In the case of MrBeast it's not even really reputation laundering, he's just an algorithm goblin who iterated through different shticks until landing on giveaways and contests as the things which consistently brought in the most clicks. I don't think he was even that rich when he started doing them, as far as I can tell his first ever prize was just two $50 iTunes gift cards while still recording in his bedroom, and after that it wasn't long until nearly all of his content revolved around giveaways.

The whole operation is optimized to the gills for maximum engagement above all else, down to A/B testing a hundred different thumbnail variants for every video: https://x.com/Creator_Toolbox/status/1783995589543227402

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asib 21 hours ago | parent [-]

> down to A/B testing a hundred different thumbnail variants for every video

To be fair, this is apparently table stakes for being a YouTuber at the moment. Maybe not hundreds but definitely several. Veritasium did a video [0] about how he has to do this to maintain enough viewership to keep YouTubing viable as a full-time job.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng

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magicalhippo 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It makes sense though. Or to put it another way, it seems odd to expect that there's always a global thumbnail optimum for a given YouTube video.

So to bring in the most views, put out different thumbnails to attract different viewers. Ideally YouTube would have support for this where you can just upload a dozen thumbnails or so, and YouTube figure out who needs to see which.

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pests 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Eh, Veritasium is now majority owned by PE now (Electrify). This is why they’ve been introducing new hosts and Derek is doing more intros / voiceovers - the end goal removing reliance on the original channel owner.

So does he need to do it to remain profitable or does PE need to do it to pay for all their overhead / etc?

	▲	asib 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ah interesting, didn't know that. The video is at least 4 years old, so suppose it depends on when Derek sold. Anecdotally, I think all the new hosts came after that thumbnail video, but I couldn't say how closely the changes you mention followed. In general, it seems this is a thing that YouTubers feel they need to do to avoid being swallowed, but the extent to which MrBeast does it could well be extreme, and thereby worthy of suspicion.