'Independence Day: Resurgence' Viral Video And Website Recruiting For U.S. Army In Earth Space Defense Bait-And-Switch

Do you see the Earth’s nations teaming up to take on a vastly superior and xenocidal alien fleet as analogous to a national military that outspends the next seven largest armed forces budgets combined? The U.S. Army hopes your answer is “Yes.”

As part of an ongoing campaign to target “young geeks and gamers,” the United States Army has partnered with the upcoming Independence Day sequel, Resurgence, to create a viral video and website ostensibly urging people to join the Earth Space Defense, a fictional, one-world, anti-alien military.

At the top of the video, large white text urges viewers, “Defend Tomorrow. Enlist Today. Join the ESD.” The link goes to GoArmy.com, where users can play four different missions to “unlock exclusive Independence Day: Resurgence content and information about related careers in the actual U.S. Army.”

In addition to numerous links to Army recruitment pages, the mini-games encourage users to unlock additional features and start a user profile, all of which link the U.S. Army directly to users’ Facebook information.

“When you look at the past five or six years of military, Hollywood collaborations, they have mostly left the realistic war film genre and gone to sci-fi superhero movies. The biggest collaborations in recent years have been Transformers, Iron Man, the new Superman movie, Captain America,” media professor Roger Stahl told NPR.

In the same NPR segment, Air Force veteran William Strickland, who now consults with the military on recruitment and personnel matters, said, “I t's appealing to service, it's a higher calling. Those connections are still there whether it's that made-up thing or if it's real. I mean, the U.S. Army's at war and has been now for pretty much going on 17, 18 years.”

Pop culture writer Jonathan McIntosh, who has been spreading word about the Army’s new recruiting tactics on Twitter, has a different take: