Scientists say all vape trick videos should be banned from YouTube to ‘protect the children’ according to a new study.
They say tricks like the jellyfish – the vapour bubble – the ghost inhale and the simple O are corrupting our kids lol.
Scientists from Yale University say the videos – watched in the millions – often feature hip hop music – profanities and many are sponsored by the vape industry.
According to the researchers learning how to pull off vape tricks was second only to flavoured e-liquids as the reason many young people take up vaping.
A similar study carried out last year concluded:
Vape tricks pose a potential threat to adolescent health if they encourage nonusers to initiate or current EVP users to use more frequently or switch to advanced devices that produce more harmful chemical emissions.
Further research should examine the possible health effects of performing vape tricks, and future public health campaigns should be informed by an understanding of the appeal of this activity for adolescents.
The ‘further research’ is now here, however, the Yale scientists studied just 59 YouTube videos but reckon that’s enough to call for ‘restrictions’ on them.
The results showed vape trick videos had a like to dislike ratio of 1:11 – the tricks were carried out by mostly white males – 48% (28/59) of the videos were posted by industry accounts – 27% [16/59] by pro-vaping organizations, 15% [9/59] by online vape shops, and 3% [2/59] bricks and mortar vape shops.
This latest study is just part of a series from Tobacco Research in Youth (TRY) based at the Yale School of Medicine.
Not one of the studies shows the positive side of vaping as an alternative to smoking and most have concentrated on ‘youth’ vapers and smokers and all ending with dire warnings.
The aim of this latest offering was:
… to examine how vape tricks were promoted on YouTube to youth.
Note the word ‘youth’ again. However, the results as to who exactly is watching the videos is a little skewed given the researchers are unable to quantify that!
Lead author of the study, Grace Kong, said:
What we don’t know is who’s watching these videos.
I don’t have access to that data. We really need to match that data to human data to see whether youth are watching these videos.
And there you have it lol.
They don’t have the evidence the ‘youth’ are watching these videos – but assume they are!
This is where proper parenting comes in. YouTube has its age restriction policy and it should be up to the parents to police that – not the platform!
But I digress.
“Sneaky” Vape Companies
More importantly, Kong says what her study shows is the ‘sneaky’ way vape companies are getting around the ban on e-cigarette advertising on the platform:
What jumped out to me was the sponsors, the marketing sponsors of the videos, and industry accounts.
It was really the vaping organizations that were surprising.
Social media is more obscure. Tobacco marketing could occur in many subtle forms.
Now from my limited knowledge of vape tricks, I’m pretty sure the tricksters use zero nicotine e-liquids – something Ms Kong and her ‘scientists’ seem to have missed.
In fact, Ms Kong seems to be in awe of the tricks telling Mashable:
It’s pretty amazing what you can do with vape tricks.
We found 25 distinct tricks that people could do.
There are names for it, there’s this whole culture behind it.
They have competitions. They make it like a sport event.
People compete, do the coolest vape tricks, they perform in front of a crowd.
Cool indeed lol.
In fact, a vape trick video with one of the highest number of views comes from the Pilipinas Got Talent TV show no less lol.
In the video below vaping dude Joven Olvido blows the crowd away with his mad skills – literally!
Now I’m not a big viewer of Pilipinas TV, but I’m guessing that show is on national television before the watershed and I guess as it’s a parody then that’s OK lol.
OK and in all seriousness, the main issue I have with this particular study and those like it is the sheer waste of time and money involved.
Surely these I’m guessing overly educated scientists could be doing far more to help smokers quit than by spending their time and energy on I dunno research that might actually save lives rather than grab a few headlines.
The full study: Promotion of Vape Tricks on YouTube: Content Analysis.
