To ban watching privileged little kids on youtube in my home?

[PollyGasson24]

Ds (year1) told me recently that he wants to be a youtuber. He has seen kids on there showing off numerous new toys/gadgets/games, which obv doesn't fit in with my explanation that the only youtubers to make money from it are those with a real love of something who started as a part time hobby until it could support them full time. So much for working hard to get what you want out of life.

AIBU in being wound up by the smug little faces of Evan somebody and those FTGeevers who seem to have unlimited funds for showing off?

As an aside, can you recommend any decent channels for dc? DanTDM is the only one they regularly watch who i think is pretty normal so far!

It's a shame as I'm sure there's YouTubers who actually add something positive.

It's a shame there's the equivalent of the brat pack who are famous because.

If you watch one well known channel, their premise is pretty much gone now that their Dad is ill & it's a watch us shop, eat out, cook food, mess with stuff we shouldn't. It seems like they're trying to transition from one person to another, but the other isn't the original reason why their channel blew up. So not sure how they'll keep momentum.

DanTDM is the only one I will let my kids watch and even then only for an hour each weekend day. I hide the apple remote and have deleted the YouTube app from my phone. D1 (8) in particular goes into a trance-like state when he has too much phone time so I have massively limited it. They get cbeebies or CBBC, but are pretty much obsessed with Discovery Kids (zoo clues and Deadly 60)

My dd asked for a vlogging camera on her Christmas list- she's in year 2 and is 7 in February.
She will not be getting one.

She loves watching JoJo, cookie swirl, the toy heroes who vlog about baby alive dolls and Tiana.

What she watches is pretty tame but the likes of Tiana is extremely spoilt and goes to Smyths toy store and buys whatever she wants!

Dd is also saying things with a slight American twang ( we are from Liverpool ) and also saying things like "closet"

Youtube is hugely influential but also hugely educational in certain contexts.

fluffy I didn't know that! Extra reason never to watch them again.
mummy the dc only watch a couple of things on tv, not that bothered about it usually. They initially got drawn into youtube to get pointers on playing skylanders, minecraft and roblox...which was fine by me because it is a bit more interactive, ultimately.
nooka thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out .
zombie which channel is that? I'm sadly curious

My DC went through the same phase, ooh we want to vlog. No, no, no. Say the Match Attax channels or any other collectible, they have £100 worth of merch to open, it creates unrealistic expectations for DC. You can't just get 1 pack of stickers / cards, it has to be multiple, handily at till points.

There's no longevity to collecting now.

Like with games it's about gems and coins.

What happened to completing a game the proper way.

We have had to endure them all here.

The Inghams should stop exploiting their small children.

Tiana is very spoilt as well. I remind my dd that they only make their money though all the ads and people will stop watching them eventually.

Reading this, I realise how blessed we are for that. It sounds awful. The only thing we did last year was watch a video of a “YouTube famous” family advertised in the media and watched them open their presents It's not all opening presents & plastic tat!

My dd (9) loves Dantdm. Was lucky enough to meet him recently. She has autism so disturbed and difficult sleep, there have been times when we have listened - not watched - his videos in the early hours to bring her out of a meltdown/night terror. He plays games mostly, and she loves his pugs!

The game was age appropriate but even so, I was pretty surprised at him being left alone to watch god knows what. Nope. Not for us. no need to be judgemental just because you don't allow it.

I don’t mean to sound silly, but won’t your kids watch tv instead if you restricted YouTube use? What makes you think youtube isn't restricted? They re not on it 24/7!! And no, she doesn't watch TV. Once she has used up her allotted youtube time, she is in the garden/outside with neighbours kids. The tv holds no interest for her, it's (in her words) "too young or too old, and I don't know what is happening next and it scares me" (she gets scared easily and so her known channels on youtube = safe space for her)

differentname
Goodness me. Idk what brought that rant on. I was speaking about one video and one family. That’s all we’ve ever watched. I do appreciate YouTube has scores of others. And you misunderstood the restricted question. It was regarding content, not time. I’d just like to read your “no need to be judgmental” comment back to you.

Yanbu. 9yr old DD does watch EvanTube but we've had many discussions about how they don't pay for what they get and how no we can't have a house like theirs. She's stopped wanting the toys tbh.

However I caught some of their hatchimal review vid and was slightly impressed how Jillian and Evan didn't think they were that great.

DD watches YouTube Kids - and loves those squishy and slime videos, but more annoyingly a few of the American family ones which drive me nuts. It’s just the grownups talking about their lives and then shoving the camera in their kids faces while they do normal kid things. I have no idea why it’s so mesmerising. But the worst are the reborn babies ones - people (often adults) who have ‘routines’ for their lifelike baby dolls which give me the absolute creeps. Those are banned in our house.

On a side note, anyone know how you can tailor the content in YT Kids to avoid this stuff? Surely there must be a way to ban channels?? I haven’t worked it out yet...

YANBU

I banned FGTeeV when I overheard the dad say something like 'I want to punch you' to one of the kids. Then Hobby kids because it was so horrendously awful, Hulian & Maya when my kids started talking about the twins like they are actually people we know & Ryan when they started wanting to be youtubers so they could get loads of toys. I tolerated Cookie Swirl C until ds started talking like her. Toytrains4u is British & non offensive so I let them watch that but apart from that youtube is banned.

I hate it all tbh, my children are much nicer when they don't watch that crap.

Just Dandtm and Stampy here (though his voice and laugh drives me insane).

Its good to see other people having restrictions on youtube though as I do regularly do a 'wtf'? at some of the content. Ours watch it on the main tv so I can monitor it more than if its on the iPad.

I can't help thinking with all the rumpus that has happened recently around prominent Youtubers, that parents with concerns about the marketing should organise themselves into a collective & campaign. Maybe mumsnet itself could make itself useful & campaign for greater regulation/oversight into Youtubers who promote overpriced shite at kids.

yanbu I tried to delete it from the t.v but it stays there under the apps tab. My 10yr old asd ds was obsessed with youtube to the point it was becoming a problem so he lost his tablet now can only watch it via the big t.v which is easier to police.
Youngest d.s was watching some of those weird paw patrol dodahs till he started going on about going to oldmacdonalds the chip shop for a happy meal with surprise eggs and fries. He is now no longer watching it.
So ban away our kids are the products these people are selling to their advertisers

I’ve stopped my kids watching Toy Freaks/freak family whatever they’re called. Two very annoying girls who stuff their faces with sweets and junk, eat like pigs, spit it out, and randomly shout out ‘diarrhoea’ which my kids started copying
I do quite like Family Fun Pack, those kids have a great life!
I think all these videos give kids an unrealistic expectation of things though! Half my youngest two’s Christmas list is rubbish they’ve seen hyped up on YouTube.

Most of the really successful children on YouTube have film professional parents. Evan's parents owned a production which they shut down once their childrens' channels became successful. Fgtv duddy and the dads from kidcity and leokim all worked in post-production.

It would be rare to have the ability and discipline to work for possibly hundreds of hours a month with your children and edit into coherent videos on a regular basis without years of training and production experience.

I just feel so fucking sorry for these kids who are too young to work so hard and to understand the lifelong implications of having their private lives on view by millions.

Tell me about it. My 9yo wants to be a youtuber, like danTDM or Stampy, which is an improvement on the last aspiration as at least there is no species change involved.

4yo loves watching the advertising videos. Has never actually asked for any of the items, but loves watching other people open and play with toys, does in rl too so I guess that’s the charm for him.

The voices get on my nerves, especially the older teens/adult women pretending to be younger and doing silly voices, but is still way preferable to peppa bloody pig and paw patrol, which just make me —rationally— irrationally angry.

We just have Stampy and Squaishey, thank goodness.

I used to hate his voice/laugh, but now I find it comforting. Also, he's very good at what he does.

I also like the fact that Stampy and Squaishey operate together (yes, I know that's not all they do together!!!) and that my daughters naturally perceive from watching them that boys AND girls are gamers and that gaming is not a gendered activity.

The inghams

I went off them a while back when they filmed their eldest daughter opening dozens of birthday presents on holiday including an expensive I phone, the poor girl didn’t look very comfortable and there was a huge backlash in the comments

Their lives have become all me me me, look how much money we have, and we’re all so grounded blah blah, the mums obnoxious and the dads a dick

Dd2 who is ten is like wtf at their vids these days thankfully

I hope this BS isn't around in 10 years time. DD will be 12

Oh jeeze,
We have these on a lot in our house. Mine like: Park Ranger LB, Ryans Toy Review and Hayley's Magical -plague- Playhouse.
They are 5 and 2.

Park Ranger LB has even made an appearance in Ds's school work. "At the weekend I watched Park Ranger LB in my house"

Sometimes they like to "make" Youtube videos. This consists of me pointing a phone at them and asking them to explain what toys they're playing with at that moment.
I don't upload them -because they are shit- but the kids enjoy doing it.

DD watches this shite. I was subjected to 5 mins of the Inghams the other day and hated them on sight. The mum is an irritant and the dad reminded me of a young Richard Madeley Thankfully DD acknowledges that the kids are spoilt brats.

Who is the fecker responsible for opening Pokémon packs on camera? Is that bloody DanTDM? I want to pluck his balls out and dangle from my earlobes.

I DETEST the values he and his ilk are promoting. Rampant consumerism. Totally against every last fibre of my being in terms of my values and those I want my kids to grow up with. It’s disgusting and I don’t know how they can sleep at night filling impressionable kids’ minds with this shit.

My dilemma is, we are an extremely tech savvy and forward thinking household with my DH working in cyber security and a teenaged son whose talents seem to lie in the same area. How on earth do I ban the internet?!

DS2 is younger and more impressionable. He doesn’t see through it all for what it is. He has gone through the stage of wanting to emulate his heroes and make videos of him opening his Pokémon packs (buys with his pocket money - should I ban him from
Buying them? They are not heroin but I feel they should be labelled similarly.)

Finally he has realised that no-one likes his videos of him opening and exclaiming over the cards he has received. So at least he doesn’t do them anymore but he STILL wants to buy the bloody packs at a fiver each!!

A fucking fiver?!??!!!!!!!!! A couple of years back you could buy similar (match attax) for a quid. Why is a rectangle of card and ink worth a fiver?!

I’ve told DS2 that he is not to come to me in a few years time when he wants money to go to Ibiza with his mates after a-levels - i’ll He quite happy to tell him that he insisted that his rectangles of card were well worth all the (wasted) pocket money.

FFS.

Stampy, you were one of the first. Hang your head in shame.

I'm feeling grateful for 9yo DS' s current obsession with YouTube videos about black holes, and cosmology in general. Re youtubers we have an ok list that they know they are allowed to watch - DanTDM, stampy, sqaishey, ashdubh, squid. These are 25 year olds who know exactly who their market are and the importance of parental approval so no swearing etc. They are buulding their own brands and I think their content is good. Dantdm got my two into googledraw, I think - the thing where a computer has to guess what you are drawing. I actually wouldn't let them watch all the toy opening crap if I thought they were watching it. We are trying to teach them that not all content is appropriate even if it might look like it.

I think there is a lot of great stuff for kids on YouTube- problem is the lack of editorial input - it can be hard to know what you're watching until you've started.