Magnus Midtb0

Recently I've been watching some YouTube videos. Yeah yeah I know this is horrible for me and an utter waste of my time, but what is done is done and I now have to live with the consequences.

One of the consequences is that I now have a few Magnus Midtb0 videos living rent free in my brain and I'm torn on whether this is a good thing or not. I'm leaning not.

I think the first one I watched was him ascending The Matterhorn solo. I actually liked this video despite thinking this was an idiotic thing to do. I also disliked it, because my general understanding of the point of climbing with a partner in very dangerous places is that you take turns securing and ensecuring anchor lines so that if either of you fall you just get hurt instead of dead.

Magnus brought a rope. He didn't use it. I'm not even clear how having it would accomplish the important safety bit I described by yourself.

So right off I think the dude is risking his life for views, and that's gross. Even supposing he is doing it for the personal thrill of it and not the views, I think it is bad because it encourages others to do this sort of reckless shit.

He seems to think that adding "Don't do this! I'm a professional!" makes it okay. But that only encourages people to think it is cool because of the warning. And... NO professional does the shit he is doing, UNLESS it is all a sham. The reckless bit of the Matterhorn ascent did not seem to be a sham.

BUT, I did still like the video and think it was cool, because I'm not all that opposed to people being reckless idiots with their own lives. If they die I won't shed any tears. I'll just say "yeah dumbass gj and good riddance." That's not cruel because people doing shit like this are taking unnecessary risks that they know they should not.

I watched the Ellis Cave video he made. It started off with this bs about him having said he'll never cave again, which is clearly just a taunt line to draw views imo. Because he goes into the cave with a bunch of young yokels who, while they may have lots of experience with that cave, seem very reckless.

Have you noticed a theme that this guy is reckless also?

I read a bunch of the comments on that video where people were saying he clearly doesn't know how to use the block descender he was using safely and could have undone it the way he was using it and fallen to his death.

I'm no expert on descenders but enough comments said this that I believe the comments.

I then watched the "RAINBOLT challenged me to [go off into the blue yonder]" video. It was fairly interesting, but, :shockingly: ( sarcasm ), it was once again a reckless video. Dude brought a blow up boat to traverse places, and clearly explained that if it got punctured he'd be fucked.

So... questions:

He had a cell phone but admitted no service. Did he bring an emergency radio beacon or something too?
Are we being lied to and he has some extra safety mechanisms that are unclear?
If there are no extra safety mechanisms, then I could buy that he is unsafely risking his life, and acting like that is cool. I say I could buy it, because I'm still doubtful it isn't a sham somehow.
He doesn't bring a water filtration mechanism and just drinks from streams without it. This seems super foolish. Why does he do this?
He complains as a result about not being able to drink water sources. No shit. Bring a filter and tablets...
He walks in shoes that give him terrible blisters walking through marsh. Should bring good boots?? Tf
He talks about walking in circles showing him using a cell phone of all the fucking things as his GPS. Use a better GPS?? THEN later he reveals he DOES have a better GPS but wasn't showing us and only shows it because it was dying because he apparently didn't bring a battery or solar panel or anything to charge it back up. These sorts of things need to be considered and tested before such a trip...
He says he only brought enough food for X days, BUT he fishes during the trip and catches a fish. Couldn't he do that a bunch more and take his time more instead of rushing and hurting himself? Was he rushing back because he was making himself ill ( from the unfiltered water perhaps? )

Despite all this bullshit, I still liked the video. I think the guy should make better choices though.

After watching the video I realized I had watched another of his videos some months ago of randomly travesing mountainous terrain along a straight line. That video seemed decent in my memory.

After these I watched 2 of his climbing videos with Alex Honnold. They are labelled in a bullshit way as if he risked his life and almost died in them, but he actually seems to be pretty cautious in them to me. He is a skilled climber and at least doesn't seem to be gambling with his life when climbing.

Finally I watched what may be the last video of his I watch. His "Stranged ALONE on a deserted island" video.

Oh boy. This video was... not good. I'd phrase it with more violent words but I did actually find it amusing despite that it was a ridiculous video.

Dude says he is going to go to this small island with no way off except by death or succeedding in building a raft to get off.

Like ok. The premise, if true, is reckless a.f.

Especially considering he only brings 3 days worth of water, and no water filtration, and no way to get more potable water from around him.

But I'm not buying the risk.

Because of what he brough with him on the supposedly dangerous trip:

He brought all of the following:

An inflatable raft. He punctured it when he got to the island, but still seemed to use it partly inflated later to add buoyancy to the raft he built.
A life vest. Dude gambles with his life constantly, but needs a life vest? This is funny.
Oars. If you get stranded on an island like in the movies, you ain't going to have oars. You'll need to build those too.
A large tarp. Which he seems to do shit all with.
A full modern tent.
A down filled sleeping pad. Dude... want to impress us please freeze your nuts off. :D
A puffer jacket.
A sleeping bag too ( as I recall?? )
A bunch of rope. Yes it SUCKS badly to create rope from bark and takes an eternity and pain. But this is once again spoiling the premise in my view. It's also modern multistrand synthetic rope at that. At LEAST use some old ass rope for funs.
A steak.
A roll of alumimum foil and a flimsy aluminum dish. To cook on a fire! DUDE. Pans! Heard of them??
A pack of 50 napkins. Why?
A whole big bottle of ketchup. To stir up engagement mocking it??
A pink salt grinder. Tf? Just bring ground salt in a tiny bag.
A fucking full wet suit! The damned premise was he couldn't swim back through the freezing water. But false he fucking could! Full wet suit!
Waterproof duffel bags.
Large tripod and camera. Like ok ok he needs gopro and at least a tiny mount, but full tripod??
A flimsy collapsible saw. It breaks during the video. My guess is this was done intentionally to make it all appear more scaryh.
A full fucking roll of duct tape! With which he could have patched up the raft he punctured at the start perhaps.

My belief is that dude was not in any real danger except from actually chopping his damn hand or fingers using the shitty saw.

Even with all the idiocy I still thought the video was funny. Mostly because of how silly it was. That's a legit thing. Making a silly video for attention is okay. What I disliked about it so much is that it felt like staged bullshit.

The further issue is that while it felt like staged bullshit he could really have been risking major harm to himself. I didn't really get that feeling but he was claiming it was super dangerous over and over. So he wants us to believe it was really dangerous imo.

I read a bunch of the comments on the video, and saw people saying that Magnus is involved in a lot of controversy. I can believe it, because he does lots of stupid shit.

He's also an excellent climber though. And he's entertaining.

So. :shrug:

Go watch his videos I guess? Hopefully he manages to die on camera instead of off camera...

AI is bitching that I seem to be wanting the guy to die. No, I just think he is going to get himself killed if his claims of danger are real. And if he is going to sell us all on risking his life and actually do it, actually dying would be a likely thing to happen.

My ending is meant to be dark fucking pansy ass AI.

Despite that I actually like the guy and think he is fun. Still stupid, but :shrug: I don't have any death wish for him. I need him to keep making videos after all. He can't do that if he is dead. So live on, crazy bro.

A final note. As this article is aimed directly at Magnus, I offer a video chat with Magnus anytime he would like, both private between us and recorded to share online should he be willing to debate his behavior.

While I am willing to critique individuals and their behavior, it would not be fair to do so without giving them the opportunity to defend and/or humanize the discussion.