An influencer approaches a homeless man and asks him for a dollar. “Sorry to bother you,” he says, explaining that he needs the money to catch a train home. The homeless man, bearded, pushing his possessions down the street, reaches into his sock and pulls out a ten dollar bill. Then: His mouth falls open in shock. The influencer has revealed that, actually, he doesn’t need a dollar at all. Instead, he wants to give the man $500. He hands over a stack of cash. The men hug.

This encounter was captured in a Tik Tok video uploaded in February by Zachery Dereniowski, known to 9.3 million followers as @mdmotivator. On his channel, Dereniowski regularly approaches strangers, pretends to be in need, and asks them for a small sum. If people are kind and willing to help him, he returns their money and rewards them with hundreds of dollars crowdfunded from his followers. After adding a schmaltzy soundtrack, Dereniowski shares the resulting clips with millions who find them moving and motivating.

Dereniowski’s videos are part of a larger genre in which TikTokkers “test” members of the public with money and reward those who are deemed to be “good.” The hashtag #honestytest has 51.5 million views on the platform—among other tests, creators drop bundles of cash in front of people as a “social experiment,” filming them to see if they’ll pocket the money (some of these people are experiencing homelessness; many of these videos are clearly staged). Ultimately, “dishonest” people are embarrassed in front of millions of viewers, while “honest” people are rewarded financially.

Unlike other TikTokkers, Dereniowski isn’t big on shaming—his channel mostly focuses on the people who help him and are rewarded as a result. Consequently, his videos are hugely popular: 38.6 million people watched the encounter with the bearded homeless man, while 69.9 million watched him give $500 to a man in a wheelchair asking for help with his rent money (despite being in need, the man gave Dereniowski a quarter when asked).

Other creators have had comparable success with similar clips: @steven_schapiro earned 26.2 million views on a May TikTok entitled “Asking Strangers for Gas Money, Then Giving Them 100x Back!!,” while on YouTube, “BigDawsTv” earned 1.5 million views in March when he posed as a homeless man, asked strangers for money, and gave them back 100 times whatever they donated.

For many, it can be hard to see the downside of rewarding strangers for their generosity; during a cost-of-living crisis, it is warming to see people gifted significant sums of cash. But these videos raise questions about the nature of modern charitable giving.

If the bearded man had been unwilling to give Dereniowski any money, would he have been undeserving of the $500? If a child watches these videos, will they come to believe that any time they give to a stranger, the stranger should give to them in turn? We are now so used to viewing the world through our screens that many of us forget to question the fact that a camera is rolling at all. If someone approaches you on the street, filming you, and asks for money, are you pressured into sharing? Should vulnerable people have to perform for viewers before they’re deemed worthy of help?

“I think these videos can create narratives about how we should help the deserving poor,” says Yale professor Michael Kraus, a social psychologist who specializes in the study of inequality. “But actually all are deserving, and individual acts of charity are not a solution for poverty.” The “deserving poor” is an archaic concept, codified in England’s Elizabethan poor laws, that was designed to distinguish between people in poverty who were to “blame” for their situation, and those who weren’t, and therefore were entitled to help. TikTokkers that reward helpful homeless people arguably entrench the idea that certain people are more worthy of welfare than others.

Kraus is troubled by these TikToks. “They strike me as deeply dehumanizing. Do the people in the videos consent to being used this way? For that amount of money can they consent?,” he asks. “If they would have said no, would they be any less deserving of compassion? I think the answers to these questions are troubling.”

Still, other academics note that these videos could have a positive effect on the viewer. Pat Barclay is an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Guelph who studies “competitive altruism” and the ways it can be harnessed to promote generosity. Barclay says TikToks like Dereniowski’s can show children that “it pays to help others,” and it is also “safe” to do so. He adds that these videos could encourage viewers to give to strangers in need.

“If we see someone be helpful and then get acknowledged for it, then we’re more likely to be helpful in turn,” he says. “This raises the standard of what’s expected from us: We can’t just sit back and be selfish curmudgeons if others are so helpful—we look stingy by comparison. So this makes observers need to ‘up their game.’”

Arguably, though, influencers themselves benefit the most from these videos—earning fame and fortune for their deeds. Deborah Small is a psychology professor at Wharton who studies charity, morality, and prosocial behavior. Small has researched the ways in which we judge others’ motives for charitable giving—ultimately, we are cynical of people with seemingly selfish motives. But, she notes, when people donate money online and tell others about it on social media, “it’s good for the charity,” as it promotes other donations.

“We’re trying to encourage people to tell other people about their generous deeds, when people are reluctant to do that because it seems boastful and inauthentic,” Small says. “Is it right or wrong to share your charity? If you’re thinking about what it means in terms of your motive, it seems wrong—but if you think about it in terms of the impact it can have, it seems like the morally right thing to do.”

Videos like Dereniowski’s, then, could arguably have a positive impact, inspiring viewers to give to those in need. From a purely consequentialist standpoint, those who receive the money have had their lives changed regardless of an influencer’s motives (and the complex questions about charity raised by the encounter). Yet as these videos become even more popular—in late May, Dereniowski was interviewed on the chat show Piers Morgan Uncensored—we should be wary of their potential impact. At their worst, such videos could lead viewers to “test” homeless people before offering them money, entrenching archaic ideas about the deserving poor. At their best, they promote individual charitable acts over larger structural and political change.