This is Mark Rober
He spent years building one of the strongest reputations in social media. Loved by tens of millions of followers
Yesterday he obliterated it all with one 18 minute video
It's a story of greed, deception, and cowardice
Here's the story of what happened:
Mark is a long time Youtuber who spent years accruing over 65 million subscribers
He filmed wildly entertaining videos testing the limits of physics and tech
He was Mr. Beast BEFORE there was a Mr. Beast
Yesterday he let money, politics, and greed get in the way of all that
Mark put out a video titled "Can You Fool A Self Driving Car?"
The concept of the video is simple. Drive a Tesla in Full Self Driving mode on a road where there is a wall painted like a road
See if the Tesla cameras see the wall and cause the car to stop
Harmless enough right?
Wrong.
The video was filled with deception, lies, and illegal undisclosed advertising
In the video the Tesla does not detect the wall and goes right through it
On top of that there is a kid mannequin that gets absolutely nailed
But there's a few things Mark doesn't tell you
First of all, he lied about Full Self Driving. He didn't even use FSD.
He used Autopilot, which even Tesla admits is an older, not as strong technology
But even worse, he deactivates it right before he hits the wall. In a sneaky maneuver, he moves the wheel to deactivate autopilot
But why would he so purposely slander and attack Tesla like this?
O yeah, he is working with a Lidar company which he ILLEGALLY never discloses
In fact, on its first trading day since the video was posted, the Lidar company's stock is up over 27 PERCENT! (over 50 million $)
On top of that, he lies about other sponsors
He regularly shills Google Pixel phones
In the video itself he shows you a Pixel filming the video.
Look close though in the reflection of the Tesla, he's actually filming with an iPhone and edited the shot to look like a Pixel
65 million subscribers. 500,000 X followers. A pristine reputation.
All of that destroyed for a pay day
If you are a creator this is the ULTIMATE lesson in ethics and responsibility
It takes YEARS to build a reputation, and moments to destroy it forever
The backlash since has been unrelenting
His video is being bombarded with dislikes. Social media is in an uproar about his lies
He was even forced to put out a follow up video. One issue, the video had COMPLETELY different footage from his original video
More lies
He sold his soul
He betrayed his country by attacking the most American made car company in the world
He deceived his entire audience. All for a paycheck
Let this be a warning for all creators out there: it is NEVER worth risking your reputation for a couple bucks
I hope you learned some lessons about reputation from this post
If you found it at all interesting, I highly encourage you to follow me @AlexFinnX for more
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