Highlights: The promotional tactics that gun manufacturers and sellers use with social media, video games, and other entertainment are the focus of a new report from Sandy Hook Promise, the gun-violence prevention group led by parents of children killed in the elementary school massacre 11 years ago in Newtown, Connecticut. The report, “Untargeting Kids,” highlights how the gun industry shifted away from a longstanding culture of safety and responsibility to cultivate a market of young consumers—a demographic inundated with social media and uniquely vulnerable, according to researchers, to provocative and seductive messaging.
Social media companies have banned the direct sales of guns on their platforms, but that doesn’t stop the firearms industry from promoting or amplifying gun content from high-profile figures. One example cited in the report is a January 2020 Instagram post from gun manufacturer Daniel Defense that features a photo of music star Post Malone showing off one of its AR-15-style rifles, the MK18, while standing in front of a bar stocked with liquor.
The gun industry has favored aggressive marketing for more than a decade, as companies realized that vast profits could be made from the increasingly popular AR-15-style rifles.
It’s noticeable to the point of being annoying in the general YouTube shorts algorithm.
Every once in a while I’ll flip through a few YouTube shorts and every time I eventually get frustrated by how much gun content I’m served. I’ve never willingly clicked on a YouTube video about guns but Google seems to think that is all I want to see. Most of what I watch is about old computers, engineering and gardening.
Realistically, “the algorithm” is just an elaborate “people who like A also like B so here is a video popular with B watchers”, so it can’t be too difficult to manipulate.
I’ll never figure my YouTube selections. The vast majority of my YouTube use is gun related. Maybe looking at tutorials for gunsmithing a particular thing, or just to hear Gun Jesus school me on history, or maybe Paul Harrell has a cool looking new demonstration.
Any yet I get about zero right-wing, nutcase conspiracy bullshit. Not even right leaning guntubers. And the videos that aren’t about guns, and there are plenty, speak to my interests. I can go all night hoping from one suggestion to the other.
Given what everyone else has said, it’s really weird it works for me.
Ad funded mobile games are fucking stuffed with gun based shitty games. I’ve gotten quite good at counting to 30 seconds in my head without having to watch they garbage.