YouTube bombarded viewers with ads for Gold: A Journey With Idris Elba, an hour-long propaganda piece produced by the World Gold Council and starring Idris Elba of Cyberpunk 2077 fame (and nothing else). As one might expect, it’s an hour of fluff whitewashing the bloody history of African gold mining and downplaying the gold industry’s role in propping up apartheid for the sake of profits, put together by people calling themselves the World Gold Council like a bunch of C-list Bond villains. Not even Elba looks like he wants to be there, but a paycheck is a paycheck.
If you’re going to engage with this at all, though, don’t watch the gold documentary itself: watch YouTuber Folding Ideas’ response, which breaks down each point made in the documentary and explains a bit about the real history of gold- the precise thing the WGC wants to cover up.
I personally can’t wait for the inevitable “fossil fuels are good, actually” followup. Maybe they’ll get Willem Dafoe!