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Why do they still make Sesame Street episodes? There's 51 seasons of content, but the audience is realistically only going to spend a few years of their lives

Why do they still make Sesame Street episodes? There's 51 seasons of content, but the audience is realistically only going to spend a few years of their lives watching it. Kids these days should probably get a "best of" selection of episodes that aren't ridiculously out of date. Otherwise, most of it is evergreen.

koolba 6y ago
> Why do they still make Sesame Street episodes? There's 51 seasons of content, but the audience is realistically only going to spend a few years of their lives watching it. Because the producers think that having Elmo telling kids that their parents are racists is a good idea: https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1269270231383449601 https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1269270231383449601 I really don’t get it. Children are blameless innocent minds and truly feel that it’s things like this that pervert them for years to come.
- jjj1232 6y ago
  Are you referencing something specific? I watched that whole clip you linked, and there’s nothing in it that would “pervert” a child’s mind. It’s a clip explaining what protesting is, and what racism is. Both seem like valid things to explain on a kids show. Is your issue that it’s lightly in support of the BLM protests?
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    (not the person you were replying to) I think there are ways in which you can teach children ages 3 to 8 about these kinds of real issues, but that clip is seriously ham-fisted and not engaging. Whether they intended it or not, to me it leans more in the direction of indoctrination than what I'd like to show kids if I had any.
  - koolba 6y ago
    Children have no innate concept of racial discrimination or victimhood. It’s not a natural concept. It only exists because it’s drilled into their minds by good intentioned but poorly thought out ideas. Telling half the class that they’re a victim and the other half that they’re an oppressor is a recipe for disaster. The way to end racism isn’t to brainwash children that world around them is full of racists. It’s to completely ignore the concept so they grow up with no concept of racism whatsoever. Then when they’re older and first learn about it, it’s such a laughable concept that they’ll understand that only a complete idiot would be a part in it.
    - crowbahr 6y ago
      Your misapprehension is that children's first encounter with Racism is from Elmo. Racist parents exist and might be absentee enough to let their child grow up watching Sesame Street. Cognitive bias is subtle and insidious and children are not immunized in ignorance. To quote Proverbs: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't take HN threads into flamewar, and especially not generic ideological flamewar. It turns specific, interesting threads into generic, boring ones. (Flamewar can be exciting, agitating, or maddening, but not interesting in the local sense of that word.) This is a classic example of a thread getting sucked into a nearby black hole, which I wrote about earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27110515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27110515. Pro tip: if we don't add the black hole to a thread, the thread won't get sucked into it.
  - koolba 6y ago
    The title of the thread is literally “From radical experiment to...”. To not follow through that conversation and complete the circle is being disingenuous to those of us who want to have an honest discussion about the indoctrination of the youth of this nation. Peeling a band-aid is going to hurt and you can chose to do it quickly or slowly, but it still needs to be ripped off.
    - dang 6y ago
      I was with you up to "honest discussion" and then you (from my perspective) jumped off the flamewar cliff with "indoctrination of the youth of this nation". I'm sorry, but that's just the sort of tedious rhetoric that we're trying to avoid here. This is not because of an ideological commitment on our part—it just makes for lame, nasty, terrible internet discussion. HN threads are supposed to be conversations. No one wants to have a conversation with someone going on about "the youth of this nation".
      - koolba 6y ago
        > No one wants to have a conversation with someone going on about "the youth of this nation". It’s a puppet show who’s target market is children under the age of five. By most objective standards thats the “youth of a nation”. As someone that grew up watching the show, with very fond memories, it does pain me to see what it has become. It’s not just about the show dumbing itself down. If someone wants to have grown up conversation about that then I’m game. But if they’re afraid that any such conversation might lead to criticism, of other related or unrelated left wing political movements, well sucks to be them. These changes don’t happen in a vacuum and any frank discussion has to at least acknowledge them. Or hey let’s just flag conversations with don’t like and pretend they don’t exist.
boomboomsubban 6y ago
I haven't watched Sesame Street for like thirty years, but my memory of it was that every episode had both new segments and best of segments. I think more things would feel out of date than you'd think, though by now they probably do have enough evergreen segments to manage ~3 years of shows they would likely not cover the full range of desired topics.
secabeen 6y ago
My guess is to keep the adults engaged. If an episode of Sesame Street has a cameo from a known actor or musical star, that's for the adults, not really the kids. (The Katy Perry/Elmo Stop and Go song is really catchy, for example.)
quadrangle 6y ago
thank you, I so needed that metaphor! Evergreen. That's the term I've been looking for for tons of things. Indeed, there's no need for more Sesame Street — AND because kids can and should watch the best of the best of kids stuff already out there, there's no need for new versions of most ANY kids shows and so on. The library already has more good kids books than any kid needs. Why make more? I'm not being sarcastic. I can think of a few reasons: - new subjects like tensions around social media or parental-addiction-to-phones or global warming - new stuff that fills missing gaps in the representation of different cultures and perspectives But mostly, why not just FIX outdated stuff too! When it comes to books, if only 30 year old stuff were public domain instead of absurd copyright terms, we could take all sorts of great things and just clean up outdated racial or sexist elements or update the context etc. The MAIN reason to make new stuff is for the creative process itself, but we don't need it to get most of the attention. By pure numbers, the best 50 books of the year 2019 will be mostly worse compared to the best 50 books of all of the 20th century. But there's economic drive for constant infinite growth, and this is the cultural version of it. Cultural artificial obsolescence (or really just the false pretense of obsolescence).
a_bonobo 6y ago
Newer Sesame Street episodes refer to social issues which were not on the forefront of the 70s, or wasn't deemed something kids should know about. The South African Sesame Street now has an HIV-positive muppet, the US Sesame Street has an autistic muppet (Julia), Abby Cadabby was added ~10 years ago for better gender balance, and I feel in general newer Sesame Street does much more work in including hispanic immigrants/culture than older Sesame Street (might be bias). Times change and Sesame Street needs to reflect that.

koolba 6y ago

> Why do they still make Sesame Street episodes? There's 51 seasons of content, but the audience is realistically only going to spend a few years of their lives watching it. Because the producers think that having Elmo telling kids that their parents are racists is a good idea: https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1269270231383449601 https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1269270231383449601 I really don’t get it. Children are blameless innocent minds and truly feel that it’s things like this that pervert them for years to come.

jjj1232 6y ago
Are you referencing something specific? I watched that whole clip you linked, and there’s nothing in it that would “pervert” a child’s mind. It’s a clip explaining what protesting is, and what racism is. Both seem like valid things to explain on a kids show. Is your issue that it’s lightly in support of the BLM protests?
- ravenstine 6y ago
  (not the person you were replying to) I think there are ways in which you can teach children ages 3 to 8 about these kinds of real issues, but that clip is seriously ham-fisted and not engaging. Whether they intended it or not, to me it leans more in the direction of indoctrination than what I'd like to show kids if I had any.
- koolba 6y ago
  Children have no innate concept of racial discrimination or victimhood. It’s not a natural concept. It only exists because it’s drilled into their minds by good intentioned but poorly thought out ideas. Telling half the class that they’re a victim and the other half that they’re an oppressor is a recipe for disaster. The way to end racism isn’t to brainwash children that world around them is full of racists. It’s to completely ignore the concept so they grow up with no concept of racism whatsoever. Then when they’re older and first learn about it, it’s such a laughable concept that they’ll understand that only a complete idiot would be a part in it.
  - crowbahr 6y ago
    Your misapprehension is that children's first encounter with Racism is from Elmo. Racist parents exist and might be absentee enough to let their child grow up watching Sesame Street. Cognitive bias is subtle and insidious and children are not immunized in ignorance. To quote Proverbs: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads into flamewar, and especially not generic ideological flamewar. It turns specific, interesting threads into generic, boring ones. (Flamewar can be exciting, agitating, or maddening, but not interesting in the local sense of that word.) This is a classic example of a thread getting sucked into a nearby black hole, which I wrote about earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27110515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27110515. Pro tip: if we don't add the black hole to a thread, the thread won't get sucked into it.
- koolba 6y ago
  The title of the thread is literally “From radical experiment to...”. To not follow through that conversation and complete the circle is being disingenuous to those of us who want to have an honest discussion about the indoctrination of the youth of this nation. Peeling a band-aid is going to hurt and you can chose to do it quickly or slowly, but it still needs to be ripped off.
  - dang 6y ago
    I was with you up to "honest discussion" and then you (from my perspective) jumped off the flamewar cliff with "indoctrination of the youth of this nation". I'm sorry, but that's just the sort of tedious rhetoric that we're trying to avoid here. This is not because of an ideological commitment on our part—it just makes for lame, nasty, terrible internet discussion. HN threads are supposed to be conversations. No one wants to have a conversation with someone going on about "the youth of this nation".
    - koolba 6y ago
      > No one wants to have a conversation with someone going on about "the youth of this nation". It’s a puppet show who’s target market is children under the age of five. By most objective standards thats the “youth of a nation”. As someone that grew up watching the show, with very fond memories, it does pain me to see what it has become. It’s not just about the show dumbing itself down. If someone wants to have grown up conversation about that then I’m game. But if they’re afraid that any such conversation might lead to criticism, of other related or unrelated left wing political movements, well sucks to be them. These changes don’t happen in a vacuum and any frank discussion has to at least acknowledge them. Or hey let’s just flag conversations with don’t like and pretend they don’t exist.

boomboomsubban 6y ago

I haven't watched Sesame Street for like thirty years, but my memory of it was that every episode had both new segments and best of segments. I think more things would feel out of date than you'd think, though by now they probably do have enough evergreen segments to manage ~3 years of shows they would likely not cover the full range of desired topics.

secabeen 6y ago

My guess is to keep the adults engaged. If an episode of Sesame Street has a cameo from a known actor or musical star, that's for the adults, not really the kids. (The Katy Perry/Elmo Stop and Go song is really catchy, for example.)

quadrangle 6y ago

thank you, I so needed that metaphor! Evergreen. That's the term I've been looking for for tons of things. Indeed, there's no need for more Sesame Street — AND because kids can and should watch the best of the best of kids stuff already out there, there's no need for new versions of most ANY kids shows and so on. The library already has more good kids books than any kid needs. Why make more? I'm not being sarcastic. I can think of a few reasons: - new subjects like tensions around social media or parental-addiction-to-phones or global warming - new stuff that fills missing gaps in the representation of different cultures and perspectives But mostly, why not just FIX outdated stuff too! When it comes to books, if only 30 year old stuff were public domain instead of absurd copyright terms, we could take all sorts of great things and just clean up outdated racial or sexist elements or update the context etc. The MAIN reason to make new stuff is for the creative process itself, but we don't need it to get most of the attention. By pure numbers, the best 50 books of the year 2019 will be mostly worse compared to the best 50 books of all of the 20th century. But there's economic drive for constant infinite growth, and this is the cultural version of it. Cultural artificial obsolescence (or really just the false pretense of obsolescence).

a_bonobo 6y ago

Newer Sesame Street episodes refer to social issues which were not on the forefront of the 70s, or wasn't deemed something kids should know about. The South African Sesame Street now has an HIV-positive muppet, the US Sesame Street has an autistic muppet (Julia), Abby Cadabby was added ~10 years ago for better gender balance, and I feel in general newer Sesame Street does much more work in including hispanic immigrants/culture than older Sesame Street (might be bias). Times change and Sesame Street needs to reflect that.