From my parenting perspective, YouTube is an evil psychological trap designed to enslave our children.
That may be a slight bit dramatic no it’s fucking not. Let me jump off by telling you about my YouTube experience. Like many people for a very long time my YouTube activities were limited to music videos and animals doing adorable comedic things, I was happy with this. I was happy floating around in my ignorant bliss.
Well then I had a kid.
Not too much changed for a while, I added nursery rhymes to my que… Family fingers and Chu-Chu TV Surprise annoyed the ever living crap out of me, but at least with Chu-Chu she was learning about colors and animals and things so it was tolerable, I still had no idea of the horrors that awaited me. Why didn’t anyone warn me, WHY?!
Until I moved in with my sister and her many children eight months ago. See before I came here I was running on a fat back tv hooked up only to a DVD player (not even BluRay) that I could use to go to the video store and pick what my child watched with her like the old soul I am, no cable, no internet, no Netflix, no tablets, no laptops, not even my own phone. I liked it this way. I suppose that must be due to the I’m an alien thing because it seems to be very far out of the norm. Well we came here and hot dang devices abound!
There is a TV in the living room of course, and each family member excluding myself because I don’t want one but have one in my room for my kid anyway. Let me clarify, that is NINE regularly operated TVs and one in the playroom that doesn’t get used on top of it. Each member of the household has their own phone. Eleven regularly operated phones. Four regularly operated game systems. Four smart watches. Three tablets that I’m aware of. Three laptops that I’m aware of.
What kind of alternate universe did I wander into? There isn’t a single place in the house I can go to escape the frequencies. The very worst part? I’m seeing more and more that this is normal, that this is not the exception to the rule, I am. HUMANITY IS TERRIFYING!!!
Naturally with all of these devices my daughter and I have access to new discoveries. Take them, please, I beg you make them go away. The seedy underbelly of kids YouTube is the biggest of those discoveries. Yes, there is a seedy underbelly of kids YouTube, don’t question me when I’m on a tangent.
There are some obvious offenders, I think every modern American parent is aware of the awful stock motion playdough videos of Elsa giving birth after being knocked up by spider man and it coming out looking like Wolverine, or getting stuck with a needle, or abused by the Hulk… it didn’t take long for me to lose my shit and her to learn to avoid those videos like the plague.
Then came the “Yay lets flush stuff down the toilet!” videos, the “making ridiculous messes and breaking things for no reason” videos, the “kids basically being obnoxious little shits” videos… all squashed with ease. I could explain to her simply why those videos are inappropriate, why I don’t like her watching them, and that they were no longer allowed. Thankfully my kid is the sort that if you have a solid explanation about something that she understands, she takes it to heart. She knows what’s appropriate on YouTube and what’s not and sticks by it.
”Oh that’s great 
We’ll I’ll fucking tell you the problem!.. And I’ll do it with a damned chart!
| Channel | Subscribers | Estimated Net Worth |
|---|---|---|
| Ryan’s Toy Review | 13 Million | $11 Million from 2017 alone |
| Family Fun Pack | 6.9 Million | $21 Million |
| SHAYTARDS | 5 Million | $25 Million |
| Daily Bumps | 3.3 Million | 2.5 Million |
| The Engineering Family | 2.6 Million | 4.2 Milion |
Has my point been made yet? No? OKAY!
Good for them they’ve made money blogging… like all of us here are trying to do, so again ”@Accio, whats the problem?”
The problem is this; I can not reasonably ban these YouTube channels. My kid loves them, the other kids that I don’t make the rules for play them all the time, and they’re all just frighteningly wholesome families taking videos of kids playing and living life.
I want to ban them because of the blatentent, sickening consumerism they shove down my daughters throat. Every time I hear “Welcome to Ryan’s toy review!” I can see everything I’ve worked so hard to teach her about the value of money dissolving into mist and floating out the window.
I want to ban them because besides the giant neon letters spelling out “BUY SHIT IF YOU BUY SHIT YOUR LIFE WILL BE THIS GOOD!” are only reinforced by how happy these families seem. Healthy, financially stable two parent households, that portray themselves as so happy and carefree all of the freaking time that it makes me want to crawl into a small dark place and rock back and forth. It goes against the basic structure of all that I’m trying to instil in her:
Life is hard. Work hard, be smart, be grateful, understand that it’s okay to struggle, that you’re supposed to struggle sometimes. Earn it, earn every bit of happiness that you have. I’m not saying that these parents haven’t earned it don’t get me wrong, I’m just sharing my perspective on how these videos effect MY daughter.
Last year, outside of these influences, she was happy with a small cake, pancakes from the dinner down the road, and picking out a couple of toys from the dollar store, she was happy with the day being about her, spending time with her and feeling special. Could I have done more for her? Yes, but I didn’t because she was happy with it, that’s what she asked for... this year? She wants a bouncy castle slip and slide and to fill her Papa’s pool with Orbeez.
Over my dead body.
I’ll fight this to the death. Try me. Stupid humans.