Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Are kindness influencers bad?

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Because it's a holiday week I'm re-running one of my favorite episodes from last year. I spoke to content creator Brad Podray‬ about the problem with “Kindness Influencers” and whether charity for content is ethical. We talk MrBeast, viral giveaways, and the difference between actual kindness vs kindness for the camera. ***** Buy a subscription to my Tech and Online Culture newsletter, User Magazine to support my work!!!! 🙏 https://www.usermag.co ***** Subscribe to my newsletter: ⁠⁠https://www.usermag.co⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz https://www.instagram.com/taylorlorenz3.0 https://www.tiktok.com/@taylorlorenzhttps://bsky.app/profile/taylorlorenz.bsky.social

And I think with TikTok came the concept of approaching homeless people with hidden cameras. That's when it started to go from true stories of kindness and true stories of potential charity to now tricks. You might have seen these videos on social media. A person is down on their luck and approached by a stranger, a content creator who surprises them with a random act of kindness. Maybe it's a hug, a warm meal. Sometimes it's even a huge wad of cash. We want to give you 500 bucks. What?

Are you serious? Because you're having a band-game, man. Guess what? There's $1,000 in there for you. I'm serious, man. God knew you were going to be here today and let me right to you, brother. For you?

A thousand cash. Come over here, man. I love you, bro. Man, I need the cash. We see the subject's emotional reaction and our faith in humanity is restored. Or is it? That vulnerable stranger probably didn't wake up that morning

thinking that their tears would be plastered all over the internet. And obviously, behind the camera is a content creator, thirsty for views and likely making a whole lot more money off that video than what they just gave away. These creators are sometimes called kindness influencers. And my guest, Scumbag Dad, also known as Brad Podry, is an expert on them. He's a musician and he creates TikTok videos expertly parroting the whole genre. Hi, Brad. Welcome to Power User. Hi, Taylor.

Thanks so much for having me on. I do make fun of kindness creators a lot on TikTok. It's basically one of my standard staples. You know what? I've got something for you because you were kind. I'm blessing people. Here's it that way. Where you going?

We're going to go viral for sure. This is amazing. Kindness footage. Wait, did you film me and my daughter? So first of all, for people that don't know and I don't know, have been blessed to never see these videos, what is a kindness influencer? Talk about what these look like. I would say that a kindness influencer is someone whose content is almost entirely dependent on

perceived acts. of kindness towards strangers, whether it be giving a stranger flowers or giving a stranger money for whatever reason. That's how I define a kindness influencer. They generally have one of three different sad songs playing, and then someone either pretending to approach a stranger or actually approaching a stranger

with some spontaneous act of kindness, such as giving them a flower, asking if they've had a bad day, and if they've had a bad day, rewarding them with a wad of cash or asking them if they've celebrated their birthday recently and if they haven't they all of a sudden throw a little party this kind of content also comes in another form where the influencer will pretend to have a disability or pretend to have some sort of problem and some a kind stranger will help them out do you have like two dollars to get

this bread it's for my son i left my wallet at home oh i'm sorry there's four thank you sir isn't you guys are kind to me and i have something for you donna you got to open this Oh, my God. 500 bucks. Oh, my God. Yeah. I guess let's name some names. What content creators are most emblematic of this genre of content?

I would say MD Motivator on TikTok is probably the most egregious. Jimmy Darts is another one. There's a guy named Bond Gives, who's another one. On sort of the pretend scenario bit, there's a gentleman named Saul Preeto, who's done a lot of, like, viral videos where he pretends to have a disability. and I find those really stupid. Off the top of my head, those are some of the folks that I've made fun of, you know, kind of over and over and over again

to try and sort of show the audience that, like, their content may not be as authentic or as kind as the audience may think. Yeah. What unleashed all of this on the internet? Where did this begin? I think some people blame Mr. Beast, but to me it also feels like a very TikTok phenomenon.

Where would you sort of pinpoint the beginning of all of this? I would say that the beginning of all this was the seminal Mr. Beast giving out $10,000 video. Yeah. Well, I'm a YouTuber. I mean, you can see the camera. And so I'm just, it's a series where I just, you know, be nice and just give people some help.

So if you want to take it, it's about $10,000. And that video is unique because his intentions were completely honest. They were completely upfront. He tells the man there's a camera. Like, there are sort of moral problems with using, a random homeless person, right? But in the defense of that Minister of Beast video, there was no deceit, there was no lying to the subject, there was no deception of the audience. So seeing how many hits he could get from that, even though his intentions were pure, we have people with far less talent

and far less creativity sort of bastardizing that idea. And I think with TikTok came the concept of approaching homeless people with hidden cameras. I think that's when it started to go from true stories of kindness and true stories of potential charity to now tricks. If you approach someone in a Walmart with a camera straight up front, they do not want anything to do with you. I would challenge so many people to try this. Walk up to someone, say, hey, would you like to be in a TikTok video? No, no, no, disabled, old, homeless, poor people.

You ask them straight up front, you want to be in my TikTok? They're going to say no, right? So that's very important to understand. When you introduce the idea of a hidden cell phone or body camera, when you introduce the idea of deceiving them right up front, you now get something really unique. You can get performances that are not actually performances. You can get their true reaction to the money. So what TikTok did is it allowed people with limited creativity and limited means to enter the field of kindness content with. essentially no investment and utilize poor people as actors who didn't necessarily want to be.

I think that's just such a key part because I think part of it is just the lower barrier to entry and people looking for the cheap TikTok engagement. And like you said, it's so much easier to like create this content for TikTok. And it's very difficult to understand this unless you've actually tried it to understand how much people hate being on camera. And I've said this on other podcasts like I've been filming with groups, you know, in a public place, or a park in a mall. And someone not even close to us will be like, hey, you're not getting me, are you?

I'm not on camera. I'm like, no, miss, we're actually shooting the other direction. Like, people don't want it. And you remove their agency by introducing the camera. By introducing the hidden camera, you remove that element of choice. And if that video gets posted and goes viral, and a homeless person speaks out against it, says they were exploited, says they don't like how they were portrayed,

well, they either get shouted down or completely ignored, because they don't have a platform. Yes. You know, and I've seen it happen where they're like, well, screw you, you got $1,000. I would have to have $1,000 for being in a video. Those folks aren't understanding that that video was work that they didn't agree to do. Exactly. You know, I've made fun of this concept 100,000 times, and some of the videos have gone viral,

but still for the fans of this type of content, it's very difficult for us to get it through their head. Anytime there's a sort of critique of this genre, you get these. people online saying, you know, well, what is the harm? If a person is desperate and living on the street and, you know, someone, sure, they are filming without their consent, but they get $500 or $1,000, isn't that a win for them? You know, these are desperate, sad people. Can you kind of dismantle that? Yeah, of course. When somebody says this must be a win for them, they're not understanding how this can dramatically affect an individual's life. They think it's a win-win. But that's because they never see the other side. They never see the person who goes against the influencer,

who's embarrassed by it, who never wanted to be a part of that, who experiences a lot of stress and pain. Just because you, sitting in your college dorm, think you'd love to get the $500, it's important to know that they're not targeting you. They're specifically going after a compromised person. Soup kitchens and, you know, shelters do not allow filming on premises because they want to protect the dignity of the people there. A great example is I called out an influencer for doing a very stupid giveaway. He surprised a woman on the street and she had a physical deformity. And he just gave her money.

Nothing about the woman, not even her name, not about her condition. It was just, look at me, I'm giving money. And I made a call out video. And this person got in touch, right? Which is very rare. It's very rare to find these folks because usually we don't want any. Actually, yeah, I can't. It's so hard to get in touch with these people.

It's hard to get in touch with them because the kindness influences, they seek out people with, like, limited social media knowledge. That's why they go after compromised populations, veterans, old people, the homeless. Even if they feel bad about what's happened, what are they going to do? They don't have a TikTok account. They don't have any way to reach out or sort of hit them back. So anyways, I made this video. And the subject's friend got in touch.

And she's like, I know that person. She's a very sweet lady. You want to talk with her. I'm like, I would love to talk with her. And I did talk to this person. And at first, she was a little bit defensive. She was like, what are you trying to get out of this? And I was like, look, I'm trying to gain understanding.

If you walked away from the situation happy, and I'm wrong, then it's going to affect the way I make fun of kindness people. Like, I'm sort of very emotionally invested in this. And what I learned from this person was that everything I thought was right. She did not know she was going to be posted. They did not do any follow up. And she was embarrassed by the situation. The unfortunate part is that when I asked her, look, can I do a follow-up video sort of proving this? I know you don't want any more attention online.

Like, I get it. You know, she already was upset that two people have made videos without her consent. One, the first guy who put her there, and then me, the second guy, who was like, this is wrong. But she didn't want any more smoke. So I said, could I make another video showing how upset you were? And she said no. And that was it. I dropped it.

And that's happened multiple times. Yeah. Because I'm in this unique position of being like one of the one of the other. of the bigger creators who actively goes against these guys constantly, on the few times that have actually been in touch with disappointed subjects, they say, you know what, I appreciate you're reaching out, I hated it, whatever, I got money, it wasn't worth it. I wish I walked away, but I don't want any more. Like, I don't want any more attention. And the subtext also of all of these videos is very much like, you should be grateful, right? These people should be so grateful

that this TikTokers showed up and helped them. Exactly. I feel like so many fans of these kindless influencers have this parisocial bond with the content creator. And they almost feel like they're, they're themselves doing kindness by participating in this video. You see a lot of these kindness people say, like, you know, like, you know, like and subscribe or follow this video or share this, you know, so that I can do more, so that I can spread more good in the world. Can you talk about sort of the way that people kind of view this almost as its own form

of activism? A lot of folks don't want to get involved with their communities. They're too busy or. you know, whatever reason. But by liking, commenting, and subscribing to these guys, they can say, like, okay, well, my contribution helps them because I follow them, because I promote this content. I can encourage more of this thing into the world. That is what they think they're doing. But then when I point out people who use it badly, they're like, well, this is an isolated incident. They're not isolated incidents. This is happening

all the time. It's just not getting any publicity. You know, a good example is, when an influencer named Keenham Bank lied about how many tacos he was giving. Can I get a thousand tacos? A thousand tacos. Can I get a thousand egg McMuffins? A thousand egg McMuffins? How much for a thousand buddy burgers?

And then people started to notice that he's, there's no way he was buying that many. And, you know, a couple people called him out. He had to make an apology. Hey guys, so I just wanna say that I did not buy a thousand burgers. So I essentially was just trying to add clickbait to those videos. Honestly, I made a mistake and I shouldn't have done it.

But the crazy part is that the fans are like, well, at least he's doing something. Another big issue with what these people do is that they don't, and I know Mr. Beast has been called out for this as well, but these people don't advocate for systemic change. It's so individualistic, I guess. And it feels very limiting in that way, too. I mean, like Mr. Beast finally after, I think curing a thousand people's whinesis or whatever he did was like, yeah, well, you know, like the government or someone should. pay for health care right and it's like exactly in the defense of mr beast i will say that mr beast never says he's a charity or at least if he true he does have his charity but you're right charity but his main channel in in mr beast's defense is yes mr beast's videos are almost always about

the ostentatiousness of the giveaway the amount of money yes take your don't take your hand off this car and you get it it's almost and i could be wrong i haven't seen all this content but even in the thousand people blindness video, he didn't centrally focus on like one person getting their situation cured. It was about him and the ostentatiousness of the giveaway rather than turning it into a pity party for any one specific person. I kind of agree, but he does explore. I mean, people came out afterwards and said, you know, this is kind of frustrating. And I think, look, I agree with you, Mr. Beast of all of these people is significantly more ethical. Also, just to the point that every single person in his videos are signing a release form, they know what's going on, they're opting in.

And, you know, no hate to that. I think it's the trickle down effect like you're talking about where people are seeing this. And look, Mr. Beast does not speak out about these systemic, he's not getting involved in political issues, right? It's all about these stunts and things. But I do think people in these local communities, I mean, I'm thinking of some of these people that wait outside the, you know, the shelters or the grocery store, right? Like, they're not working with local organizations on the ground that are actually involved in helping these people on a day-to-day basis. Correct.

And I think the Mr. Beast effect is very interesting to dissect because a lot of these guys will sort of when backed into a corner sort of argumentatively or when their fans are backed into a corner, they'll say, well, Mr. Beast does the same thing. And I reply like, no, Mr. Beast is a game show. You could sort of wax poetic about all of Mr. Beast's moral issue. But at the end of the day, the Mr. the Mr. Beast channel is a game show. He does things that have nothing to do with homeless people

on his main channel. You know, I'm gonna put money in this box and fire tanks at it. That has nothing to do with giving. Whereas the guys I'm specifically targeting, they are dependent on it. The point of the videos is to just use authentic, poor, and disadvantaged people in videos

and then use the money giveaway as a shield. In one of your videos, I think you said that a lot of creators are scared to call this out because they might lose sponsorships or comment under fire. Why don't you think more other content creators kind of speak out against this genre of content? I personally think most content creators don't speak out against it because they don't want the heat. They understand that this stuff is extremely sponsor-friendly, extremely viral. They don't want to seem like they dislike homeless people and their income

is more dependent on their social media profiles than mine is. I have another career that is fine. Like, if all this stuff fails, like, I'll still have, like, a pretty good lifestyle for my wife and kid and I. So I feel like they're in more sensitive positions. And also, I feel like their experience with this type of thing isn't as vast as mine is. So, like, you know, the random comic, the odds of him or her working with a compromised population at some point in their life are fairly low. Whereas through my dental career, I've gone through school and worked with, you know, low-income communities. Even now, I accept mostly Medicaid at my practice. I did volunteering with a low-income dental clinic throughout high school.

And so I've had more experience with disadvantaged populations than I think the average TikToker. And at the same time, I've actually one sort of key moment for me, and I've talked about this before, but I used an authentic homeless person for a piece of content two years ago. This was when I was starting to make fun of these guys, but I wasn't really aware of, like, all the ethics. ethical implications. And my joke was that I bought him sandwiches. I gave him like 80 bucks. And I met with him twice. And I said, hey, we're going to make fun of these guys. I'm going to hand you food and you're going to hand me a coupon that says this is good for a million likes, which was like a fairly simple joke, not nearly as subversive as what I do now. But I made the video and I was a much smaller TikToker.

The video got like 30,000 hits in the first hour. It was going great. And I showed it to him. And to my absolute shock, he got super mad. He was like, this isn't funny. I don't like, I'll take it down. I'll take it down. And I realized something. I realized he didn't care about the money, even though I told him everything we were doing

and showed him the results afterwards. That didn't mean he has the obligation to be thankful for it. He loathed the fact that tens of thousands of people already saw him in a compromised state. And that broke me. That was probably the moment where I'm like, oh, man, how many of these other subjects are offended, taken advantage of? At the end of the day, it's about consent, right? And these people didn't consent to what, you know, being on these TikTok channels, often they don't even, you know, realize.

And then also, it's, as you said, it's this, like, view of yourself. You know, we all know that, like, what is on the internet lives forever. And these are people in compromised situations often. I feel like none of us would want a video of ourselves down on our luck or crying or in a bad position. And I don't know that there's that much money in the world that really makes that worth it because it really messes with your sense of self, right? When the veil is lifted, and some of these guys have sort of let the veil crack a couple of times, but it's rare. Those are the dumber ones. Jimmy Darts, M.D. Motivators, sort of the bigger guys, they're smart enough to know not to engage with me on any sort of natural level.

They know they're winning this fight, right? Which is true. I'm essentially an old man ranting at the clouds. But a couple of them have gotten weird and like made Instagram stories. One of them even challenged me to a boxing match, which is very stupid. Why did everything always ends in boxing on the internet? I swear to that. Because it's a legal way to punch someone you don't like.

And I find that to be very absurd. All right. Well, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you for your kindness in joining us. Yes. Don't forget to go to my GoFund. me link to help more influencers be kind. Well, thank you so much again, Brad.

I really appreciate it. All right. That's it for this episode. Thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to subscribe to my tech and online culture newsletter, UserMag. That's usermag.co, usermag.com to support my work and to keep this podcast going. Also, my best selling book, extremely online, is finally out on paperback. It has a brand new cover.

It's out now, available wherever books are sold. Pick it up. It is awesome. and I'm obsessed with the new cover. If you like this show, please don't forget to give us a rating and review on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thanks, and I'll see you next week.