He’s incredibly popular, we’re just not his target audience.
Having teenage kids certainly helps. I’ve bought a few Mr. Beast candybars.
Take as long as you need, but we’re not going to wait for you.
How much gray hair do you have, assuming you still have hair? Going off your username, I think I can guess the answer. I have my hair, but it hasn’t had pigment for a long time. 
I heard of him when he paid for surgery for a bunch of blind people, and the religious right were coming up with reasons why “curing the sick” was actually satanic.
Because the fracturing of mass media has meant there is no consensus culture any more and you can have people who are incredibly famous in one niche not even make a dent in another. All of us are in filter bubbles of people with similar interests and temperaments to us so it makes everyone feel like their interests are shared by many when in reality we all exist in our own niches.
Like, I’ll bet that of the most viewed Youtube channels even avid Youtubers wouldn’t be familiar with over 80% of them as they’re primarily foreign, for kids or music channels.
The second most popular scripted series in 2023 but also for a number of years running is Blue Bloods but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a discussion of Blue Bloods on the SDMB and I wager the number of ardent fans on this board are in the double digits at most.
There was a poll last month where the majority of Americans were skeptical that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination because the average person is still extremely checked out of politics at this point which you wouldn’t know if you read any political coverage because all of your friends are likely to be reading the same political coverage.
Meanwhile, darling shows like Succession, White Lotus, Mad Men, Breaking Bad etc. were seen by absolutely tiny numbers of people but they’re the type of people who people on this board tend to hang out with so they seem to dominate the cultural landscape in comparison.
Very interesting insight, and I’m sure you are correct. There is no more “stand around the water cooler and discuss what was on the three channels last night”.
By the time they got to the last episode of Breaking Bad, more than 10 million people watched it, putting that ahead of any Blue Bloods episode. On top of that, it’s been streaming for more than a decade since it ended, and just based on my friend circles I suspect that number has easily more than doubled.
Season 12 was the first season of Blue Bloods with an average viewers below 10M but I take your point, Breaking Bad actually had decent ratings for its time. I had a mental list of shows with huge critical coverage but tiny viewership and I mistakenly thought BB was on that list but I must have been thinking of a different show.
I’m proud to say that I’d never heard of MrBeast until Bill Maher mentioned him just in passing a couple of weeks ago (and all I know now is “it’s some guy on YouTube”) and I still don’t know who or what a “PewDiePie” is but I feel quite confident that not knowing is not impacting my quality of life in the slightest.
I read webcomics and I can’t be arsed to obtain an adblocker. Therefore, I know that some clickbait entrepreneurs seem to think teasing me with hints that something tragic happened to PewDiePie’s girlfriend will persuade me to click on their shit.
(Narrator: It won’t)
The less you know about the stuff kids these days are into, the better off you are. Now if they would just stay the hell off my damn front lawn.
And yes, the first time I heard about PewDiePie (and let me tell you how scary it is that spell check knows to autocorrect pewdiepie with the proper capitalization) was when he was in some controversy or the other. He’s used the gamer word* and pulled antisemitic stunts, but I’ve tried to have as little knowledge of him as possible.
*That’s what the kids these days call using the n-word while streaming. Or at least that’s my boomer understanding of it. And apparently, we’re all boomers, it no longer has anything to do with the baby boomers.
OK, this is the name I’ve known for a long time without really knowing anything, and this whole time I assumed it was like a 12-year-old girl.
Back to the Master of Xitter himself: His Tesla investors are getting skittish: (WashPost gift article)
In an earnings call this week, CEO Elon Musk failed to allay concerns over falling demand and persistent price cuts
Tesla shares plummeted more than 10 percent Thursday, wiping billions off the company’s valuation after CEO Elon Musk failed to allay concerns about stagnating growth and persistent price cuts on the company’s earnings call.
I watched the Mr. Beast car video. He’s definitely for the younger crowd. Hyperkinetic, lots of yelling and screaming (“This is AWESOME!!!”), lots of people running around, lots of camera zooms, smash cuts… every second of his videos are filled with motion and sound to hold the attention of young people who grew up in a world of constant distraction and low attention soans.
It’s pretty tiresome. But he’s raking in millions.
As for Tesla, it’s a victim of the general slowdown in EV sales. Tesla is still mking a profit on every vehicle, unlike the other auto makers. But there is intense pressure coming from China. No American automaker, including Tesla, can match the prices of Chinese EV makers. Tariffs are the only thing saving them. Also, Musk’s threat to take AI development out of the compamy has got to worry investors.
I started having grey hair at about 30. But then I got the bald spot around 40. Then I got the dreaded island around 45. Now I just shave it. I’m 50.
OldOlds is actually a reference to Old Oldsmobile. When I created that username I was 30. Not only did I have my hair, I was 6 foot 160 lbs. Now, well, I’m still 6 foot, but I’m more like 190 lbs.
When I was in third grade (1982?) I used to stop by my grandmother’s house on the walk home from school. She’d give me all the hard boiled eggs and pickles I could eat. We would watch Lawrence Welk on her 13 inch TV. I hated Lawrence Welk, but I loved the pickles and eggs.
Good fucking lord I’m old, aren’t I?
Wonderful wonderful WONDERFUL story!
I’m 53 and hated it when my mom wanted to watch Lawrence Welk. With one TV in the house, she won.
Omigod, I’m twenty years older than OldieOlds! Though I do drive an Olds (stole it from my mom, it was the only way to stop her driving).
As I’m merely pushing 40 I represent the youth contingent of the SDMB and I can assure you that you’re all much better off not knowing what MrBeast or PewDiePie or Skibidi Toilet are.