Honey, YouTubers Are Poisoning The Kids
My nieces, who range in age between 4 and 11, act as a gateway for me to understand what “the kids are into” these days. But they also show me in real time just how much the Internet is influencing their daily lives.
I remember when PRIME juice first came out. They were going fucking gaga over it. I asked them how they even knew about it, and of course, they had seen it on YouTube. Anytime they went by a shop window and saw the bottles with the ‘very obviously brightly colored packaging because it appeals to kids’ branding, they’d press their face up to the glass and say crazy things like “Omg, that’s the super rare flavor!” (a flavor that was in every other shop), and would demand to spend their own pocket money to buy one. It was one of the first holy shit moments I had of seeing how putting the Internet in the hands of the young was influencing them in ways they clearly didn’t understand.
One of the biggest culprits — but by far not the only one — is Mr Beast.
He might be the biggest YouTuber with over 316 million subscribers, but his channel is predatory, pure and simple.
I’ve always had a hump with him. Perhaps the first-ever “I gave $5,000 to a homeless person” was genuine. It was at least novel. But the moment he realized this generosity could be manufactured to drive engagement, the game was…
