: Hey, Brittany. This is Elias (ph). My favorite thing about the transition from summer to fall has got to be the crazy weather. Sometimes it's raining like crazy, and then later in the day, it'll be super sunny and dry everything out.

LUSE: Well, Hanaya, Megan, Danielle and Elias, thank you all so much for calling in with your fall faves. I have to say, as much as I love the weather and candy corn, and I love seeing friends again, I feel like your hair and makeup can really stay on. They're not sliding around or puffing up or getting kind of raggedy and bedraggled. But the real reason why I prefer fall is because I'm a Scorpio queen, and my birthday falls smack dab in the middle of the most beautiful part of fall. Oh, my gosh. The air is crisp. The pumpkins are still out. I'm still eating apple pie. It's a beautiful time of year.

Thank you all again so much for calling in with these heartwarming answers. And if you want to be heard on next week's Hey Brittany, I have got a question for you. Next week, I am going to make an impassioned argument for a very useful everyday item. And so that makes me wonder, what invention do you think deserves more credit? Send us a voice memo at [email protected]. That's [email protected].

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

LUSE: This episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE was produced by...

BARTON GIRDWOOD, BYLINE: Barton Girdwood.

ALEXIS WILLIAMS, BYLINE: Alexis Williams.

LIAM MCBAIN, BYLINE: Liam McBain.

COREY ANTONIO ROSE, BYLINE: Corey Antonio Rose.

LUSE: This episode was edited by...

JESSICA PLACZEK, BYLINE: Jessica Placzek.

LUSE: Engineering support came from...

KO TAKASUGI-CZERNOWIN, BYLINE: Ko Takasugi-Czernowin.

MAGGIE LUTHAR, BYLINE: Maggie Luthar.

LUSE: Our executive producer is...

JASMINE ROMERO, BYLINE: Jasmine Romero.

LUSE: Our VP of programming is...

YOLANDA SANGWENI, BYLINE: Yolanda Sangweni.

LUSE: All right. That's all for this episode of IT'S BEEN A MINUTE from NPR. I'm Brittany Luse. Talk soon. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

View this story on npr.org

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