For the past few weeks, I have been researching something called #ElsaGate; a phenomena on YouTube, in which a number of researchers speculate is a complex web of fetish channels. What makes these fetish channels, different, is because they seem orientated, towards children. They also have millions and millions of views, often surpassing within days, anything near what most of the most successful YouTubers get, including PewDiePie.

The channels have a similar theme, with three key characters that appear in concert throughout a labyrinth of channels. The key characters are: Spiderman, The Joker and Elsa (from the Disney movie Frozen).

The common theme within these channels repeats and includes what some researchers described as a toilet or “water sports” fetish. This includes the main character Elsa, being involved in continuous scenes involving a bathroom and urination.

One common scene includes Elsa waiting to go to the bathroom, but in her dismay, Spiderman will not open the door. At this point Elsa, has no choice, but to urinate in the hallway. Other common themes involve, Spiderman urinating into a bathtub, which Elsa gets into.

You could say that this is a case of art imitating art - YouTubers repeating successful models, that gain lots of views; leading to something of an anomaly out of chaos. Which, to be fair, could be the case.

However, there is something else. As with all things, if you look closer at parts of ElsaGate, you see other patterns.

Take one YouTube channel, for example, focusing on cartoons, featuring Elsa in almost every video.

When you watch this channel, you think you are just watching more of the strange Elsagate videos, where babies are cutting off women’s bras, and Elsa is always being spanked or spanking someone. That is, until you watch beyond this cartoon network, and start to see a pattern in the labyrinth.

One such pattern, out of many, that repeats almost exactly across networks - is the scene of the father drinking beer, when the phone rings. Then the father leaves, and the children get the rogue beer and become drunk. At this point the bottle leaves their hands, and falls upon one of their heads (see video below).