Pentagon poured money into social media influencers and TV stars to attract Gen Z: report

"We did complete a PAA for the Social Influencer Mr. Beast, but ultimately did not support the production as he did not go to Puerto Rico for the Hurricane relief, so that PAA is cancelled,” a Pentagon official wrote in an email obtained by Rolling Stone.

PAAs are approved under Department of Defense protocols when assistance would be in the best interest of the nation by presenting “a reasonably realistic depiction of the military services and the DoD, including service members, civilian personnel, events, missions, assets, and policies," and when the media is considered informational and likely to contribute to public understanding of the military and "may benefit military service recruiting and retention programs.”

The Pentagon’s Production Assistance Agreements provide military personnel, vehicles, technology, and expert advice for use in film and TV in exchange for the final say in scripts and narratives to portray the military positively, and those agreements were reached in the blockbuster movies Top Gun and Independence Day – although the military pulled out after the latter film's director refused to cut a mention of the secretive military base Area 51 from the film script.

“The United States military was going to support this and supply us with a lot of costumes and airplanes and stuff," said director Roland Emmerich. "Their one demand was that we remove Area 51 from the film, and we didn’t want to do that. So they withdrew their support.”