7 ms·
Raised by YouTube
- kanwisher 8y agoMy son loves this youtube channel, super good startup success story
- unicornporn 8y agoKids love sugar too. That doesn't mean it's good for them though.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- analogmemory 8y agoI recently re-watched some episodes of Transformers and GI Joe that I LOVED as a little twerp. Total garbage writing and animation, which makes me think anyone can make children's shows with some colorful animation and catchy words/songs. This Chu Chu looks like I'm waiting for the acid to kick in.
- dagw 8y agoTotal garbage writing and animation, which makes me think anyone can make children's shows However there where also a 100 shows kind of like GI Joe and Transformers at same time that all died after a season or two and no one remembers. It would be interesting to see if anybody has done any analysis as to what made the successful bad show more successful than the unsuccessful bad show.
- ztjio 8y agoIt was the toys. It's not rocket science. The show + toys had to be appealing and the vast majority of competing shows had no toys or terrible ones.
- air7 8y agoIt was one of my welcome-to-the-real-world moments growing up when I learned that the Transformers were initally toys and that the animation series was created later to increase sales.
- tauntz 8y agoI grew up in a country that had no Transformers toys (and I had no idea that these exist at all) but I still liked the show. Why? No idea..
- majewsky 8y agoSame for me with the Pokemon anime. A few years ago, I re-watched the first two episodes and GOOD LORD was that horrible. Some childhood memories should better be left in the past...
- soylentcola 8y agoOn the other hand, those came out in the US when I was around 20 years old and I remembered visiting my folks during the summer and hanging out with my younger half-brother. He was maybe preschool age and watched plenty of cartoons and other kids shows. Compared to most of them, Pokemon was actually pretty decent. It had a (very basic, but still...) storyline about kids going off on kid adventures and meeting lots of weird cartoon animals. I mean, sure there was the whole "catch wild animals and train them to fight each other" thing but it wasn't really any more violent than the GI Joe or He-Man or Voltron shows I watched as a kid. Going back to those, the only real common negative thread is how they were basically ads for toys and games. Taken outside of that, I saw Pokemon as a halfway decent "starter anime" that was loads better than some of the live-action cartoons of the time (Power Rangers and its knockoffs were just awful).
- majewsky 8y agoSure, it was better than average for its time. When I watch it today, I don't compare it to GI Joe or Power Rangers, I compare it to Gravity Falls and Adventure Time.
- unicornporn 8y agoIf you're interested in YouTube success stories, Swedish Babblarna[1] makes children's videos and their most popular video has 64 million views. Many of their popular videos have over 10 million views (about the population of Sweden). The difference is that they're only in Swedish. [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmHatten/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/FilmHatten/videos
- skrebbel 8y agoHahaah my youngest watches these. I really hadn't imagined the videos were made by middle-aged men with mustaches :-) Well, thanks! It's absolutely braindead stuff but braindead in a lovely way. Perfectly great for half an hour of powering down.
- unicornporn 8y ago> Perfectly great for half an hour of powering down. Perfect for you or your child? :)
- skrebbel 8y agoFor him.
- unicornporn 8y agoSeems like a questionable way of learning how to power down. > […] I sought out Colleen Russo Johnson, a co-director of UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers. Johnson did her doctoral work on kids’ media and serves as a consultant to studios that produce children’s programming. […] even in relatively limited doses, these videos can affect young toddlers’ development. If kids watch a lot of fast-paced videos, they come to expect that that is how videos should work, which could make other educational videos less compelling and effective. “If kids get used to all the crazy, distracting, superfluous visual movement, then they may start requiring that to hold their attention,” Johnson said.
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- CalRobert 8y agoI generally decry the filter bubble, but every time I open Youtube in an incognito tab I am utterly appalled at what merits being top of the list. I wonder in what other areas of life I'm not realizing that what's presented to me as "popular" is only "popular" for a small set of people.
- kitd 8y agowhat's presented to me as "popular" is only "popular" for a small set of people. ... or maybe "popular for a set of small people" :) Many folk trashed shows like Teletubbies or In The Night Garden for being banal, and thus 'damaging' young minds. But those shows were informed by child psychologists who, unlike the detractors, understand that child brains work differently to adult ones. I suspect ChuChu hits the same buttons.
- CalRobert 8y agoI felt a little bad after my initial post because it's not as though everything I watch is particularly highbrow. If nothing else, though, YT could do wonders for quality by hellbanning the videos where the titles are all caps. ChuChu actually seems fine, for what it's worth. Even so, in the article the author describes how they couldn't get the phone out of a 2 year old's hands, which is 1) horrifying (regular screens that close to the face at that age may be problematic for depth perception development among numerous other issues) and 2) true of literally anything you put on the phone before giving it to a two year old.
- solarkraft 8y ago> If nothing else, though, YT could do wonders for quality by hellbanning the videos where the titles are all caps I often find myself wishing for a browser plugin that hides clickbait. It seems like a fairly easy thing to do, maybe with some pretty basic machine learning - or even without it, just looking for too much capitalisation or phrases like "what happens next".
- screye 8y agoThat being said, there are some pretty creepy or generally dislikeable people whose YouTube channels are very popular among children. There are YouTubers whose whole bit is insulting people, having a short temper, inconviniencing people and playing it all off as jokes. However, I have seen my younger cousins directly adopt behaviors from these YouTubers and try to solve their problems by shouting, insulting and throwing a tantrum. Ofc, throwing tantrums is something all kids do, but the manner in which they do it closely resembles these channels. Then there are straight up creepy and unnerving channels with millions of views and that show at the top of queries searched by children. I feel YouTube should provide parents with a more granular control over the filtering process. Preteens can be very impressionable.
- ur-whale 8y agoWe raise our kids in a YT and TV free environment. Oddly enough, they seem to be doing fine.
- madacoo 8y agoYes, children have thrived for millions of years without either. Have you completely removed all influence of screens? Personally admist the uncertainty about what effects screens have on children I oscillate between a hard entrenched but probably superstitious belief they rot brains, and excitement about the educational opportunities they provide. Some of the discussions I have had with my daughter about YouTube/kid shows have been absolutely delightful and have proved to me that there is a positive side to it. I'm very wary about both quantity and quality of screen time though. It is just very difficult to know where or what those limits should be without being entitely arbitrary about it.
- ur-whale 8y ago>Have you completely removed all influence of screens? At this point yes (they can't read yet). Once they do start to be able to read, we will likely allow some limited amount of screen time every day, albeit in a controlled fashion, and with an emphasis on non-video content for young kids (which is surprisingly scarce on the internet, as a matter of fact). We (the parent) both have phones that we use regularly, as well as laptops, but we are quite strict about not using them during family time (outdoor, meals, week-ends, and family time before they go to bed). The kids are obviously fascinated by the things, wondering what mummy and daddy do when they're using them, but so far they seem to have accepted that it's not for them yet.
- zazen 8y agoI really like this idea, but there's one question that I always wonder how people doing this handle. If your kids are not yet school age, and you plan to send them to school rather than home-school when the time comes: what's your plan for when your children and the other children realise this stark difference between their home environments? Your children will feel they're being denied wonderful entertainment that the other children are getting. Other children will mark out your children as outsiders. Based on my own childhood, I'm afraid I find it easy to imagine your children being ostracised and bullied over a thing like this. But even if they're not, won't they be screaming for TV every night? (No children myself, I could easily be wrong about everything, honest question.)
- CitizenTekk 8y agoChildren always depends learning on what they see. They have little known of recognition on how they will interpret it as whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. If children saw something funny and people often try to just laugh it off, they will saw it as a good thing, even though it has a visible thing of hurting someone. You can't control on what they see on youtube. Of course, it all depends on the parent or responsible adult to control and limit on what they saw. There are still good and learning videos on youtube that children must see. Have them limit watching youtube and as much as possible refrain on teaching them on how to navigate on youtube. Always make sure that the autoplay is off so that videos would point to other topic.