Army partners with famous YouTubers on Fortnite hoping to boost Gen Z recruitment
British Army recruiters will be hosting a Fortnite session via a Twitch livestream involving famous YouTubers in an attempt to get more gamers and young people to join up.
Referring to its latest recruitment slogans, the British Army's career page on social media platform X says: "Check it out @elzthewitch and @yungfilly1 battle to Be The Best on our new experience Operation: Belong 24.01.24. Live on Twitch. Who will win? #YouBelongHere #Ad."
British YouTuber and musician Yung Filly, who has nearly 425,000 followers on X, initially confirmed he would be going head-to-head against other influencers before deleting a post on X advertising the event after a backlash from some users of the social media site.
The winner is then supposed to compete against British Army gamers on an exclusive map.
However it is unclear as to whether this will be going ahead as Yung Filly took down the advert he posted amid criticism of the event.
A number of X users responded to the post, suggesting the Army would be breaching Fortnite's rules, which say gaming sessions must not "promote enrolment in the military".
One user posted: "Is your marketing department sick in the head? Do you know the demographic of Fortnite? You are recruiting CHILDREN."
Army Jobs later put out a post on its official page confirming that "all live streams & game play is age-gated to users 18+" and that the map will not be available for public access.
Twenty-seven-year-old Talia Mar, a singer, songwriter and internet personality who has more than a million YouTube fans, is also confirmed to be taking part.
Fortnite is one of the most popular video games in the world and the UK's Video Standards Council rates the game as PEGI 12 for frequent scenes of mild violence.
Forces News has contacted Army Jobs and is awaiting a response.
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