In an era filled with negativity, it’s nice to see something that delivers something positive. That’s what YouTuber MrBeast does impressively well.
A pizza delivery guy no doubt thought we was simply making another delivery. Little did he know that one of the customers he was delivering to would change his life forever. After delivering the pepperoni pizza, he was informed that he would be paid a few thousand dollars to help move furniture. The premise is, of course, that someone recently got laid off and they are surprising that person with a house. As a matter of fact, the laid off person was a fabrication and the house was going to be given to the pizza delivery guy for free. So, the delivery guy unknowingly found himself furnishing his own house.
Covertly, the team helping MrBeast was covertly gathering intel during the entire process. Elements of his life would spill out throughout the process. He has a 3 year old daughter and his living conditions are not the greatest. He’s renting out of a basement suite. Part way through, the delivery guys manager was called in an effort to gather additional information.
When the manager found out, he drove himself to the shoot to see for his own eyes what was happening. As it turns out, the delivery guy doesn’t have the greatest landlord, he is bouncing from job to job in an attempt to make ends meet. Even while talking to MrBeast about the delivery guy’s situation, he struggled to hold back tears of joy for how much the delivery guys life was about to change.
If something like this sounds too good to be true, you can see the video for yourself:
This kind of stunt isn’t the only one either. In another video, MrBeast went to a car dealership, bought all the cars, and gave them away for, at most, a few dollars each:
In a more recent video, MrBeast offered people his credit card. The idea is that there is a limit on the credit card, so if they go over the limit, they can’t keep anything. Unbeknownst to the incredibly lucky people, there is no limit and anything they pick out at the store they happen to be in is theirs.
Then there is the time he donated $100,000 to streamers with no viewers:
Of course, some of these are a little old now, and you might be asking what someone like that has done more recently. Apparently, his goals became more ambitious after. In a recent project, he agreed to plant 20 million trees after he managed to obtain 20 million subscribers. He called it Team Trees and he asked people to donate money to help fund this project:
Working with other influencers on YouTube, he ultimately made his goal happen:
There are a lot of different takeaways one can get. MrBeast himself remarked how the Millennial generation is criticized for being a generation that simply goes on Twitter and Facebook without really accomplishing much. Especially with the 20 million tree project, he’s showing that people like him are making a real difference in the world.
One of the things we here at Freezenet see all the time is the media portraying the Internet as this awful and dangerous place. Stories like Uber drivers getting assaulted, AirBnB tenants causing murders, stupid trends and “challenges” causing serious harm (i.e. Tide Pod challenge) to people, fake news permeating social media, video games somehow radicalizing people to commit murder (still no link, but the media loves to play that up anyway) and crimes being posted on YouTube often hit the airwaves which has us online people asking “Are the reporters the only ones that know this is happening?” When positive stuff happens, it’s either brushed off as a one-off or gets forgotten completely. Just because you rarely, if ever, see it, it doesn’t mean it never actually happens. This is a great example of how positivity is happening online as well.
MrBeast is, of course, not the only source for positivity either. Another great example is Games Done Quick. That is where speedrunners from around the world gather to show off their talents to a live audience. In the process, they raise money from the audience for charity such as charitable organizations devoted to fighting Cancer.
Another interesting one is the Humble Indie Bundle by Wolfire. They offered a pay what you want offer for bundles of video games. People could choose to buy it and have the money directed to the producers of the games or to charity such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child’s Play. Millions were raised in those events as well.
For me, this is the kind of Internet I know. People creating things and having a positive impact in this world. It really makes people like me smile seeing that familiar face of the Internet again.
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Facebook.
