Giving It All Away

 We are very judicious in our household of what we allow our kids to watch, and never unrestricted or unsupervised. But every now and then we find some fun stuff out there. Since we don't have cable or Netflix, we rely on channels like Curiosity Stream or Youtube when we want to watch something as a family.

The kids recently discovered this 22 year old Youtuber named Mr Beast.  He is a phenomenon, with 72 million subs (subscribers to his channel) and 18 BILLION views of his channel. That's a lot! He does these crazy challenges like "Last To Take Hand Off Lamborghini Keeps It." and "$500,000 Game Of Tag". The way he throws money around at people, you'd think he was crazy. And he kind of is! But he's also very likeable and down-to-earth as well.

We ended up watching a documentary about him as a family last night, and the evolution of his YouTube channel. He started making videos when he was around 14, and was sort of obsessively focused and driven about producing content. As he noted, he didn't really make much money if any from Youtube for years. He dropped out of college to devote himself full-time to becoming a famous Youtuber. He and his best friend would just do these fun, crazy things but they weren't getting traction. At some point, he started making a little money, while at the same time giving it away on his channel, which drove up traffic. Eventually, the traffic growth became exponential and with it the revenue. The more he made, the more he gave away, the more he made, the more he gave away. 

In the documentary, I noticed two things. 

For one, the kid has a good heart. At one point he bought a fancy car for himself with the money he was making from videos, but realized "it didn't make me happy" and gave it away. 

What did make him happy, he discovered, was helping people, whatever that looked like. He would hand homeless guys $10,000 in cash, tip pizza delivery drivers $500, bought out an entire grocery store and donated all the food to a food bank, and even raised $20 million to plant 20 million trees. His mom was a struggling active duty single mom, and he paid off her house for her. The more money he made, the more he found creative ways to give it away. I don't think he's a religious guy, but he seemed to have that Zacchaeus joy of detachment in giving away his wealth. 

The other thing I noticed and appreciated was that he was focused on making positive change in the world. I think as Catholics we get in this complaining-about-how-bad-the-world-is mode--the latest scandal in the Church, the lousy state of our political system, the dire warnings of imminent destruction. I have nothing against Taylor Marshall, but he's the first person I think of who is a "famous Youtuber" on the other end of the spectrum, who has largely built his following by focusing on all the things that are wrong with the world. 

Maybe it is Mr. Beast's naïve youth and energy that makes him determined to make a difference, but he arguably is making a difference in many people's lives, and on a big scale. And he's having a good time doing it. He is pursuing his happiness, but in an inarguably unselfish way, which seems to be the key that unlocks the chest. He also seems to have adopted, in a secular way, the teaching of Christ that "those who lose their life will find it" (Mt 16:25). The more he gives, the more he makes. The more he makes, the more he is able to creatively give. 

Maybe it's the artist in me, but I appreciate creativity and creative people. And maybe it's the Augustinian in me, but I also appreciate truth, beauty, and goodness, even when it is found outside the Christian faith. Wealth has a strong propensity to corrupt; maybe Mr. Beast's formula-for-life is to give it away so that he doesn't give it that opportunity. "Helping people makes me happy," he noted. As Christians, maybe we can learn from this young man, that the joy is in the giving, and that we don't have to always be stuck in complain-outrage mode, but can creatively work to make positive change and be "the light of the world, a city on a hill" (Mt 5:14).