I know this is going to sound like some clickbait bullshit title, but I’m genuinely curious, asking in good faith. My two oldest sons are enamored with him, and he seems like a genuine guy, so I’m asking - is he a nice guy? If you google the question, you get a bunch of reddit hate, which I don’t always trust, because…it’s reddit. I have not watched much content (not my thing, I’m old) but I’m just curious what the fediverse has to say.

  • Arotrios@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    Definitely better than Andrew Tate from what I’ve seen. While he’s clearly a very savvy clout chaser, and he’s overtaken Pewdie Pie as the most popular YouTuber, he has made a serious effort towards philanthropic acts. The fact that he’s using these acts as a marketing tool to further increase his influence is clearly intentional, but he’s doing real good with his clout. He’s also shown considerable evolution throughout his career, including:

    In an April 2022 interview with The Daily Beast, Donaldson announced that he was no longer an evangelical Christian and identified himself as an agnostic. He also stated that he had long disagreed with his church’s position on homosexuality. He states that during the time he grew up in “the heart of the Bible Belt”, he had religion “beat into [his] head every day”, and was taught that “gay people are the reason God’s going to come and burn this Earth”. Although he considered anti-LGBT rhetoric to be normal growing up, he has disavowed it since then, stating: “I realized, ‘Oh, this isn’t normal. This is just a weird place I grew up in.’ So, that type of thing, I [wish I could] go back in time and be like, ‘Hey, stop’.”

    Donaldson considers himself strictly apolitical, saying that “I don’t want to alienate Republicans and Democrats. … I like having it where everyone can support [my] charity. My goal is to feed hundreds of millions of people … it would be very silly of me to alienate basically half of America.”

    …and…

    In April 2023, Chris Tyson came out publicly as gender non-conforming and revealed their struggles with gender dysphoria. In response to claims that they would become a “nightmare” and distraction for the channel, Donaldson defended Tyson and said, “Chris isn’t my ‘nightmare’ he’s my fucken [sic] friend and things are fine. All this transphobia is starting to piss me off.”

    This isn’t to say he’s perfect, but he’s a helluva lot better than some other personalities your kids could be listening too.

    • Kichae@kbin.social
      01·
      1 year ago

      he has made a serious effort towards philanthropic acts

      Ehhhh. He engages in a mix of pity porn and charity-as-self-promotion/criticism shield. Never trust a wealthy person’s donations when they have their name attached to them; there’s always a reasonable chance that they came with strings. Doubly so when those donations are to charities they actively control.

      I can appreciate that he’s funnelled his money into things people actually need, instead of into grants so charities can buy supplies from tech companies he’s invested in, but it’s still PR, not philanthropy.