The U.S. Navy spent $4.3 million last year on recruiting efforts that leveraged esports and video games, including paying officers to play Fortnite with teenagers, the Guardian reported.
The Navy's Fortnite team plays the popular shooter game, which has an estimated 30 million daily users, and is called “Goats & Glory.” His 12 members consider themselves the “Blue Angels of Esports” in that they strive to get people interested in joining the military.
The Navy has already posted nearly two dozen videos this year of Goats & Glory playing online video games with children for up to four hours at a time while receiving a military paycheck. The team also has a dedicated facility in Memphis, Tennessee.
A spokesperson told the Guardian that the Navy spends as much as 5% of its advertising budget on Esports.
Goats & Glory's 2022 job posting describes a “typical day of playing practice, live streaming, and tournament preparation” from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Air Force and Coast Guard also have their own Esports teams, streaming videos of them playing video games and hoping to encourage young people to join the military one day. The Army and Navy hold tournaments for popular games such as Valorant, another shooter.
The military publishes gaming content on several platforms, including YouTube and Discord. Last year, Navy reached his more than 1 million viewers on the website Twitch.
This custom has been going on for many years. In 2020, the Navy pulled its Super Bowl ads to put more money into esports.
Critics have warned that such efforts could glorify military violence. The issue has also been brought up in Congress, with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York) seeking to ban the military from streaming video games.
Esports isn't the only area the military is spending money on to influence the minds of young people.
OpenTheBooks recently reported that the Pentagon's education effort has introduced a controversial diversity, equity and inclusion curriculum in schools, despite publicly indicating that it is scrapping the curriculum.
Last year, former Undersecretary for Military Readiness Gil Cisernos said the Pentagon was looking to eliminate the DEI department. But OpenTheBooks discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that the department was only folded into other military areas, and that information about DEI was removed from the Pentagon's website in response to negative media attention. did.
The military draft is important to our nation's future, but there may be a better way for Navy personnel to protect our country than by playing Fortnite with their teens.
(#WasteOfTheDay is from OpenTheBooks.com's Forensic Auditor via RealClearWire.)
