MrBeast comes under fire once again, this time about his thumbnails, which do not include black people for whatever reason, which is claimed to be for more engagement.
Popular and charitable YouTuber MrBeast, who has the most subscribers on the YouTube platform, is receiving criticism after rumors that the thumbnail images of his videos have fewer black people in them for engagement reasons came to light.
The drama started when an X user, formerly known as Twitter’s @morchel, shared a video titled “Thumbnail Progression of @MrBeast’s Recent Video.”
Thumbnail Progression of @MrBeast's Recent Video pic.twitter.com/onwZXwd2LX
— viewstats (@viewstats) April 26, 2024
The video clip discussed how MrBeast’s channel thumbnails were changing, and @morchel wondered if the drop in Black representation was an attempt to appease the algorithm. “Does anyone else find it weird that MrBeast reduces the number of Black people in his thumbnails to optimize engagement?” She attempted to blend in.
Does anyone else find it weird that MrBeast reduces with the amount of black people in his thumbnails to optimise engagement? https://t.co/CtC18KTCen pic.twitter.com/lMytaIYkrc
— Morchel (@morchel) September 28, 2024
The post triggered a discourse, with some dismissing the claim as groundless while others expressed concerns about the race factor on YouTube. Later, @morchel mentioned that it was not MrBeast who was being accused of racism but rather the fact that thumbnail images were observed to change age, sex, and race for engagement purposes, which was rather disturbing. Moreover, they also speculated that generative fills offered by AI tools like Photoshop may have been used in some of these pictures.
Just adding to this as an explanation:
— Morchel (@morchel) September 29, 2024
- I'm not saying he's racist, unlikely anyone in his team is. It's just soulless to me that they are changing people's gender, ethnicity and age to fuel an algorithm
- They absolutely use AI to generate parts of these images. Likely the… pic.twitter.com/1YsJrFssdI
