About

Black Ops 6 Human Shield refers to the game mechanic found within the 2024 first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in which a player is allowed to take control of another player and use them as a human shield for a set time before executing them. Within the multiplayer portion of the video game, several memes and videos have been made due to the intimate nature of the act and how it is enhanced via proximity chat so that a player is able to talk directly to the person they're using as a human shield in-game.

Origin

On August 5th, 2024, X / Twitter user @JoogyWoogy1^[1] uploaded an 18-second clip of supposed Discord leaks that showcased the ability to grab another player and use them as a human shield in the middle of combat before executing them, receiving over 23,000 views in one month (shown below).

Before the release of Black Ops 6, based on the early leaks, memes about the human shield mechanic had already started to be made by players. For example, taking a scene from Deadpool & Wolverine, X user @GumboTron10^[2] made the earliest known post on August 10th, 2024, in which they talked about what it would be like to use their bro as a human shield (shown below).

Spread

With the release of Black Ops 6 into beta testing in late August 2024, gamers were then able to fully take charge of the mechanic and make their own content using clips of them trying the feature.

For example, on August 30th, 2024, X user @Jack_Vicroy^[3] uploaded a clip in which a character is taken for use as a human shield, but during the action, he starts to get taunted by the shield user before being killed, with the caption saying how much @Jack_Vicroy loves the human shield and how funny it is (shown below).

As the weekend went on, the voice chat aspect was explored more heavily in relation to the mechanic, with content creators trying their best to humiliate their human shields during gameplay.

This led to the August 31st, 2024, post on X by user @chubzdpt^[4] in which two players are seen being used as human shields and made to kiss each other by forcing their in-game models into contact while being taunted by the players using them as shields, earning over 3 million views in one day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References