I am legitimately trying to have a rational conversation about this very disturbing subject. Human depravity to make money off of impressionable children or take abusive sexual advantage of children is utterly sickening.
I first heard of Elsagate via social media/alt news. It arose after PizzaGate/pedogate. Some say it is linked to grooming, desensitizing children for abuse, and even MK ULTRA and all its associations (satanism, deep state, mind control, cults, ritualistic sexual abuse). Conspiracy theories about The Illuminati aside, even if unintended I can see this type of media desensitizing and possibly leading to unsafe thoughts or actions by the young.
No matter the origin this is absolutely fcuking disgusting. I tried to find examples on YouTube and they were readily available. If a child searched for ‘Elsa+ Spider-Man + prank’ videos of live actors in costumes in sexual positions come up in the first search. Peeing on people in tubs. Scantily clad adults in cartoon character masks/makeup. Suggestive imagery. Wtf.
Here is a concerned YT users 15 minute explanation and concerns relating to the subject - usually I wouldn’t watch something like this however in trying to understand EG I did and I found it to actually be informative.
Here is (excerpt) Wikipedia’s article, more at source:
‘Elsagate" is a neologism referring to the controversy surrounding supposedly child-friendly videos on YouTube and YouTube Kids which contain themes inappropriate for children. Most videos under this classification are notable for presenting content such as violence, sexual situations, fetishes and toilet humor, as well as dangerous or upsetting situations and activities.[1]
They often feature popular family-orientated characters, sometimes via crossovers, used without legal permission; the term itself is a portmanteau of Elsa (the main character of the 2013 Disney animated film Frozen, who is frequently depicted in such videos) and -gate (a suffix for scandals).[1] However, the "Elsagate" controversy has also included channels such as Toy Freaks that do not feature kid/family-friendly characters but real children, and have raised concern about possible child abuse.
Most videos in this category are either live action films or crude digital animations, although a few channels have been using more elaborate techniques such as clay animation.[2] Despite YouTube's age restriction policies, these videos are sometimes tagged in such a way to circumvent the inbuilt child safety algorithms, even making their way into YouTube Kids, and are thus difficult to moderate due to the large scale of the platform.[3] 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.[4][5] They also include automatically placed ads, making them lucrative to their owners and to YouTube. Despite the objectionable and often confusing nature of these videos, many attract millions of views.[4]
While criticism of the channels themselves 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 several media outlets had reported about it, YouTube adopted stricter guidelines regarding children's content. In late November, the company started to mass delete channels and videos falling into the "Elsagate" category, as well as large amounts of other inappropriate videos or user's comments relating to children.
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