The U.S. Navy has new guidance for sailors streaming on Twitch aimed at deflecting criticisms from audience members, characterizing questions about U.S. war crimes as "personal attacks."
The manual includes advice such as responding to questions about U.S. war crimes with: "I’m here to play games. I have no interest in engaging in personal attacks.”
lmao, sounds like they learned from all the top Twitch GAMERS.
Still going through their powerpoint but the fact that the question “What’s your favorite US war crime?” gets its own slide is quite something huh
So, I know the presence of the military on these platforms is an active recruitment tool in itself, but do these guys promote recruitment or do ad reads for the army or whatever? Or are they just playing games with their uniform on?
The earlier Vice article about the Navy’s streaming instructions document goes into more detail, but yes they are supposed to directly promote recruitment. Streamers are instructed to direct viewers who express interest in joining the Navy to a recruiter. Also, the primary header under general “themes for discussion” is “inform people of Navy career paths,” where the document suggests chatting about how Navy careers use the same skills as playing video games. (God I hate this. What the hell.)
If you look at the guide, it seems like all they do is post a link to the recruitment webpages for the Navy, rather than actively doing any recruiting. It’s kind of like when I was in high school and the “Navy Band” came and performed bad covers of Green Day and Nirvana–it’s entertainment as a form of PR that’s targeting their main demographic for recruits: 16-18 year old boys.
Full disclosure: I’m in the military. I think this whole Twitch streaming thing is an incredibly silly, half-baked project that some very out-of-touch senior people thought up and are probably getting excellent performance evaluations for. But I have a lot of sympathy for the poor 20-yr-old Navy sailors who are in this position of having to respond to trolls asking about war crimes as if the low level sailor has any responsibility for that.
If you look at the guide, it seems like all they do is post a link to the recruitment webpages for the Navy, rather than actively doing any recruiting. It’s kind of like when I was in high school and the “Navy Band” came and performed bad covers of Green Day and Nirvana–it’s entertainment as a form of PR that’s targeting their main demographic for recruits: 16-18 year old boys.
I’m sorry but it really seems like you’re stretching the truth in this post. Navy Twitch streamers are under the Navy Recruiting Command, they’re directed to promote the advantages of joining the Navy and directly encourage any viewers who express interest in joining to fill out a recruitment form. It’s not just posting a link. The hair you’re trying to split is like saying Coke commercials don’t sell soda because you can’t insert change into your TV to make a can pop out. If you’re trying to say that streamers don’t do recruiting because recruiting is specifically and exclusively the part of the process where the papers are signed, that’s a distinction you’re allowed to make but it doesn’t answer the question you’re replying to. UselessVoid asked if the Navy streamers “promote recruitment,” which they undeniably do.
What I mean is that the streamers are not doing the actual recruiting–i.e., taking contacts, visiting with interested parties, getting them to sign contracts, etc. I agree that clearly they fall under the umbrella of “recruiting” just like the musicians in the Navy Band.
