MrBeast, 'Landman,' Cord Jefferson, and Not Quitting Facebook

The Moral High Ground Is Very Windy

Last week, Mark Zuckerberg made several changes to Meta to align with the goals of the incoming administration and not only visited Mar-a-lago for a second time but sat down for three hours with Joe Rogan.

I also wrote about how difficult it is for many people to quit Meta because its ecosystem is so deeply embedded into their daily lives. I read a lot of comments on that piece, and while a few announced that they'd quit Meta last week in response to the changes (or a year ago or three years ago in response to other issues), there were a lot more who confessed that it's too integral to their jobs, social lives, and communities to be able to step away. I came away from that thinking that people using the platform of an evil billionaire should not be punished because of his actions.

Then I read this Instagram post from Cord Jefferson, one of the best writers in business: He wrote a lot of Watchmen, and Station 11, and he wrote Jeffrey Wright's American Fiction. I also like him because he started his career in the blog mines writing for a site I used to like a lot, Mollygood.

It is such a good explanation for why he quit Instagram. "I don’t need Instagram to be a haven for free speech for the same reason I don’t need a Jamba Juice or a Hooters to be a haven for free speech, "he wrote. "I thought this place was for looking at memes and hot people, and seeing pictures of big sandwiches your friends ate. I was unaware that there were so many losers who felt denied something because a photo-sharing app banned their ability to insult protected classes of people."

"Yes," I thought. "YES! All of this!" I was also seconds away from deleting all the site's Meta accounts. Facebook used to provide around 30 percent of our daily traffic, but because Facebook stopped promoting news and outside links, that is down to around one-half of one percent these days. Monthly Facebook traffic pays for one freelance piece per month. The site would lose very little by deleting our accounts. We stopped using X early last year, and it cost us nothing.

But then I watched the season finale of Landman, that Taylor Sheridan series based on the Boomtown podcast starring Billy Bob Thornton. Thornton grew up around 30 miles from me (in fact, Sling Blade is filmed in my hometown), and he sad this to a self-righteous lawyer working for an oil company but who still fancies herself an environmentalist after she complained about having to negotiate some contract that went against her beliefs:

"Well, there is an alternative. You can throw your phone away and trade in that Mercedes for a bicycle or a horse and start hunting for your own food and living in a tent. But you'll be the only one, and it won't make a damn bit of difference. Plus, I hear that the moral high ground gets real windy at night.”

Not exactly words of wisdom, and part of me is like, "F*** you, Taylor Sheridan." But I guess hearing that in my own accent registered with me in some kind of way. Twenty goddamn years of the moral high ground, and look where it's got us? A lot of windy nights.

After that, I had dinner with my son and a few of his dungeons and dragons friends. They're a bunch of dorky progressive kinds who I kind of adore -- they're bi, straight, trans teenagers, some of who have gone through some real shit, all of which is grist for the comedy mill (My kid's cancer, for instance, is a running joke among them). I asked them what they'd heard about the changes that Zuck had made over on Meta, and they said they had, and I asked them if they'd considered quitting or boycotting and they were like, "No, why would we? We just use it for memes and funny videos. And if a few people aren't shitting on you, you're probably not doing it right."

That felt like a reasonably healthy relationship. They hate Zuckerberg and they don't like its policies -- many of which make the platform less safe for them -- but they're not going to let that stop them from using a free service to entertain themselves and connect with their friends.

Coincidentally, soon after dinner with my kid's friends, I watched a video MrBeast put out this week where he paid for 2,000 prosthetic legs.

I've watched the MrBeast game show, and it is shitty, cruel, and dystopian, and intensely watchable, and I hate it. We have also written about “the lie of celebrity philanthropy," and how obscenely wealthy MrBeast has become by exploiting the suffering of others for #content.

But also he just gave 2,000 prosthetic legs to people who couldn't afford them, both in the United States and abroad. And he even made, at the end of the video, the closest thing he's ever made to a political statement:

My son and his friend used to have this long-running joke where they'd rush home after school, run straight to the television, and loudly proclaim, "We have to save the world! We have to watch a MrBeast video! It's the only way humanity will survive!" They were being facetious, of course, and they'd proceed to spend 20 minutes dunking on a MrBeast video, but also, in doing so, they helped pay for those 2,000 prosthetic legs and eye surgeries and whatever the hell else that man has done to fill in the gaps in America's shitty healthcare system.

Do I wish the American health system did not create gaps that billionaires could exploit for content? Do I wish that MrBeast would quit X and maybe not make shitty Lunchables alternatives? Yes, but also, it's very windy on this moral high ground, and I would never take away the prosthetic leg or reverse the eye surgery of someone who could not afford it.

All of which is to say: Maybe I'm entering my nihilism stage. Or maybe I'm just finally recognizing that perfect is the enemy of good. Maybe it's OK to loudly and vocally criticize the evil policies of a platform while still using it to our own financial or social benefit. Maybe it's OK to dunk on MrBeast while still acknowledging the good a college dropout who first gained his fame by counting to 100,000 on video has done for thousands of people who would not otherwise be able to walk or talk or hear.

Maybe this isn’t nihilism; maybe it’s pragmatism. The world is messy, and our choices are rarely pure. But if using flawed platforms helps us stay connected or watching a creator helps fund life-changing medical care, maybe that’s worth it. We can hold Zuckerberg accountable, criticize MrBeast, and still acknowledge that these imperfect, sometimes evil systems occasionally deliver meaningful good. The moral high ground might be windy (and exhausting), but it doesn’t mean we have to abandon it entirely. Maybe it’s about finding balance -- leveraging what’s useful while never losing sight of and advocating for what needs to change.

Finally: There is an effort underway to create a new, viable alternative to Meta and Twitter called Free Our Feeds. It is spearheaded by, among others, Cory Doctorow and Mark Ruffalo. They’re currently seeking donations.

(See Also: Wonkette’s What If We DIDN'T Purity-Test Left/Liberal Media Out Of Existence Now Of All F*cking Times)