Example of an Elsagate video thumbnail. These videos often have thumbnails involving characters in dangerous situations, and engaging in nonsensical acts.
Elsagate (named after a portmanteau of Elsa and The Watergate scandal) is a term referring to a scandal surrounding seemingly "child-friendly" videos on YouTube and the YouTube Kids app, which contain themes that are inappropriate for children, which is a form of clickbait. Most videos under this classification are notable for presenting intense violence, sexual acts, fetishes, drugs, alcohol, suicide, toilet humor, and dangerous or upsetting situations and activities.
In addition, many videos that do not represent any inappropriate content dangerously conduct learned helplessness on very young children by showing multiple colors in various forms and objects, then emphasizing one color before taking the color away, causing the child to become distressed and upset through repetition. They often include popular characters from various media.
These videos have spanned many languages including Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Arabic, Indonesian, and French. These are often reuploads from English-speaking videos. There is, in many cases, no way of knowing which language it is from beyond the title. Since a lot of the videos barely consist of any dialogue. If dialogue is included, it's either a free sound effect, a meme, or poorly written English speech.
The videos often feature popular characters from family-oriented media, used without legal permission; the term itself is a portmanteau of Elsa, a character from the Disney animated film Frozen, who is frequently depicted in such videos and -gate, a suffix for nearly every kind of scandal ever existed (particularly Watergate). However, the Elsagate scandal has also included channels such as Toy Freaks and Salih Reis'in Dünyası, that don't feature family-friendly characters, but rather real children and have raised concerns about possible child abuse. Many of the videos break the established canon of all featured medias. Additionally, many of the videos also feature non-canonical characters. Elsagate channels also use logos from famous companies without permission.
Most videos in this category are live-action films or crude digital animations, although a few channels have used more elaborate techniques such as claymation. Despite YouTube's age restriction policies, these videos are sometimes tagged in such a way as to circumvent the inbuilt child safety algorithms, even making their way into YouTube Kids. They are thus challenging to moderate due to the large scale of the platform.
In order to capture search results and attract attention from users, their titles and descriptions feature names of famous characters, as well as keywords like "Education", "Learn Colors", "Nursery Rhymes", etc. which includes the classical nursery rhymes "Johnny Johnny" and the "Finger Family Song". They will also sometimes steal buzzwords from legitimately child-friendly video series and channels. Such an example is the Minecraft series "Monster School", that was originally a six-episode series that was well-written and family-friendly. Seeing the popularity of the series, Elsagate channels used the series name in their titles for inappropriate videos.
They also include automatically placed ads, making them lucrative to their owners and YouTube. Despite these videos' objectionable and often confusing nature, many attract millions of views, suspected from the autoplay feature. Some Elsagate channels also have hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of subscribers.
While criticism of the channels has existed since at least 2016, public awareness of the phenomenon grew in 2017 as it became part of a broader controversy about child safety on YouTube. That year, after reports by several media outlets, YouTube adopted stricter guidelines regarding children's content. In late November, YouTube started to mass terminate/delete channels and videos falling into the Elsagate category, as well as many other inappropriate videos or user's comments relating to children, such as "Bad Baby" videos.
Elsagate also became the subject of a conspiracy theory that states the videos attempt to normalize pedophilia and sexual abuse against minors or dangerously hinder a child's development by conducting learned helplessness tests showing various colored objects. Some also suggest the videos may be related to brainwashing, and the gibberish replies below the videos are coded messages.
The motives behind these videos are unknown, although The Verge pointed out that the contents may interest children. As many videos have millions of views and include advertisements, The New York Times suggested the videos are financially lucrative.
History[]
Early history[]
Elsagate started to appear on YouTube in 2007, when a South Korean channel called Leehosook uploaded a video about the Finger Family nursery rhyme, which started a trend called the "Finger Family Trend", which was linked to Elsagate.[1] Around June 2016, British daily newspaper The Guardian published an article about the channel Webs and Tiaras, which had been created in March of the same year.[2]
Apparently based in Canada, Webs and Tiaras had become in two months YouTube's third most-viewed channel with about 1.7 billion views. The channel showed people dressed as characters from licensed family-oriented media, such as Spider-Man, Elsa, and the Joker, engaging in bizarre or nonsensical actions that felt too odd for their real counterparts: the videos had background music but almost without any dialogue. It also reported that several near-identical channels, named Toy Monster, The Superheroes Life, and The Kids Club had appeared on YouTube.
The high number of views have led some to voice concerns that such channels are gaming the system by using bots or click farms to inflate viewing figures to higher proportions; however, there is no evidence for this prior to the truth being revealed.
In February 2017, The Awl published an article on Webs and Tiaras and similar channels,[3] describing their content as "nonsensically nightmarish" with titles like "Frozen Elsa gets CHICKEN FEET!", "Frozen Elsa gets BRAIN BELLY!", "Frozen Elsa & Anna TEAR SPIDERMAN APART!", "EVIL SANTA KIDNAPS Frozen Elsa & Spiderman!", or "Frozen Elsa FLUSHES Spiderman in Toilet!". The website commented that the videos were "pretty twisted for children's content: some videos involve Elsa giving birth, and in some others, Spiderman injects Elsa with a brightly colored liquid. You half expect the scenarios to be porn setups." In most videos, the like and dislike options were disabled, making it impossible to know how many users were actually engaging with them. Many videos featured hundreds of comments in gibberish, some being written by similar channels in an apparent attempt to attract more clicks.
In March, the BBC ran a piece titled "The disturbing YouTube videos that are tricking children".[4] The article focused on a Peppa Pig imitation where the titular character's teeth are painfully pulled out by a dentist, and a video featuring said character burning down an occupied house. The article also mentioned the existence of "hundreds" of similar videos, ranging from unauthorized but otherwise harmless copies of authentic cartoons, to brutally frightening and gory content. The BBC asked one of the Elsagate channels for an interview. However, the said channel didn't answer at all.
CTV News also reported in March about YouTube's "fake toons problem"[5], with adult-themed imitations of popular children's shows frequently appearing on YouTube Kids: "In some cases, the video will feature a kid-friendly thumbnail, while the video itself might be entirely different" and be very unsuitable for small children. The network commented that such videos were "often nightmares to behold, with lots of crying and frightening scenes involving monsters and blood. Many of these videos venture into dark territory, with the characters often being chased, attacked, or injured in a bloody manner."
November 2017[]
In November 2017, several newspapers published articles about the YouTube channel Toy Freaks, which had been created two years earlier by a single dad called Greg Chism. Based in Illinois, according to the Daily Mail, Toy Freaks had a total of 8.53 million subscribers and was among the top 100 most viewed, before it was shut down that month. The channel often featured Chism's daughters and in most cases featured them scared and crying[6].
These videos could also be found in local video platforms in China, where YouTube is already blocked (at least in the mainland China part), including Tencent, Youku and iQiyi.[7] Tencent have set up a specific team to monitor its video platform, and permanently shut down 121 accounts and blocked more than 4,000 search keywords by January 2018.[8] The Ministry of Public Security of China suggested that netizens should report these videos once found.[citation needed]
Several celebrities, including rapper B.O.B[9] and comedian Joe Rogan[10], brought awareness to the problem.
On November 4, 2017, The New York Times published an article about the "startling" videos slipping past YouTube's filters and disturbing children,[11] "either by mistake or because bad actors have found ways to fool the YouTube Kids algorithms". On November 6, author James Bridle published on Medium a piece titled Something is wrong on the internet, in which he commented about the "thousands and thousands of these videos": "Someone or something or some combination of people and things is using YouTube to systematically frighten, traumatize, and abuse children, automatically and at scale".[12]
Bridle also observed that the confusing content of many videos seemed to result from the constant "overlaying and intermixing" of various popular tropes, characters and keywords. As a result, even videos with actual humans started resembling automated content, while "obvious parodies and even the shadier knock-offs" interacted with "the legions of algorithmic content producers" until it became "completely impossible to know what is going on".
On November 17, Internet commentator Philip DeFranzo posted a video addressing "the insane YouTube Kids problem".[13]
The New York Times found that one of the channels featuring counterfeit cartoons, Super Zeus TV, was linked to a website called SuperKidsShop.com, registered in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. A man working for SuperKidsShop.com confirmed that his partners were responsible for the videos, on which "a team of about 100 people" were working. Subsequent requests for an interview went unanswered.
On November 9, members of the satirical sound collage group Negativland presented an episode of their weekly radio show Over the Edge dedicated to Elsagate. Modern Animal Kids'[14] threads Elsagate through a remix of three 90's episodes of Over the Edge which focused on media for children, all broadcast in the final years before Teletubbies pioneered marketing to the 6- to 18-month-old demographic".[15]
On November 22, BuzzFeed News published an article about unsettling videos that depict children in disturbing and abusive situations. The information on the article came with the assistance of journalist and human rights activist Matan Uziel whose investigation and report to the FBI on that matter were sent on September 22, informing its leadership about "tens of thousands of videos available on YouTube that we know are crafted to serve as eye candy for perverted, creepy adults, online predators to indulge in their child fantasies."[16]
On November 23, French-Canadian outlet Tabloïd released a video investigation about Toy Monster,[citation needed] a channel linked to Webs and Tiaras. They confronted the videos' creators – based out of the south shore of Quebec City – who refused to be interviewed. One of the actors featured in the videos anonymously stated that he was contractually obligated to refrain from comment. The investigation revealed that identical content was being posted on numerous channels apparently operated by the same people.
On November 28, Forbes presented Elsagate as an example of the "dark underbelly of the digital age".[17] The article's author commented that the "gargantuan scale" of the problem seemed to indicate that children's content on YouTube had become "a monster beyond our control" and that "it's terrifying to imagine how many toddlers have been affected" by Elsagate, "in ways beyond our comprehension".
On June 22 2018, TED Talks had a video regarding to this situation.[18]
Effect on children[]
While the behavioral effects of these videos are not currently under scientific research, many parents and peers have posted anecdotal reports on the /r/Elsagate subreddit (Now Closed), discussing unusual behavior in children after watching videos from channels associated with the scandal, and possible correlation with pedophilia, and another theory says these are AI generated, however the most accepted theory is this is just greed for money, views, or subscribers.
The New York Times quoted pediatrics professor Michael Rich, who confirmed that these videos were potentially harmful to children who could find them even more upsetting as "characters they thought they knew and trusted" were shown behaving in an improper or violent manner.[citation needed]
Response from YouTube[]
In August 2017, YouTube announced its new guidelines on content and monetization. In an ongoing series of efforts to demonetize controversial and offensive videos, it was announced that creators would no longer be able to monetize videos which "made inappropriate use of family friendly characters".[19] In November of the same year, it announced that it would implement "a new policy that age restricts this content in the YouTube main app when flagged".[20]
The controversy extended to channels which featured not necessarily children's characters but actual children, who sometimes performed inappropriate or dangerous activities under the guidance of adults. As part of a broader action, YouTube deleted the channel Toy Freaks, which featured a father, Gregory Chism, and his two daughters in potentially abusive situations. Chism was subsequently investigated by child protection officials in Illinois and Missouri for alleged child abuse. In December 2017, authorities announced that Chism would not face criminal charges. Before its removal, the channel had over 8.5 million subscribers.
It was also revealed in the media that many videos featuring minors – frequently uploaded by the children themselves and showing innocent content – had attracted comments from pedophiles. Some of these videos were monetized. As a result of the controversy, several major advertisers froze spending on YouTube.
On November 22, 2017, YouTube announced that it had deleted over 50 channels and thousands of videos which did not fit the new guidelines.[21] On November 27, the company said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that it had "terminated more than 270 accounts and removed over 150,000 videos", "turned off comments on more than 625,000 videos targeted by child predators" (which include real children in it) and "removed ads from nearly 2 million videos and over 50,000 channels masquerading as family-friendly content". Forbes commented that many problematic videos could still be seen on the platform and that "the sheer volume of videos hastily deleted from the site prove that YouTube's algorithms were utterly ineffective at protecting young children".
In late 2018, many Turkish media outlets and bloggers began complaining about child abuse in Turkish YouTube channels targeted at children. Media outlet Webtekno reported on the channels Salih Reis'in Dünyası and Gamze - Nursery Rhymes, which featured a father and his children Gamze and Salih (on the former channel). A video on the channel Gamze - Nursery Rhymes viewed 35 million times when the article was published featured the father disguising as a clown; he was exhibiting traumatizing and inappropriate actions to vulnerable children. Salih Reis'in Dünyası skyrocketed in popularity since 2016, causing the channel's subscribers to increase to 15 million due to their slime videos, shocking YouTube content producers. The father earned millions of dollars from the exploitation of his two children.
The family started to shoot their first videos in a small house and later moved to a villa. On March 7, 2019, Onedio editor Aburoski complained about the aformentioned channels on his article "Masum Değiller! Dünyanın En Çok İzlenen Salih Reis'in Dünyası ve Türevi Olan YouTube Kanallarında Çocuklar İstismar mı Ediliyor?" which roughly translates to: "They Are Not Innocent! Are Children Abused on YouTube Channels, Which Are The World's Most Watched Salih Reis'in Dünyası and Its Derivatives?". Aburoski identified extremely subtle incidents of child abuse, causing YouTube to terminate most Turkish channels that upload videos containing children in early-to-mid 2019, including Gamze - Nursery Rhymes. The channel became the most-subscribed YouTube channel permanently terminated on June 8, 2019.[22][23]
Aftermath and revival (2018-Present)[]
Elsagate has been reduced to a lesser extent and has been obscured from appearing on recommendations until the 2020s, but it has been shifted to Minecraft.
In the early 2020s, this genre began making a resurgence on YouTube, primarily as a result of children's increased usage of technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. These videos commonly feature popular trends and media from the past decade. In 2022, a semi-Elsagate trend, featuring the characters of Bluey, nicknamed Blueygate, gained attraction from younger audiences.[24] For example, several channels have uploaded these Blueygate videos, one of the most prominent being "animation 6.o", and other kinds of channels like these. Like Elsagate, several Bluey content creators have made videos such as An example of a video talking about it., and have talked about how these channels function, such as [1], [2] and Omelette.
These videos have a heavy emphasis on using mature themes as emotional bait; although this can vary depending on the channel, many of them share similar scenarios. Perhaps the most popular of these plotlines focus on characters in peaceful lives always ends with sudden usually accidental, graphically violent incidents, like a character in question dying in a tragic manner, usually due to a car accident or attack by an animal (such as a tiger or a lion), and later passing away from their injuries. Other subject matter in these videos include infidelity, child endangerment, coprophagy, sexual exploitation, and animal abuse.
While some have attempted to call out these videos to alert YouTube of the genre's comeback, the criticism isn't as widespread as it was in 2017, and YouTube has so far done nothing to combat these videos or the channels that produce them.
Some Disclaimer Descriptions can be seen on their video descriptions saying that the video is PG Meaning "Some material of this video may not be suitable for children’s Below 13 year’s of age." Also the Warning as well "Elsagate Name Channel and all of its videos are not “directed to children” within the meaning of Title 16 C.F.R. § 312.2 of CHILDREN'S ONLINE PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT (USA) are not intended for children under 13 years of age. Elsagate Name Channel and its owner(s), agents, representatives, and employees do not collect any information from children under 13 years of age and expressly deny permission to any third party seeking to collect information from children under 13 years of age on behalf of Elsagate Name Channell. Further, Elsagate Name Channel denies any and all liability or responsibility for the practices and policies of YouTube and its agents and subsidiaries, or any other affiliated third party, regarding data collection."
A lot of Thomas and Friends fan content has been marked as made for kids by YouTube despite the creators not really targeting kids, with some videos not being very child-friendly, which came under controversy when one of DieselD199's videos where Thomas says the word “kill” was on YouTube Kids.[25]
Trivia[]
- Elsagate videos are mostly created using easy-to-use animation software, and quite a large amount of them are made in Vietnam.
- There are a lot of Elsagate mukbang videos with famous characters. In mukbangs, they eat unhealthy amounts of foods, which is often refuted by parents and youtube channels as encouraging bad habits.
- Despite being content farms and/or sometimes engaging in illegal activity, most Elsagate channels still watermark their work.
- Due to being recommended on YouTube Kids, a lot of these inappropriate videos will have millions of views, and only about 10K comments.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VY_Uh2IL2SlTcwGs5myPduoFjedwopupTF3DFwSk5BA/htmlview#gid=0
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/29/youtube-superheroes-children-webs-tiaras
- ↑ https://www.theawl.com/2017/02/the-ballad-of-elsa-and-spiderman/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acTcMUJ6qBI
- ↑ https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/fake-toons-kids-falling-prey-to-adult-parodies-of-popular-children-s-shows-1.3344358?cache=?clipId=89578
- ↑ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5094789/YouTube-shuts-creepy-Toy-Freaks-channel.html
- ↑ https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/201802/1089333.shtml
- ↑ http://www.ecns.cn/2018/01-22/289349.shtml
- ↑ https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/bob-pregnant-elsa-youtube-videos/
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5kjy0zIxnU
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/business/media/youtube-kids-paw-patrol.html
- ↑ https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_K-shDq-kM
- ↑ Episode downloadable at negativland.com's OTE files.
- ↑ Negativland, "Six Hours of Content Together Through Life
- ↑ https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/charliewarzel/youtube-is-addressing-its-massive-child-exploitation-problem
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2017/11/28/youtubes-elsagate-illuminates-the-unintended-horrors-of-the-digital-age/
- ↑ https://www.ted.com/talks/james_bridle_the_nightmare_videos_of_children_s_youtube_and_what_s_wrong_with_the_internet_today
- ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/9/16629788/youtube-kids-distrubing-inappropriate-flag-age-restrict
- ↑ https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/9/16629788/youtube-kids-distrubing-inappropriate-flag-age-restrict
- ↑ https://abcnews.go.com/US/youtube-crack-videos-showing-child-endangerment/story?id=51336368
- ↑ https://www.webtekno.com/internet-tarihinde-kara-delik-acan-turk-ailenin-youtube-kanali-salih-reis-in-dunyasi-h41836.html
- ↑ https://onedio.com/haber/masum-degiller-dunyanin-en-cok-izlenen-salih-reis-in-dunyasi-ve-turevi-olan-youtube-kanallarinda-cocuklar-istismar-mi-ediliyor-878381
- ↑ https://honey.nine.com.au/parenting/experts-warning-about-fake-bluey-on-youtube/ee5ac01b-9070-4c15-860c-c9882faaa092
- ↑ https://nypost.com/2023/03/23/parents-beware-if-you-let-your-children-watch-youtube-kids/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow
