Follow the money: Metal and drugs Edition

If you don’t know, my degrees are in sociology, and I taught a research methods class. And I’ve finally been getting out more to see more shows.

So I was annoyed two different ways (three by the end) when Robert over at MetalInjection got tricked  into running an advertisement disguised as an infographic pretending to be a study.

Not annoyed at Robert, no, no. Let me explain.

I could go into the methodological problems – believe me, I could – but I bet I’d bore the shirt out of all of you. But there’s one huge OBVIOUS problem that should have been caught.

The people who funded it.

The whole thing (I’m linking to an Archive.org mirror) is put on and run by Drugabuse.com, which is operated by Recovery Brands LLC, which is itself a subsidiary of American Addiction Centers, Inc. Or put in their own words:

“DrugAbuse.com is developed and maintained by Recovery Brands, LLC, a subsidiary of American Addiction Centers, Inc. (“AAC”). AAC is a leading provider of both residential and outpatient addiction treatment services.”

https://drugabuse.com/about-us/

Yup, the whole forking thing was clickbait to get eyeballs on their thinly disguised advertisement. Why is rehab advertising? Because they want your money.

Let’s turn to my favorite English expat, John Oliver. As he reported back in May, rehab has evolved into a $35 billion industry with rehab facilities across the country. And the quality of these places varies wildly, is largely unregulated, and results in a lot of places ripping off people who need help.

So you’ve got a rehab industry taking money hand over fist, peddling a nice little infographic claiming to be a study (seriously, I would have flunked a college student for this) that just so helpfully refers you to their services.

The best part? The very last paragraph, otherwise known as the point where this went to “gonna write a blog post now”:

“Live music events are best enjoyed without the interference of drugs or alcohol. If you think your readers will agree, please share this project for non-commercial purposes. We only ask that you ensure a link back to this page so that our authors receive proper credit for their work.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20181221211810/https://drugabuse.com/featured/substance-use-at-live-music-events/

Which is just so much more transparent forking bullshirt. Linkbacks are still the biggest way webpages try to improve their search ranking.

And those authors who are supposed to get credit?

They are never, ever listed.

Featured photo by danny howe on Unsplash