If you used YouTube as a kid, you might have accidentally clicked on Happy Tree Friends or some sort of weird parody video that scared the living daylights out of you. However, some people are marketing some really inappropriate content to kids. These videos are low in production value and have funny sound effects, but they contain content such as farting in people's faces, cheating in relationships, suicide, fecal matter, urination, blood, and other stuff that kids should not see. There's even a subreddit dedicated to chronicling and commenting on this content called r/elsagate.
On r/elsagate, users share commentary videos as well as theories about the minds behind the videos. One user suggested that the Russian government was behind these videos. Another suggested the existence of a pedophile ring and sweatshop setup behind the videos as they seem to crank out this content almost daily. Keep in mind that animation, even low-quality artless animation like this, takes time to make. Some of these users have used strings of numbers to leave comments as a form of code. One user made the speculation that these somehow translated into letters and eventually messages in various languages.
we all probably know the "thai trick" but if you don't know it ,i'll explain what is it. the thai trick is to take a comment and with the thai online keyboard, type on the letters that are in the same place with with english letters. so i thought that we can do the same on another languages such as arabic, chinese or russian. there's also way more chance we will decode those comments if we'll use this decoding way because there are way more chinese, arabic and russian speakers than thai speakers
YouTube will demonetize videos and even creators that express conservative views or talk about LGBT (mainly transgender) issues with their algorithm, but these videos are on the YouTube Kids app. Granted, the makers of these videos are smart and will find a way to bypass content restrictions, but how do these videos not get mass-flagged when certain commentary videos are? Even if someone is flagging these videos or at least saying that kids shouldn't be watching them, YouTube either (1) simply can't keep up with these people or (2) is deliberately ignoring these flags.
At the risk of sounding like that "CONTRAILS MAGA PUTIN" guy, I'll delve into the pedophile ring theory as that one seems to be the most likely. These videos aren't made to appeal to adults or teens because they're low in production value, largely plotless, and don't seem to have any purpose for existing other than to outdo each other. By using certain buzzwords, these creators (if one can call them that) somehow slip past YouTube's flagging algorithm. In having an audience of children, the people behind these videos can find the easily accessible ones, ask them to be in a video, and then abduct (and do worse things) said children.
By all means, I support artistic freedom and taking risks in children's media, but there is nothing of artistic value (Just look at Steven Universe if you can get past the fandom.) in these videos. It's another case of someone exploiting children with the YouTube algorithm in the style of Logan Paul. However, unlike Logan Paul, there's no face or name that this type of content can be attached to, which makes it appear all the more that the creator is hiding something. If you're a parent, please make sure your kids are not watching these videos and be aware that some of these videos made it past the YouTube Kids screening process.
Sources and Photos:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/