Charities accuse MrBeast of using struggling orphanage for garnering views on YouTube: 'Exploiting children for profit'
GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA: MrBeast, whose actual name is Jimmy Donaldson, has been charged with using an underfunded orphanage in South Africa to increase views on his YouTube channel.
The YouTuber recently posted a video about the Baphumelele orphanage in Cape Town that claims about having to rebuild it.
The richest YouTuber in the world has received criticism for how he has increased views on his well-liked YouTube channel despite his enormous fame online.
Charities unhappy with MrBeast’s decision
MrBeast invested millions of dollars in filming the orphanage's reconstruction, and days after uploading the video, it received well over 15 million views.
Although he claimed to have noble intentions, it is said that MrBeast disregarded requests from several relief organizations to halt his "philanthropic stunt" because of worries that orphanages served as havens for "violence, abuse, and neglect".
Hope and Homes for Children's Lourenza Foghill claimed that MrBeast made the decision to "completely ignore" those voices despite the organization getting in touch with him in March, just after he posted a video pleading for support for his orphanage project.
“MrBeast is denying the so-called ‘orphans’ from Baphumele their right to grow up in a family,” Foghill told British publication the 'Daily Mail' recently.
After MrBeast's video pleading for contributions to rescue the Baphumelele orphanage attracted 15 million views, some charities, including Hope and Homes and the JK Rowling-led Lumos Foundation, wrote to the team in March to make the point.
Mama Rosie's orphanage may have seemed to have the best of intentions, but not all such organizations are as well-intentioned, according to a statement from Lumos.
They said in a statement, “Many orphanages across the world are set up to exploit children for profit, exposing children to harm and abuse. By promoting orphanages, even well-intentioned ones, we promote the work of those that are not, continuing the cycle of exploitation.”
“We do not believe that anyone in the video has bad intentions, including Mama Rosie and MrBeast. But if we are going to support children in the best way possible, we need to move away from promoting the orphanage system and start supporting families with community-based care, so that their children can remain where they belong,” the statement further read.
MrBeast's fans react to the video
However, fans seemed to differ and poured in with warm regards for the Youtuber in the comment section of the video. A fan wrote, “Jimmy went from giving 10 thousand dollars to a homeless man to adopting a whole orphanage. I LOVE THIS MAN”.
Another fan writer, “Jimmy has just changed so many people's lives for the better that's so heartwarming,” while another added, “As a musician myself (self-taught) giving the kid the chance to hone his talent hits home. And those kids will have a better life is so beautiful to see. Hoping that this channel reach a 100 mil subs too”.
Astonishingly, MrBeast has established a net worth of over $500 million, partly because of the extravagant acts in which he bestows expensive presents on unaware members of the public.
