A group of YouTubers are being criticised online for their latest video showing them giving members of an indigenous tribe snus pouches and vapes.
The NELK Boys, commonly referred to as NELK, are a group of American-Canadian content creators who have become extremely popular on social media.
Made up of Kyle Forgeard, Aaron ‘Steiny’ Steinberg and Salim Sirur, they have eight million subscribers on YouTube with millions more across Instagram and TikTok.
However, in their latest upload shared on Christmas Eve (24 December), the group has faced backlash for their actions in part of the video.
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Titled 'NELK Visits a Dangerous Uncontacted Tribe!', the YouTubers visited a Pacific island near Fiji to meet a tribe.
At the time of writing, their video has over four million views, but people aren't happy with NELK for handing out vapes and snus to the tribe members.
Taking to the comments, many are under the assumption that the indigenous peoples have never been given these substances before and have accused NELK of 'polluting their authenticity'.
Forgeard, along with his fellow content creators, are seen encouraging the tribe to try out snus, which is a smokeless, moist tobacco product designed to be placed under the upper lip, delivering nicotine without any smoking.
Overuse poses health risks, such as addiction, gum damage, increased heart disease and cancer.
"That was a trashy move," one person wrote on X. "Tribal communities are surprisingly healthy and some of them live very long lives. Bringing toxic products to them doesn’t help them."
"How tf did they successfully pull this off?" another questioned, while a third person added: "Why would you do this to people?"
"The fact they went there only stayed one night and dipped on all of them when they were supposed to be their longer shows who they really are," a fourth slammed.
"Just money, only about money and fame. With zero care."
"They messed up for corrupting those pure ppl," wrote a fifth, as a sixth agreed: "I don’t like this, polluting their authenticity."
"Nah this is weird, Like how was the first idea you get for meeting a tribal community is 'they should hit my vape'," someone else said.
"Undoubtedly there are going to be all sorts of things from the Vapes introduced to these guys that their bodies won't know how to deal with," another penned.
LADbible Group has contacted a representative of NELK for comment.
Anish Vij