After 15 years of existence, Scientology’s channel on YouTube now claims 1,000 videos posted. The channel claims 103.4 million views since it began. This is 6.8 million views per year. We call “click farms” on this number because Scientology’s published numbers are, and have always been, fraudulent.
Strangely, Scientology’s big names like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kirstie Alley, and Elisabeth Moss do not appear anywhere on Scientology’s YT channel. Or at least we could not find them. Erika Christensen does make an appearance in an intro to a musical video.
Although he was born into Scientology, alleged serial rapist Scientologist Danny Masterson does not appear anywhere on Scientology’s YT channel.
One music video, called Spread a Smile, claims 10% of Scientology’s YT channel total views with 10.4 million purported views. What makes this song listenable is that it is not about Scientology; features 60 serious musicians many of whom are not Scientologists; the late Chick Corea (1941-2021) infused it with his musical greatness:
The video also features Scientologists Stanley Clarke, Kate Ceberano, and the lesser musical celebs in Scientology. Kerri Casem makes an appearance because her late father Casey Casem was famous. Curiously, the notable rock bassist and Scientologist Billy Sheehan does not make an appearance. Indie legend Beck left Scientology and so he too does not appear.
This Scientology musical video ignores the brutality, greed, human trafficking, forced abortions, and the pervasive viciousness and inherent criminality that is the Church of Scientology. The video evokes the last concert of the Berlin Philharmonic which took place under the Third Reich. The concert was performed on April 12, 1945 as the Russians closed in on Berlin. The finale was “Götterdämmerung” (“Twilight of the Gods”) by Richard Wagner.
The Scientology musicians in this music video are the Berlin Philharmonic reincarnate and do not realize, or simply do not care, that they are tools in a Scientology propaganda video. Scientology has zero commitment to human rights, but still pushes human rights content in its videos. This appalling hypocrisy is entrenched in Scientology and these musicians and part of the lie.
After Spread a Smile, the stats fall of a cliff. The Spanish language video Lavarte Las Mano, a hand-washing video, has 967 views. The video L. Ron Hubbard – Founder, Dianetics and the Scientology Religion has just under 1.2 million views and is dull stuff. Because they are nonexistent, scant mention is given to Hubbard’s WWII heroism, combat medals, and war wounds.
A 2012 video of the grand opening of the San Diego Org has horrible video quality and mindless applause that drags on when David Miscavige speaks:
We could not find the “Meet a Scientologist” video which featured Russian potato farmers and Scientologists Andrey and Zoya Sinitsyny. This was a video we wrote about in March 2020. Have Andrey and Zoya blown or been sent to the Scientology Gulag along with Shelly Miscavige? We were amused by Scientology TV’s Stalinist-era coverage of the couple’s modern potato production methods which produced high yields for Mother Russia:
Categories: The Scientology Money Project
For anyone thinking, “oh, he’s just saying that” about click farms, I can attest to it with my own eyes.
A few years ago, they released a video series with daily new installments. I caught them a few times: The view count would literally increase by a five figure number over the course of a few seconds. It would keep doing that for a few minutes. Then, a few hundred thousand views later, it would stay at that point for weeks to come.
A day later, the new video came out. It got maybe a couple of dozen views (most probably from cult watchers as those videos were particularly controversial), and would stay at that level until a sudden push would get it into the six figures where that one video too would remain until this day.
There are other give-aways:
1. A video explodes in views right after its launch. After that, nothing. Doesn’t happen. “Going viral” takes a few days and doesn’t stop on a dime.
2. A ton of views but no engagement: no Likes or even Dislikes
3. No comments. For example, the SMP opening video about “this everlasting studio” (The doofus REALLY says THAT!) claims 22,325 views. Yet it has attracted a grand total of 3 (THREE 😉 ) comments. Two of the comments are more or less “wtf?” The third one is the old “I’m not a scientologist but I just love, adore and venerate your videos.” The cult was so surprised and excited, they responded to that joker TWICE. Thusly bringing up the total comments to five.
4. Not even the cult watches it. You would expect that if a real “fan” of anything (let alone a committed cultie) watches something, they’d comment. Takes no more than a few seconds. And yet, crickets…
5. No secondary coverage. Things go viral because a large number of netizens are excited about it. So they post it on FB, Tweet about it, and make a lot of noise. Maybe a blog or online mag picks up on it. Even with these videos claiming many views, none of that happens. Ever! No Likes even, let alone Shares.
6. No effect. The purpose of these videos is to drive traffic to the cult’s web site or better yet, to its orgs. While the deadness of the orgs is anecdotal (although widely documented and consistent), it takes but a few keystrokes (and Alexa) to demonstrate with hard data that the cult web site has been consistently dead for years. In fact, several scientology-critical web sites–one person affairs with no slave staff or Superbowl ads–consistently outrank the scientology site. No Superbowl ads, YT “runaway” videos or anything else for that matter, create any blips (let alone sustained uptrends) on the cult web site.
7. Phony self-awards. A couple of years ago, SciTV claimed to have received some twenty (if I recall correctly) awards all at once. These awards turned out to be given by an organization that allows you to define your own awards and then purchase them from this enterprise (the awards equivalent of a diploma mill). This appeared to have been done in a vain effort to counteract the very real Emmies that Leah Remini’s docu-series about the cult was receiving at the same time. The effort was pathetic and embarrassing enough not to have been repeated since.
Propaganda videos, click farms, fake awards, phony “press releases” on paid-for sites, purchased expert opinions and whitepapers, hate web sites, phony social betterment propaganda, “the everlasting studio” and a moribund “TV network.” And the most telling, media efforts to lure in customers with ads that fail to disclose who the vendor actually is. Imagine Apple, Mercedes or Coke having to hide their trademarks in shame to make a sale to a sucker every now and again!
A couple more symptoms of fraud that I forgot to mention:
1. Erratic view numbers. The series I mentioned was broken up into 27 (or so) installments. It was like one long video broken up arbitrarily into these pieces. If you wanted to figure out what the speaker was saying you had to watch all of them in the correct order. (Picture a three-hour Joe Rogan podcast chopped into 27 pieces).
So if it is a truly mesmerizing video series you would expect the view numbers to be roughly equal day to day. Or, more likely, you would find a steady down trend as viewers start watching and feel they have heard enough at some point. What you would NOT expect is a surge of interest (20-30 times the “viewers”) for, say, parts 17 and 24. But that’s exactly what the numbers indicated. If you cheat, you have to do a better job.
BTW: I reviewed the numbers for this series again, a few years after the fact. Interestingly, the inflated view numbers are now gone. I wonder if YT checks for click farms and purges fraudulent numbers after the fact?
2. When reviewing the origins of “viewers” of the scientology web site on Alexa, it is striking that a disproportionate number of “viewers” originate from countries where there is no cult presence to explain that viewer engagement. However, these countries are known for their cheap labor facilitating click farms. Coincidence?
Excellent analysis B.T.C. Thanks for posting your observations.
I note in the comments that Scientologist Joy Villa was not invited to participate in the video. Joy Villa claims to be a singer. However, the producer and the professionally trained and expert musicians in the Share a Smile video apparently wanted nothing to do with an essentially talentless amateur.
Joy Villa is in Scientology’s Johannesburg Org where she is training to be a Scientology auditor. Her 15 minutes in the MAGA movement are over.
The bassist with the red bass guitar in that music video is Carlitos del Puerto(he also plays double bass). His father is also an internationally respected bassist. Carlitos played with Chick a lot over the last 5 or 6 years. As far as I know, he is not a scientologist. Chick was one of his musical heroes and I’ll bet you he doesn’t have clue about scienbollocky abuses. He is a fantastic musician. I am glad that he didn’t get sucked into the cult.
Mark: Scientology tasked Chick Corea with calling in favors from many of the non-Scientologist musicians to play on the Spread a Smile video. They were glad to oblige because Chick was a jazz legend — and who wouldn’t be honored to play with Chick?
Chick was a Scientologist but kept it on the downlow in the jazz world. He also appears to have drifted away from Scientology in his later years. In a gracious final statement he gave when he knew he was dying, Chick thanked many people while excluding any mention of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology.
Chick’s virtuosity still shined brilliantly in the final year of his life: Here he plays Overjoyed by Stevie Wonder:
The musicians (and a few non-musicians) listed by Scientology who appeared in its Share a Smile video. We have listed those we know are Scientologists. Readers: Please comment with updates.
Chick Corea – Scientologist
Mark Isham – Scientologist
Stanley Clarke – Scientologist
David Campbell – Scientologist & Father of Beck.
Greg Camp
Kate Ceberano – Scientologist
Kerri Kasem – Scientologist
Andrés López
Diego Verdaguer
David Pomeranz – Scientologist
Alberto Plaza
David Broza
Carlitos Del Puerto
Michele Henderson
Tebogo Louw
The Jive Aces (Ian Clarkson, Vince Hurley, Alex Douglas, John Fordham, Kenneth Smith, Peter Howell & Grazia Clarkson) – Scientology Sea Org members & Scientology
Claude Racine
Noah Valinsky
Jim Meskimen – Scientologist non-musician
Tamra Meskimen – Scientologist non-musician
Hana-li Pendery – Scientologist
Ana Victoria
Boccadoro Miguel
Nick Isham – Scientologist
Raven Campbell
Luis Eric Gonzalez
Khai Aziz
Jess Fairlie
Brian Silva
Gianluca Scipioni
Ryder Green
Wil Seabrook – Scientologist STAND League d-bag
Valerie Fahren
Joost Griffioen
Julius Dilligard
Carmelo Sorce
Louise Dubiel
Mitch Talevi
Fabio Piazzo
Nikki Armstrong
Lyla Menkhaus
Madison Brunoehler
Jaime Gonzalez
Roger Nunn
Danny Bresett
Salvador Perez
Palmer Miray
Did I really see the saxophonist put hand sanitiser on his saxophone’s mouthpiece/reed? It reminded me of the Tide Pod fad.
Listening to “Overjoyed” got me to listening to Stevie Wonder. Pleasant facsimiles in restim. Chick did a pretty good rendition – sad he’s not around anymore.
I think it’s unquestionable that Scientology really expanded their internet “technology” (literally and ‘Scientologically’) following their hacks. Of course, there isn’t much hard evidence like documents, emails, invoices, etc. to give us the details, but much can be surmised. At a minimum, it can be presumed that they are using marketing tools from major tech companies like Alphabet, Amazon, and Facebook. Given the numerous reports (and perhaps personal experience) of targetted emails, it is likely that this technology allows them to get IP addresses which they can either track on other sites and/or gateway monitor. I’m not entirely sure how these work, but this is borderline legal and available. A VPN can help, but of course, it’s not a total deterrent to Scientology.
To make this work, as finely noted above, is the use of bots, as well as Sea Ogres and/or low-paid contractors. The exact personnel numbers are unknown, but it can be presumed that at least five people do this full time, presumably with scalability. Bots, as shown above, are integral to creating an air of respectability and marketability to the garbage content they turn out. Doesn’t it feel more reassuring to watch shiny brainrot or a Grant Cardone pitch when you know that 24,527 other people have, and there are all these comments on how awesome it was?
It’s surprising that these counts are allowed to continue other than that higher-ups at places like Alphabet have decided that the battering ram style of “freedom of religion” that Scientology currently stands for is appropriate. How embarrassing to be a member of a manipulative organization stuffed with manipulative amateur psychologists and patsies or even to be condoning them.
I’d be remiss not to mention the known cases of hacking, likely for the more high-profile cases and to flex. The exact mix of the illegal technology/tools with the legal is unknown at this point – I expect more to come out with time.