When I was in 11th grade, my classmates and I were taken into our school’s computer lab and given a test. I was told I was in the 93rd percentile for this test, and a month later, we were taken to a secondary location and given another test, the results of which I don’t remember. In my votech class, we regularly had two visitors, who taught us combat moves and gave us food, frequently handing out forms to join their organization. The organization responsible for all of this was the National Guard.
In 2001, the No Child Left Behind Act was passed. Among other things, it required that public schools give recruiters from the military, colleges and employers equal access to students and give the defense department students’ contact information on request. Students of my generation may remember college and Army recruiters making frequent visits on their campuses, as visits increased after the act was passed.
I and other students often received mail from the National Guard, both physically and on our personal Facebook accounts. But it doesn’t just stop at the schools: I get an email about every month from A-State’s National Guard.
This year, the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force launched esports teams and Twitch channels. They stream games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Rocket League, Escape from Tarkov, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, and Overwatch. As of 2020, Twitch has 1.44 million average users, 41% of which are ages 16 to 24 — the prime age for military recruitment.
Several have criticized the military for these channels. An article from The Nation, written by someone who was banned from the U.S. Army’s Twitch channel after posting a link to the Wikipedia page for U.S. War Crimes, points out that “instead of approaching a recruiter behind a table in the school cafeteria, kids can hang out with one who is playing their favorite video games and replying to their chat messages for hours on end.”
According to the article, “a typical military stream looks something like this: a recruiter, usually a man in his 30s, sits comfortably in his gamer chair inside a dimly lit room illuminated by a monitor and the colorful LED lights of his computer tower. An American flag hangs on the wall behind his right shoulder, an oversized stuffed animal sits to his left. He’s playing Call of Duty or Valorant. He’s friendly, and talks about how much he loves being in the Army. Despite being older than most of his young viewers, he speaks like them. ‘It do be like that sometimes. We do have some great comms,’ said a recruiter in one recent session.”
Since the military’s streams are not mature programming, Twitch does not require people to enter their age to watch the stream; the only restriction is a button that says you acknowledge that the stream is meant for older viewers. The minimum age to sign up for a Twitch account is 13.
Violent video games, like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, have been criticized for ages, with parents worried that their children will be influenced by the violence and carry it out in real life. Numerous school shootings have been blamed on violent video games. But when the U.S. military is playing these games, on a platform full of teens, with the specific intent of using their platform to recruit these teens, how is that any less of a concern?
A study published in Cogent Psychology found that gamers who were placed into a flight simulator did almost as well as professional pilots. The military itself has used video-game-based training simulators, and the controllers they use to operate their unmanned drones are similar to that of a Playstation controller. The military’s esports teams may not just be an attention grab and a recruitment tool, they may be a strategic tool to find their next drone pilots.
I haven’t even touched on how the U.S. Army bans anyone from their discord who mentions controversial actions taken by the military or how they accidentially read the name of a follower whose username was antisemitic on their stream. I didn’t mention the time when the U.S. Navy esports team played a game of Among Us on stream with “close friends” who used the usernames “Japan 1945,” “Nagasaki” and “Gamer Word” (a reference to the n-word). But these are influences that should at least be noted.
I don’t agree with the predatory recruiting practices the military takes part in, particularly in low-income schools, where their major draw is that they will pay for your education if you join the National Guard. Moving their recruitment to a popular streaming platform seems extra predatory. Soldiers should join the military because they sought it out themselves, because it’s something they want to do; not because they’ve been watching the U.S. Army play Call of Duty on Twitch since they were 13 years old.
Categories: Opinion
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