• aleph@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        They didn’t disclose the fact that the passes would be using blockchain technology, apparently. Quite why they thought this was necessary is not clear, but it’s not inherently a bad thing.

        Unfortunately for them, however, blockchain/cryptocurrency/NFTs are all interchangeable according to the general public, so this has created a bit of a backlash.

        • QHC@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          From the quotes in the article, they didn’t just “not disclose” so much as “lied”. Regardless of subject matter, when someone cares enough to make sure something they don’t want to be associated with isn’t involved and then they find out it actually is, they have a right to be upset.

          • aleph@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            They didn’t lie, though.

            The quote you refer to said:

            “Aware of the crypto thing,” he tweeted. “We were told there was no NFT/crypto component but looks like that may not be the case. Waiting for responses to our emails/phone calls like others.”

            Which is a misunderstanding on the part of the author of that tweet: blockchain ≠ crypto. While it is the technology that crypto and NFTs are based on, blockchain can be used for a wide variety of different purposes.

            So while the organizers probably should have been more clear about how they were going to implement the technology, it appears they didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.

              • Serdan@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Not so. There are plenty of use cases that already have better solutions.

              • ayaya@lemdro.id
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                1 year ago

                Coincidentally this article is about a use case that isn’t crypto. Clearly you didn’t read anything more than the title.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      I don’t understand what it is about these media outlets with their allergy to the word “and”

      It isn’t print you don’t have to say space or ink just put “and” in the title.

      This time still could be easily rewritten to make more sense and if short length is there goal then you could rewrite it to be even shorter and it would still make more sense

      “An influencer-based esports league has imploded over NFT controversy”

  • gmtom@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Mr Beast really just gives me the ick. I can’t really explain it and anytime anyone says anything negative about him tons of people come along to say “but he paid for people’s surgery!!!1!!” Like it makes anything else he does perfectly acceptable.

    I just really don’t like him and feel like he would be a shitty person IRL.

    • slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      In my experience, people who make a big deal out of their philanthropy are typically doing it to compensate for some other moral deficiency.

      What really started to bother me was when he started to make a game out of his giveaways, like “Last person to stop touching the Lamborghini gets to keep it!” and things like that. It just feels wrong, and I can’t quite explain why.

      I hope I’m wrong, and so far there is no evidence he’s a secret dickhead, but something about him seems off.

      • Zeron@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It just feels wrong, and I can’t quite explain why.

        It’s essentially throwing a slab of meat into an arena and watching the starved poors fight to the death over it, then watching while you’re served the equivalent of thanksgiving dinner by your butler/maids in a safe climate controlled room.

        There comes a point where “philanthropy” simply becomes rich people making games for the poors to win a “prize” and seeing how they react for their own entertainment rather than any sort of benevolence. The lambo example seems pretty much spot on for that.

          • beneeney@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Nah hunger games was to impose fear and prevent a political uprising and revolution. Mr Beast is just the old bloke from squid game lol

      • books@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m indifferent on the guy.

        Glad he’s using his money to do shit that makes some people’s lives better. Strange that he uses it as content… but better than musk hoarding wealth and belittling people on twitter.

        So I guess better than my bellwether for a shitty person.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          Some of these dudes doing this stuff use it as content so that they can come up with more money to do even more. Maaaaybe. I’d like to believe that.

          I’ve only seen like one piece of a Mr Beast video so I can’t say much about him, but I’ve seen a lot of other folks who do that kind of stuff.

          I watch one dude who started off making prank videos. He only got about 5 videos out before someone left a comment telling him to do some silly thing and give a person money. He did that silly thing (I can’t remember what) and then the dude hit him with a story about why that money was going to change his life. Dude cried, then stopped the prank stuff altogether. He went out looking for people to help after that. He’s raised 10s of thousands to get homeless people off the streets, helped people with debt and medical issues, etc.

          His videos weren’t that special before, but he’s ridiculously handsome so I legit believe that’s why people were watching in the first place.

          Now, the cynic in me says, “Well he got a lot of views and that’s the reason for the shift.”

          Still though, he doesn’t do anything mean to anyone. No cruel pranks or anything like that. Even when he was making prank content it was silly and harmless. He’s legitimately changing lives big time and he just kind of fell into it.

          I watch this other dude who is a Christian and he does really good things for people too.

          I don’t know. The system isn’t working or people couldn’t make a living doing shit like this. That bums me out, but I’m happy to see things get better for people.

          • books@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Like I said… I’m super conflicted about shoving a camera in peoples faces while you give them money to help them in dire situations. just so you can get more views…(although, TV has been doing this type of shit for ever, think about the Olympics, every event they have some sob story about the athlete and how they have overcome)

            I think it’s super fucked up, but at the same time, they are helping people. Is it more humiliating to do it this way, or to make someone jump through redtape, bureaucracy and what not to get assistance from the state?

            I watched the Mr. Beast gets people vision video because I’m all for a youtube fixing peoples vision who didn’t have the funds to do it themselves. Like, that shit is literally life changing. I watched the videos, I watched the Ads, I did it all… however his other content, like staying in a circle or putting your hand on a car, that doesn’t appeal to me.

            • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Oh yeah, I’m with you all the way. Just felt the need to butt in and be a part of the conversation.

              Take care bud.

      • Jackthelad@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When people use the argument of “oh, he does a lot of philanthropic work” as a means of defending someone, I just counter it by pointing out that Jimmy Savile did too.

    • BurnedDonutHole@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I usually don’t watch or follow such influencer shit. But couple days back I watched it to see what’s all the fuss is about and his smile gave me chills. I don’t know if anyone paid any attention or if it’s me but his smile looks like something plastered on to his face. Looks so artificial… His smile reminds of the movie American Psycho.

    • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I just can’t stand those annoying ass youtube thumbnails. I only see them when I’m a private browser session (my logged-in suggestions are totally different). But they are so annoying and stupid looking that I never, ever click on them.

      Sadly and clearly that stuff works, though, because MrBeast is the most subscribed-to individual on YouTube.

  • Taako_Tuesday@lemmy.ca
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    Only tangentially related to the issue at hand, but Mr. Beast’s smile terrifies me

    • Chozo@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s because he never smiles with his eyes, at all.

      I don’t watch his content and I’m not familiar with him whatsoever, but every photo I’ve seen of him with that smile just looks like it’s a fake, forced smile. Maybe that’s actually a genuine smile and his face just does that, I don’t know. But yeah, it’s definitely off-putting to me, as well.

        • AppaYipYip@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think he means that when most people genuinely smile, the muscles around their eyes also pull up. However it looks like Mr. Beast is just pulling his lips into a smile and not his full face. This makes it feel like the smile isn’t genuine.

  • Supervivens@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Can someone explain to me how blockchain technology is controversial when there is absolutely no crypto or nft stuff involved? Just seems like pointless drama tbh

    • 1bluepixel@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “Blockchain” is a red flag.

      While the technology in itself is not inherently bad, it has such a limited use case in real life, and has been associated with so many scam projects in the crypto sphere, that it’s an immediate alarm bell about the seriousness of the project.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      I kind of think a “‘Personality-driven’ influencer esports league” was doomed from the start and the blockchain is a convenient scapegoat.

    • dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de
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      Anything that’s done with blockchain can also be done with traditional means with 1/100th the energy cost and 1/10000th the drama.

    • Bythe@lemmy.world
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      It’s pure drama, yes. It’s like blaming SQL databases for glambing websites.

  • LanternEverywhere@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Shitty fucking article. I read and read and read and it kept talking about lots of stuff, but not about what the actual problem was. Downvote this waste of time.

    • FeetiePJs@kbin.social
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      I think the article is fine. It’s just the reality that makes no sense. A bunch of social media celebrities agreed to join an esports league where the celebrities would manage the teams. People could buy a pass for each celebrity that would let them vote on team decisions and give them other benefits. The company selling the passes used blockchain authentication for them. They were also, separately, involved in NFTs. People saw blockchain and NFT and thought “wait a minute, the passes are NFTs? Aren’t NFTs a big scam? These passes are a scam!” Then the celebrities saw the outrage and said “What?! No one told me there would be crypto-blockchain-NFTs!” They then dropped out of the league and it was indefinitely postponed. Unless by “actual problem” you meant something that was meaningful in anyway to anyone not directly involved in this nonsense. In that case, no, there was none of that.

      • Chozo@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        The problem with this is that NFTs, at their core, aren’t inherently a scam. Like, this is actually the ideal use-case for NFTs.

        It’s when people try to make an NFT into an “investment” that it becomes a scam. But for authenticating an event pass? That’s what NFTs were actually designed for. So it’s a little weird seeing one of the first large-scale uses of NFTs for their correct purpose getting hated on by everybody.

        Though, I guess there’s an argument to be made about being against any form of blockchain tech, due to the amount of resources required to maintain it. But I feel like the responses we’re seeing to this are a bit more of the reactionary, “investment scam” sort, which I feel is misplaced anger.

        • deong@lemmy.world
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          But for authenticating an event pass? That’s what NFTs were actually designed for. So it’s a little weird seeing one of the first large-scale uses of NFTs for their correct purpose getting hated on by everybody.

          But this is an event pass for a league…as in, an organized and well-known central agency managing the event. You don’t need a blockchain for this, because you don’t need any decentralization. Just buy the shit from the trusted party who manages that transactional history in a database developed with 60 year old technology with none of the weirdness and problems of blockchains. If you don’t trust the event organizer, then a provable certificate that your pass is legit is worthless, because the event organizer can just decline to accept your pass anyway.

          • Chozo@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Just buy the shit from the trusted party who manages that transactional history in a database developed with 60 year old technology

            I think you just accidentally explained the advantage to NFT passes for this situation. You don’t have to trust them, because the clockchain ledger validates your pass, irrespective of whatever party is managing it.

            • deong@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              But you still need to show up at a gate with a guy in front of it who will either let you in or not let you in. And that guy is a trusted centralized authority. Just have him issue you the pass and be done with it.

              An NFT only certifies that you have an NFT. Nothing certifies that the NFT can be used for any physical purpose. The nature of the physical world is that there’s only one seat 1F at the concert you want to go to. I can sell as many NFTs as I want that all claim to represent the fact that you can sit in seat 1F, and you each have a cryptographically signed proof that that’s exactly what I sold you. You still can’t all sit in one chair, and there’s going to be someone in charge of the venue who decides what happens. And once you have someone in charge of the venue who can decide what happens, just let that person sell the tickets. You all have to trust him anyway.

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    1 year ago

    Our society could literally look like that picture with a completely chromed out city, with flying cars, and glass helices everywhere, but instead we have to watch “influencers” destroy their career in one statement, because they decided to fuck around with something that’s clearly a zoomer ponzi scheme

    • QHC@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Flying cars are the stupidest idea, especially since helicopters have existed the entire time and everyone just refused to accept that fact.

      • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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        I think the point is that they use anti-gravity technology which allows them to be quiet enough to drive around without bothering people and avoids the hurricane effect of rotor blades

    • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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      Honestly when it comes to things preventing us from reaching utopia, I’d say dumb influencers are not even on that list. It’s silly but it hardly affects the average person