Kindness Porn: Unfortunately, it isn’t the sexual revolution where men let women finish before them. Instead, it’s a term that coined that refers to filmed acts of clickbaity generosity. These vids are aimed to both help out strangers and help the poster get viral acclaim.
Kerri Sackville has recently gone off against this type of clickbait at the Sydney Morning Herald. She wrote, “These videos are designed to solicit clicks. They are disingenuous at best and exploitative at worst. They are calculated acts of self-promotion.”
More importantly, Sackville noted that some people in these vids don’t consent to being filmed and posted about online. She gives the examples of Maree and Esa, both of whom were given public gifts and left their experiences feeling very uncomfortable.
This sort of clickbait is cringe and deplorable. No video is worth ruining someone else’s day. Just don’t make or consume content of this format, just don’t. It’s as easy as that.
However, there are people out there who are making better types of kindness porn. Yup, it can be done. Here’s an example of one of the content creators doing it differently:
MrBeast Sometimes Does Good
MrBeast is one of the biggest content creators on YouTube. He currently has over 99 million subscribers and over 16 billion clicks. He’s known for doing outrageous stunts like building his own Wonka-inspired chocolate factory.
He’s also a gremlin that’s hungry for attention. This has led him to making some bad clickbait throughout his career, like making a video named I Didn’t Eat Food For 30 Days. Even though MrBeast stated in this video, “Don’t try this at home,” it’s still a potentially dangerous clip for his whack of impressionable young fans to consume.
Nevertheless, MrBeast has recently made some noteworthy kindness porn. This can be demonstrated in one of his other side-channels named Beast Philanthropy. On May 21, MrBeast published a video about how he partnered with the charity Community Development Volunteers for Technical Assistance to build two wells in Cameroon. While this video has over 18 million clicks, the decision to build these wells was lauded by the communities that he supported. This is because MrBeast’s wells now provide clean, lifesaving drinking water. They will prevent so many individuals from getting sick with diseases like typhoid.
In another video, MrBeast organised $3,000,000 worth of aid that he sent over to Ukrainian refugees. He even established his own global logistical chain to get these supplies into Eastern Europe without jamming up other much-needed ports.
Do these videos help MrBeast’s image? Sure. Are they clickbait and kindness porn? Sure. Is he making meaningful practical changes to a lot of people’s lives? 100 percent. Does it matter if these acts of generosity are on YouTube? Well, that’s up to you to decide.
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