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Comment by crispyambulance | Hacker News Reader

That channel, OKKYDOKY, has 1.2 MILLION views. Who makes that stuff? WHY? It even purports to be from the USA. It's just some weird anonymous garbage. How do the people that make that stuff sleep at night? It's like they're trying to exploit glitches in the brains of toddlers.

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I’ve wondered too. I remember looking into the various conspiracies / scandals from a few years back (Elsagate and similar things) and some of it was just extremely bizarre (and likely frightening to some kids) and just had such a mass of content.

There are all sorts of conspiracies from some psyop stuff to AI/ML generated content. I have not ideas what to even begin to think.

The easiest answer I suppose is just some companies found an easy way to mass produce videos towards an demographic that will not mind mindless clicking, and that that will translate to more views and more money. That still doesn’t explain the bizarre and disturbing content some of them put out.

This stuff doesn't require corporate conspiracies. Imagine being a tech-literate person in some very poor country. You discover that if you churn out Flash videos of pregnant Spiderman pulling thorns out of a kitten's paws while spiders crawl down the walls and Elsa is vomiting in the background, you can make a pretty good living for your area without leaving your apartment. You might object to the idea. But, it only takes a few people who say "Fuck it. I need money." to churn out huge quantities of this stuff.

Is this actually a real video?

I could believe it. There was one that went around enough to make the news a few years ago. Peppa Pig goes to the dentist. Starts off as you might expect if it were wholesome. Then it begins. Everything is in constantly shifting perspective. A giant syringe comes out. The shadows grow long. Peppa Pig then has her teeth pulled out. The audio has children crying, but not closely synced to the video.

My take was that it was crafted to be optimally engaging to a child of about four years of age. With no other purpose. Maybe even semi-automatically generated. The subject matter is a common fear of children. The video does not have enough to push it quite over the edge to any horror/revulsion response. Any particular frame would not be too out of place in a children's cartoon. As an adult, it disturbs mostly when you realize what's going on behind it conceptually.

Obviously worked as intended, given how many views it got. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39381889

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsagate

There are thousands of video variations of that theme. Someone else here mentioned people cosplaying the characters in creepy ways. I think it started there and evolved rapidly into automated production of reptile-brain trigger material.

They probably sleep pretty well with the nice new comfy bed and pillows they are able to afford off of the channel.

I mean, 1.2M views for the whole channel is... almost nothing, in terms of $? Surely not enough to affore new comfy bed and pillows?

1.2M views is worth thousands of dollars to the right demographic.

I expect that there are whole networks of channels that put out this stuff. The channel in question hasn't been active in a year. The "content creators" probably don't depend on any one channel to deliver their "creations".

I'd guess between $1k to $5k, and probably on the lower end of that spectrum. Might be worth it in a low cost of living country.

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