[mayniac]

/r/ElsaGate monitors this quite actively.

The current prevailing non-tin-foil-hat theory is that some animators realised that they could game YouTube's suggestion algorithm, and that kids videos are an easy target. Kids also are very inquisitive when it comes to subjects you tell them are inappropriate. Over time the videos with darker themes got more clicks and it has spiralled out of control since. Throw in some bots to increase views and comment rapidly once videos are released to increase rankings and you've got a perfect ad-revenue scheme.

Of course there's nutjobs who think it's a pedophile ring normalising sexual violence to kids, but there's an equal likelihood of pizzagate being real.

[borne0]

I think that's over thinking it a bit, youtube algos are easy to manipulate and a single thread on 4chan can create a fair bit of weird media, for the explicit intent of creating weird media.

[mayniac]

I do prefer the 4chan theory, since it satisfies Occam's Razor. That said, the frequency of new videos from multiple channels dedicated to nothing but these videos, as well as the monetisation, makes it unlikely. Also considering the number of subscribers the subreddit has I'm sure that if there were any new 4chan threads suggesting people make those videos it would've been spotted.

It's honestly the sheer number of videos that is the shocking part of the mystery. It's not just a few dozen videos from different animators, it's hundreds of videos from dozens of channels pumping this stuff out. Unfortunately I find it unlikely that we'll ever find out the cause.

[andrepd]

The cause is algorithms run amok. Find popular keywords: Elsa, Frozen, Fidget Spinner, Sexual. Have an AI mix these in whatever weird way and churn out nightmare fuel to kids, in exchange for big fat ad revenue. Kids, more easily manipulated, and with a whole life as consumers ahead of them, are valuable targets...

[gowld]

Computers are very good at taking something they've done once, and doing is a billion times.

[tzahola]

Excuse me, but AFAIK it was 4chan who started calling out these videos in the first place.

[username223]

Both can be true at the same time. 4chan is basically about pointing and laughing at things on the internet, right? So it doesn't matter much whether they're gaming YT's algorithm to show disturbing things to kids, or pointing to other people doing it.

(Also, I find it weird to give a kindergartener unsupervised access to any internet device. They don't understand the threats they're confronting.)

[mcphage]

> Also, I find it weird to give a kindergartener unsupervised access to any internet device. They don't understand the threats they're confronting.

That was the selling point of Youtube Kids—it wasn't supposed to be unsupervised access to the internet. It was supposed to be curated.

[username223]

Letting a multi-billion-dollar surveillance company show more or less whatever it wants to very young children seems like a bad idea. We tried a very primitive version of this model a couple decades ago, with Saturday morning cartoons interspersed with ads selling sugary cereal, and the results were not great.

[sintaxi]

That seems like a reasonable non-tinfoil-hat explanation. So why does the elsagate videos follow MKUltra patterns? Is is purely found to be more effective for monetization purposes?

[jstanley]

What "MKUltra patterns" do they follow?

[sintaxi]

Normalization of trauma and injury. The red, pink, blue, yellow, green colour scheme. Repetition of bugs, knives, needles, and bodily fluids.

[CrystalLangUser]

> red, pink, blue, yellow, green colour scheme

Is there an actual explanation for this? Those are everyday colors... or have I been living on planet earth as an unwitting MKUltra subject?

[sintaxi]

Please show me where in every day those five colours show up together.

[ascorbic]

That's literally the three additive primary colours, plus one subtractive. It's hard to get more common colours.

[pavlov]

Every toddler toy ever manufactured?

[CrystalLangUser]

Sky, sun, flowers, fruits, trees, vegetables, animals, grass, dirt, etc.

[throwafk81]

Unlike the other posters, I'm not going to pretend I don't know what you're talking about. That being said, what's the point of those "MKUltra patterns"? Are they supposed to trigger some special reaction on children?